Home Brew II

We were pretty satisfied with our first 5 gallons of home brew beer, we decided to brew our second batch. Well, we already got all the equipment and just had to buy another set of ingredients. We decided to try the Amber Ale this time. I didn't manage to take photos of the whole brewing process the last time so I really made an effort this time to do some document ation. For all of you who have been asking me how I did it and were surprised that I brewed my own beer, you will be surprised once again at how simple it is actually :)

Well, firstly, you start with a beer kit like the one you see in the photo above. It comes with all the ingredients needed to brew the type of beer that you have chosen. A typical kit like this is enough to brew 5 gallons or 50 bottles of beer. 50 bottle caps are included in the kit too.

Cleanliness is key to a good brew. All equipment to be used needs to be sanitized but not sterilized. For mothers (and maybe fathers) who are used to sterilizing their baby's bottles, it is no big deal at all. In fact, sanitizing is easier than sterilizing. All you need is to get a cleaner like the one in the photo above, follow the directions and mix it with water. All the equipment needs was a rinse with the solution.

Now, let me introduce you to the ingredients. First, there is the malt extract which comes in liquid form (above photo) and dried form (photo below).

Then there is the hop pellets (above photos)...


Next is the beer yeast (above photo)...


Lastly, there is the priming sugar.

Firstly, remove the label of the liquid malt extract and immerse the unopened tin in hot water to soften the malt so that it will be easier to pour.

Put 1.5 gallons of water to boil. Once the water has boiled, remove it from heat and add both the liquid and dried malt extracts and the hop pellets.

Stir until the malt extracts and the hop pellets have dissolved, return it to the heat and bring the mixture to boil. Let the mixture continue to boil for 30 minutes.

Pour 3 gallons of cooled boiled water into the fermenting pail and add the mixture to the water. Add additional cooled boiled water until there is 5 gallons of the unfermented beer (called wort) in the pail. Place the pail in a cold bath (I used the bath tub!) until the wort has cooled to under 90 degrees F.

Add the beer yeast to the wort, wait 10 minutes and then gently stir the mixture. Cover the pail with the lid with the airlock attached.

Fill the airlock half full of water and leave the wort to ferment in a cooled place undisturbed for about a week. In the first few days, you will see bubbling through the airlock which shows that the fermentation is underway.

After a week, you can start the bottling process. Firstly, all equipment, including the bottles, need to be sanitized.

Next, fill a small saucepan with 1 cup of water and add the priming sugar. Stir and bring the mixture to boil. Remove from heat and set it aside to cool.

Next, you can finally open the pail and see what has happened to the wort you "cooked" a week ago. Look at the photos above and below. It doesn't look very appertising with all that yucky residue, right? Don't worry, it will be great beer at the end of the whole process :) You can see from the lid that there must have been quite a lot of bubbling!

Next, get all the equipment ready. See how professional we are? We use diaper boxes to contain the beer bottles :)

So, place the pail with the beer on the table or kitchen counter and the bottling bucket on the ground. Fill the siphon with water and place the rigid end with the racking tip midway between the top and bottom of the beer. Lower the flexible end and the beer should start flowing from one bucket to the other. Initially, we attached a cloth filter hoping that it will filter away most of the residue in the beer but the beer just would not flow with the filter on. It did work the last time we did it but not this time and we had no choice but to remove it eventually.

As the beer flows from one bucket to the other, add the priming sugar mixture into the bottom bucket. Make sure you stop the siphon before it begins to pick up all the sediments from the bottom of the bucket. You can see from the photo below how much sediment there is in the beer.

Next, remove the fermenting bucket from the table and put the bottling bucket there now. Remove the rigid racking cane from the flexible tubing and replace with the bottle filler. Attach the other end of the flexible tubing to the spigot of the bottling bucket.

Place the filler in one bottle after another. Each bottle should fill when the filler tip is touching the bottom of the bottle and stop when it is lifted up. Lift the filler just as the beer reaches the top of each bottle. Removal of the filler tube will thee leave sufficient air space in the bottle.

Lastly, cap the bottles.

The beer need to be left in a cool dark place for a week to condition. It can then be moved to a refrigerator for further aging, or left in the same cool dark area. Aging should continue for another 3 weeks before the beer is ready for consumption :)