Waiting for Beer!

Sitting in the bike room is my bucket of wort; the artfully crafted concoction that will become my very first batch of beer.  Carefully prepared the other night over a hot stove, I boiled my wort with plenty of hops and yummy goodness.  The process took about six hours, which was twice the amount of time I was thinking of spending on the beer brewing process.  For Christmas Megan gave me everything needed to brew my beer.  First there is the equipment necessary to brew beer: buckets, siphon, hydrometer, bottle caper, kettle, and sanitizer.  Second you must have all of the necessary ingredients and a recipe to brew the beer.  Third you must have the bottles to put the finished beer into; those I supplied myself, well, almost there... I still have a couple weeks.

The first thing I needed to do was get all of my questions answered.  The first Thursday of every month Hops and Vines has a home brewer's night, where you can sample each others brew and talk about brewing!  Next, I needed to select a day where I would have plenty of time to brew my beer without having to worry about interruptions or deadlines.  So, Sunday, after my bike ride (bikes and beer!), was the perfect day for me!  After my ride, we went to Hops and Vines to obtain the kettle and ask a couple more questions; which yielded some very important information. 

I began the process a little after four pm.  To begin, I washed and sterilized everything that was going to be used in the brewing process and some of my bottles (30 total... 18 to go).  Then I brought 3 gallons of water to 160 degrees and added my grain bag; basically a giant tea bag the size of a deflated soccer ball filled with yummy goodness.  On the side I brought 1/2 gallon of water to a boil to mix in my DME (dehydrated malt extract); this was some very sticky and difficult to work with material.  After the grain bag boiled for 45 minutes I removed it and left it on the table in a strainer... big mistake, next time it goes in the sink or out in the yard right away (which is where it sits right now :)).  Then I brought the water (now called wort) to 200 degrees and added my DME and liquid malt extract (like molasses but in a big bag).  Of course, when this mixture came to a boil we were distracted with a too late dinner and it boiled over and made a complete mess of the stove; we were warned about this but got distracted with much needed food at the wrong time.  Once boiling again I added my first bag of hops and set the timer for 60 minutes (during that time the stove was thoroughly cleaned (Abby loves beer, so she expertly cleaned the floor and the side of the stove; craftily switching burners), adding hops at 30 minutes, 10 minutes, then candi sugar at 5 minutes and finish hops at 2 minutes.  After the boil the pot was brought to the sink to chill it down.   Once cooled, the wort was poured into the 7 gallon fermenting bucket and some cool water was added to bring the water down to 70 degrees.  Next, I was to shake the bucket like crazy to aerate the wort before adding the yeast (the yeast was primed two days before with a boiling process that landed them in a growler in my neighbors house; because he keeps his house comfortably warmer for the yeast).  Once the yeast was added, the lid was sealed, the wort was shaken and moved into the bike room (Abby then cleaned any spilled wort off the side of the container).  At this point most people would attach an airlock.  What I learned at Hops and Vines about potential airlock failure (the guy showed me a big brown spot on the ceiling 12 feet above us) scared me into using a different method for venting the carbon dioxide created during the fermentation process; a tube that runs into a jar of water.

The next morning I awoke with fear that my wort was inactive and useless.  Upon getting out of bed I imediately went to the bike room to check on my fermenting wort (pictured above).  Blurp... blurp.... blurp... bluuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrp.  Yes!  Co2 was being released in earnest, meaning my yeast was actively creating beer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I can not tell you how excited I am every time I hear the blurps!!  And everytime it makes a loud blurp I tell Abby, Beer!  And she gets excited as well!