Kantor's Stout Ale (my first homebrew)
I have put this off for a long time, but now that I'm putting labels on my first batch and bottling my second, it's time to give the PDD fans a little insight into the new world I've discovered: Homebrewing Beer!
First you gather your ingredients: grain to steep, malt extract, water, hops, and yeast. Sanitize everything like it's your day job.
Boil your water to clean it, then bring it back down and steep your grains (in the bag) for 30 minutes at 150°F. Toss it away and bring to a boil.
Add the extract and your first hop addition and bring her back to a boil, which will bring out some "hot break" material that will float around in there. Don't worry, you'll filter that out eventually!
BOIL! keep it up for 60 minutes, adding your various hops and perhaps other ingredients at the appropriate times. Aroma hops for the last 5 minutes of the boil, if you add any.
Ok, the boil is over. Rapidly cool your wort (that's what you call the sweet stuff that will eventually ferment into beer) down to 80 degrees or so. (otherwise, when you pitch your yeast, you'll kill the lil' guys with hot wort!)
Cool it down and rack it off into the primary fermenter. The air lock on top will bubble, letting co2 out and keeping other contaminated gasses and fruit flies from coming in! Here it will sit for about a week.
After fermentation has slowed, it's time to rack it off the trub into the secondary fermenter. This is the trub left over, the dead yeast and break materials and hops and other gunk that we don't want in contact with the beer anymore, because it will give it off-flavors.
Here's the beer in my secondary fermenter, a glass carboy.
Light is the enemy now! Cover up that carboy to keep the light from skunking up your beer... unless you like that green bottle heineken skunk taste....
Ok, bottling day!
Rack the beer to your bottling bucket, add some corn sugar to start fermentation again, pour it into the bottles, cap 'em, and let them sit for 2 weeks or more to condition and carbonate. I'll post later about the final product and my labels. (I can't find my camera right now!)
First you gather your ingredients: grain to steep, malt extract, water, hops, and yeast. Sanitize everything like it's your day job.
Boil your water to clean it, then bring it back down and steep your grains (in the bag) for 30 minutes at 150°F. Toss it away and bring to a boil.
Add the extract and your first hop addition and bring her back to a boil, which will bring out some "hot break" material that will float around in there. Don't worry, you'll filter that out eventually!
BOIL! keep it up for 60 minutes, adding your various hops and perhaps other ingredients at the appropriate times. Aroma hops for the last 5 minutes of the boil, if you add any.
Ok, the boil is over. Rapidly cool your wort (that's what you call the sweet stuff that will eventually ferment into beer) down to 80 degrees or so. (otherwise, when you pitch your yeast, you'll kill the lil' guys with hot wort!)
Cool it down and rack it off into the primary fermenter. The air lock on top will bubble, letting co2 out and keeping other contaminated gasses and fruit flies from coming in! Here it will sit for about a week.
After fermentation has slowed, it's time to rack it off the trub into the secondary fermenter. This is the trub left over, the dead yeast and break materials and hops and other gunk that we don't want in contact with the beer anymore, because it will give it off-flavors.
Here's the beer in my secondary fermenter, a glass carboy.
Light is the enemy now! Cover up that carboy to keep the light from skunking up your beer... unless you like that green bottle heineken skunk taste....
Ok, bottling day!
Rack the beer to your bottling bucket, add some corn sugar to start fermentation again, pour it into the bottles, cap 'em, and let them sit for 2 weeks or more to condition and carbonate. I'll post later about the final product and my labels. (I can't find my camera right now!)
posted by Sean at 10:20 AM
3 Comments:
Ah, I'm so jealous. I've been trying to talk my dh into homebrewing for some time now.
I've been brewing my own beer for over a year now. I usually brew Dark, Strong, German beer. The two that have worked out well for me is the Spaten Optimator (Dobbelbock), good tasting beer, but usually takes about 4 weeks of aging in the bottles before drinking, and I usually get that up around 8%. The other beer that has recently worked for me is the German Eisbock. This beer is at 10% alcohol and is black as black can be. After only 1 week of aging I poured one that had a 3 inch head on it and it was ready to drink. I've been on a 6 case rotation, which allows the beer to age at least 4 weeks before drinking it. Lots of fun, and fun to drink.
Dave
Well, how is it?
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