Yeah this is all new, so bare with me. If you haven't figured out by the blog name this is mostly going to be dedicated to my new found hobby, Home Brewing. I have been at it for a little while so I'll bring you up to speed.
It all started with a 2 gallon Mr. Beer (MRB) kit. The kit came with 2 different cans of extract, PET (plastic) bottles, Fermenting barrel, Booster(sugar), yeast, Sterilizing Agent and a handy little brewing book.
Batch #01: was the MRB Classic American Blonde Ale. Came out great! Beer is mostly a guys drink by choice. And most guys take their beer seriously. And for the first time, I made beer!! (insert guy moment pause). The plus side was it tasted good.
Batch #02: was the MRB Cowboy Golden Lager. Yet another success.
By this point I had joined the http://www.mrbeerfans.com forum and gathered enough ideas to move on up to 5 gallon batches. So down to ACE Hardware I went to get my fermenting bucket and hardware. After 2 trips I had my fermenting bucket complete with spout, tubing for bottling, and a grommeted hole on top for the airlock/blowoff tube. Filled it up with water for a leak test and it passed.
Introduce Batch #03:Next step was to decide what I was going to make. I like wheat beers so I found an easy starter recipie.
- 6.6 pounds, wheat malt extract
- 1oz Hallertauer hops (60 min boil)
- Wyeast Bavarian wheat yeast
Since this was a beginners round I just used the dry yeast that came with the extract. The batch was a success. Very smooth beer.
Batch #04: Well #03 was soo good I decided to repeat the recipie but this time I would add 12oz of Honey. This batch ended up teaching me a very, very important step. That is make sure after you finish your boil you cool the wort to the propor temperature before pitching the yeast. If my memory serves me corretly I pitched the yeast at about 90ish°F. It was late and I wanted to get it done. Bad Bad move.
At about 3am my wife and I woke to a very loud and deep BOOM!. We live in a two story house and the sound was similar to that of a large object falling onto the second floor. At first we thought our 4yr old fell out of her bed. After my wife checked and came back to the room to inform me she was fine and sound asleep, it hit me. "Oh Shit, I think I know what it was!"
Unfortunately I was right. The yeast had been working overtime in its nice warm environment. The airlock had clogged up and the 5gal bucket built up enough pressure to blow off the lid. Krasuen (the foam created when fermenting) was everywhere inside the pantry. And this stuff was not easy to get off. So I spent about an hour cleaning and went back to bed. About 6am my daughter comes to wake me up and tells me there is beer all over the kitchen. UGH! And it was. The lid was warped from the explosion so it would not snap on anymore. The krausen just lifted it and spilled over the edge for a few hours. Once the foamy bubbles popped it just went back to liquid form and ran across the tile. After cleaning that up, I spent the entire day babysitting the beer scraping the krausen off as it foamed up too high. I knew having the lid off was a great risk for contaminating the beer but after this much work, I was not about to give up. Roughly 10hours later I was able to put the lid and airlock on and let it finish unattended. At this point I only had 3.5 gallons left. The beer was a hit. Glad I didn't toss it. My Father-in-Law had some and asked to make him some. That brings us to,
Batch #05:- New Fermenting bucket
(6gal for a little extra headroom)
- 6.6 lb of Wheat extract (Muntons)
- 2 cups sugar
- 12oz Honey
- 2 oz Hallertauer Hops (60 min)-
I know this may sound like much but I could hardly notice the 1oz from the previous batch so I'm trying 2oz - Pitched with Wyeast 3056 with a 6hr swell.
This was a propagator pack. My LHBS advised I didn't really need to make it into a starter. It would take a little extra time at fermentation. And after that last batch I had no problems with slowing fermentation down a bit. haha
This batch is now carbonated and tasting quite well.
Bottled in glass for the first time.
First Labels
Nice Amber Color
Good Carbonation
Well this turned out to be the best (Non-Explosive) batch yet!
What will be next?
