Brewing a Batch

Tonight's batch was a brown ale. I picked up the ingredients on Saturday at my local homebrew supply store, which is conveniently located next to the best beer store in the area. I had activated the yeast yesterday afternoon, so everything was good to go.

First up was setting the grains to soak. I heated about 2 quarts of water to 160-170 degrees, turned off the heat, and dumped in my crushed grains. I left these to sit, and after about 20 minutes I added a little bit more water so that the grains, which had swollen up, were fully covered with water. At the next check 20 minutes later the grains were still fully covered, so I just stirred them a bit. I let the grains soak for about an hour in all.

While the grains were soaking I heated some more water in the main boiling pot. I used about 1.5 gallons, but this turned out to be a bit much. I let the water get warm enough to steam, then turned off the heat and poured in the malt extract. I then stirred the water until all the extract was dissolved. I also ran some hot water into the bucket used to transport the extract to dissolve what remained there, which can be significant as the extract has the consistency of runny molasses. I shook the bucket of water and extract, and poured the contents into the pot.

Once the grains were ready I placed my new strainer on top of the boiling pot and dumped the grains into it. I then poured a couple of buckets of hot tap water slowly over the grains to extract more flavor and sugars. Unfortunately my pot was full up to the 3 gallon mark after a few buckets, so I didn't wash the grains as much as I would have liked.

Now it was time to boil the wort. I made one last stir to make sure there was no extract stuck on the bottom, and then turned on the heat. And waited. My stove has some wimpy burners so it took 20 minutes or so for this particular watched pot to boil. And despite my best efforts to remain fully attentive I drifted at the last moment, leaving the foam on top of the wort to boil over and make a minor mess.

Once I pulled the lid off and cleaned up the worst of the mess, I added the first of the pressed hops. Hops are critical element to beer as we know it, though they weren't widely used until the late 1700s. Hops have no other use than flavoring and preserving beer. Dumping in the first hops caused the wort to foam up again, so I turned down the heat for a minute. Once the foam subsided I scraped the hop bits off the side of the pot, turned up the heat, and let the boil proceed on slightly reduced heat.

While waiting to add the next bunch of hops I started sterilizing the fermenting bucket and the other tools that would touch the wort once the boil was done. I ran enough hot tap water into the fermenting bucket to cover the basket of the strainer, and added the appropriate amount of sanitizer - in this case, 5 tablespoons. I have a scrub brush I use exclusively with the sanitizer to clean areas that aren't fully immersed, and I sanitize that item during both brewing and bottling sessions. I also sanitized the fermenter lid by placing it on the kitchen counter and adding enough hot water to flood it, along with a bit of sanitizer.

More hops were called for at the 30 minute mark and 5 minute mark (or 55 minute mark, depending on which way one counts). Adding these didn't cause the wort to foam up, so I left the heat on medium-high and the lid slightly-cracked.

Once the standard boil of 60 minutes was done, the wort needed to be cooled so that the yeast could be pitched without being killed. I put the pot in my kitchen sink and ran cold water into it. Once the sink was full I turned down the flow so that the water overflowed slowly into the other half. Bubbles formed on the outside of the pot, giving it a nice layer of insulation, so I lifted the pot out of the water every few minutes to knock them off. I also stirred the wort with the thermometer that was floating in it, taking care not to touch the wort or let the top of the thermometer dip back into the liquid.

Once the wort reached about 80 degrees I poured it through the new strainer into the fermenting bucket. I then added about 1 gallon of room-temperature tap water, stirred vigorously with my long-handled paddle, and checked the temperature. Ale yeast should be pitched between 70 and 75 degrees, but my wort was still around 80 degrees. I ran in another gallon of tap water, this time much cooler, and stirred again. The temperature of the wort was now around 74 degrees.

Earlier I washed the outside of the yeast packet with soap and water, and it had air-dried by now. The packet had swollen even more during the brewing process, so ripping it open by hand was a slight pain. I notched the side with a clean knife and tore it open, and poured the small amount of liquid into the wort. The interior pouch came out as well but floated on the foam that had formed on top of the wort, so I was able to retrieve it without touching the wort. The interior packet actually had two chambers, one that was fully opened and one that had only a pinhole. I don't know if this will affect the beer. Once the yeast was in and pouch retrieved I have the wort another hearty stir.

Now the yeast needed some time and some privacy to do their thing. I put on the lid, flipped up the handle, filled the airlock halfway with water, and jammed it into the small grommeted hole in the lid. My basement is uninsulated and I let the first floor get cold at night during the winter, so the best place for the fermenting bucket and recently bottled beer to sit has been in an upstairs closet. I lugged the 40+ lbs of beer up the stairs and set it in place. It will live here for a week or so, until it is ready to bottle.

Back downstairs there was some cleanup to do, with the hardest part being the gunk on the stove. The spent grains went out to the trash and the hop sludge was washed down the sink. A little scrubbing of the pot and the evening was done, except for a nightcap of a fine homebrew.