ctalbot
Active Member
I guess I just felt like sharing.
A little over three weeks ago, I spent an evening brewing up an extract kit -- my first time homebrewing. I'm absolutely positive I made a few mistakes along the way, but I had a lot of fun making my "soup" and slowly starting to get a few ideas about the science and the art of homebrewing.
I'm not really here to write about what I did and did not do right, though. I'm just here to say that I spent the evening bottling the beer. This was the process I was most worried about, but I actually enjoyed myself. When I got that siphon working (I bought an auto-siphon device to help things along), I almost did a dance of joy.
As my mother used to say, small things amuse small minds. Well, I guess I'm a small-minded person, then. I spent easily three hours or more working with everything before I finally finished -- and after all that, I had really only created a small puddle on the floor and only broken one bottle (while capping ).
The beer in question was a Thomas Coopers Irish Stout extract kit. I didn't do everything the kit recommended, so I'm kind of referring to it as my "half-assed stout," but I'm considering this as a live and learn situation. There was a little bit left after I finished bottling, so I dumped that into a glass and tasted it. I swear I tasted citrus -- and while I understand there are some hops that offer up a citrusy taste, I'm not sure if that's common in stouts. It could just be that the beer had an odd taste because it was flat, but I am just a little worried some kind of bacteria made its way into my beer after all.
No matter what, I'm pretty sure I've found a hobby I'm going to be enjoying for years to come.
Chris
A little over three weeks ago, I spent an evening brewing up an extract kit -- my first time homebrewing. I'm absolutely positive I made a few mistakes along the way, but I had a lot of fun making my "soup" and slowly starting to get a few ideas about the science and the art of homebrewing.
I'm not really here to write about what I did and did not do right, though. I'm just here to say that I spent the evening bottling the beer. This was the process I was most worried about, but I actually enjoyed myself. When I got that siphon working (I bought an auto-siphon device to help things along), I almost did a dance of joy.
As my mother used to say, small things amuse small minds. Well, I guess I'm a small-minded person, then. I spent easily three hours or more working with everything before I finally finished -- and after all that, I had really only created a small puddle on the floor and only broken one bottle (while capping ).
The beer in question was a Thomas Coopers Irish Stout extract kit. I didn't do everything the kit recommended, so I'm kind of referring to it as my "half-assed stout," but I'm considering this as a live and learn situation. There was a little bit left after I finished bottling, so I dumped that into a glass and tasted it. I swear I tasted citrus -- and while I understand there are some hops that offer up a citrusy taste, I'm not sure if that's common in stouts. It could just be that the beer had an odd taste because it was flat, but I am just a little worried some kind of bacteria made its way into my beer after all.
No matter what, I'm pretty sure I've found a hobby I'm going to be enjoying for years to come.
Chris