codefox
Active Member
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2013
- Messages
- 28
- Reaction score
- 1
So I went to visit my friend in London last month and the day I got there, he pulled out his new beer brewing kit and we did a wheat ale. I was in town for 2 weeks so the day I left, we bottled it. Book ended my visit with brewing and bottling. I've wanted to try this for a while but always thought it was way more time consuming than it ended up being. So when I got home I ordered my own kit.
I really wanted to start with something easy but the kit I bought at my local homebrew shop had a few more steps than I expected. I honestly am not sure I did it all correctly. First I had to steep some grains and I might have squeezed them which I know now is a no-no. Then the instructions weren't 100% clear to me but it appears I was supposed to boil for 60 minutes with most of the ingredients but there were 30 more minutes past that with some additional hops added throughout. I did get my wort chilled pretty quick with an ice bath (20 or 30 minutes) and its all bubbling now in my bucket.
The recipe also calls for a second fermentation step with one more addition of hops which I need to go buy a carboy for next weekend. Even with the extra complexity, just having done this once with my friend cut my time down significantly. Took about 4 1/2 hours with the disinfecting included. In the future I think I can save some more time by disinfecting while I boil.
I guess this is the hard part now...waiting?
I really wanted to start with something easy but the kit I bought at my local homebrew shop had a few more steps than I expected. I honestly am not sure I did it all correctly. First I had to steep some grains and I might have squeezed them which I know now is a no-no. Then the instructions weren't 100% clear to me but it appears I was supposed to boil for 60 minutes with most of the ingredients but there were 30 more minutes past that with some additional hops added throughout. I did get my wort chilled pretty quick with an ice bath (20 or 30 minutes) and its all bubbling now in my bucket.
The recipe also calls for a second fermentation step with one more addition of hops which I need to go buy a carboy for next weekend. Even with the extra complexity, just having done this once with my friend cut my time down significantly. Took about 4 1/2 hours with the disinfecting included. In the future I think I can save some more time by disinfecting while I boil.
I guess this is the hard part now...waiting?