Hi all,
Name's Houston. I'm brand new here. You can read my introduction thread here.
Welcome to A Portrait of the Homebrewer as a Young Man, my beer journal. I've found that I learn much faster if I keep a written record of my venture into any new hobby, so this is where I'll be keeping that record as it pertains to homebrewing.
That said, today -- August 2nd, 2014 -- marks the day I made my first real step into homebrewing. Though I've been drinking beer for a while now, I've never made an attempt to brew my own. It's been a part of my "I should..." list for a bit, but I just never got around to it.
This all changed today when I brewed my first batch of beer courtesy of the Mr. Beer kit my little brother gave me for my 23rd birthday last month on the 2nd.
As I opened the box, unpacked its contents, and unraveled the instructions, my mind raced. I was excited... nervous...
"Look, ma'! I've made it! I'm brewing my own beer. I'm a real boy, now!"
I rode this wave of excitement and nervousness for all of 5 minutes before finally coming to grips with the fact that people weren't kidding around when they told me how important and tedious sanitization was to the brewing process.
Alright, small steps... minor compromises. Cleanliness is godliness, right? Easy enough concept to understand, but holy hops did it deflate my balloon. I rebounded pretty quick, though. I'd rather go through the pains of having to sanitize ad nauseum than the pains of botching my very first attempt at making my own beer.
So, I sanitized.
Next step: Getting the motherhoppin' plastic top off the can of hopped malt extract to remove it and the bag of yeast underneath it. I had to have been on Candid Camera. I damn near lost the tips of my fingers trying to pry the sucker off the can.
This is how I felt. I'm Popeye, by the way.
Ultimately, I had to run the handle-end of a spoon under the lip of the top to get it off.
Anyways, with the hopped malt extract in hand, and my manhood mostly intact, I put 4 cups of water to boil on the stove while I ran the extract under hot water for as close to 15 minutes as I could bear.
Taking the extract out from under the water, I popped it open with a can opener (after attempting to open it from the bottom, which doesn't work in case you were wondering).
The smell was intoxicating. It was novel and it seemed to stay with me throughout the day.
So, I added the extract to the water (that I had taken off the stove), stirred it up real good, added it to the keg with the appropriate amount of water, threw on the yeast, put the top on the keg and fist-pumped till I was blue in the face.
I had done it! I had brewed my first batch of beer... kinda. I was the Man of the Hour. I texted my brother a picture of the keg sitting atop the box it came in (below) letting him know he can taste the nectar of the demi-god Houston in about a month.
I ran to Facebook with that same picture and introduced the brew to my friends as "Sneaky Pete's" Classic American Light, offering the ability to pre-order a half-liter bottle once all was said and done.
Not long after, the doubt set in. It was all-consuming.
Is the tap water going to mess everything up?
Should I have refrigerated the water longer?
Did I sanitize everything properly?
What year is it?
Who is John Galt?
... and that's where I stand, though the doubt isn't as consuming as it was.
My biggest worry now is that the temperature of my apartment is too high to allow proper fermentation. It's always set at 75, but some awesome HBTers let me know in my fermentation temperature question thread that adding 5 degrees to the ambient temp gives you what the temp will be at peak fermentation aka the yeast in my precious little keg of "Sneaky Pete's" Classic American Light would be working under an inhumane 80 degrees at peak fermentation.
I've been looking up ways to cool down the brewski, and have a few things I'm going to try, but I'm currently away from my apartment and won't be back till tomorrow and am experiencing a little bit of separation anxiety as a result.
Please tell me it gets better...
Till next time!
Name's Houston. I'm brand new here. You can read my introduction thread here.
Welcome to A Portrait of the Homebrewer as a Young Man, my beer journal. I've found that I learn much faster if I keep a written record of my venture into any new hobby, so this is where I'll be keeping that record as it pertains to homebrewing.
That said, today -- August 2nd, 2014 -- marks the day I made my first real step into homebrewing. Though I've been drinking beer for a while now, I've never made an attempt to brew my own. It's been a part of my "I should..." list for a bit, but I just never got around to it.
This all changed today when I brewed my first batch of beer courtesy of the Mr. Beer kit my little brother gave me for my 23rd birthday last month on the 2nd.
As I opened the box, unpacked its contents, and unraveled the instructions, my mind raced. I was excited... nervous...
"Look, ma'! I've made it! I'm brewing my own beer. I'm a real boy, now!"
I rode this wave of excitement and nervousness for all of 5 minutes before finally coming to grips with the fact that people weren't kidding around when they told me how important and tedious sanitization was to the brewing process.
Alright, small steps... minor compromises. Cleanliness is godliness, right? Easy enough concept to understand, but holy hops did it deflate my balloon. I rebounded pretty quick, though. I'd rather go through the pains of having to sanitize ad nauseum than the pains of botching my very first attempt at making my own beer.
So, I sanitized.
Next step: Getting the motherhoppin' plastic top off the can of hopped malt extract to remove it and the bag of yeast underneath it. I had to have been on Candid Camera. I damn near lost the tips of my fingers trying to pry the sucker off the can.
This is how I felt. I'm Popeye, by the way.
Ultimately, I had to run the handle-end of a spoon under the lip of the top to get it off.
Anyways, with the hopped malt extract in hand, and my manhood mostly intact, I put 4 cups of water to boil on the stove while I ran the extract under hot water for as close to 15 minutes as I could bear.
Taking the extract out from under the water, I popped it open with a can opener (after attempting to open it from the bottom, which doesn't work in case you were wondering).
The smell was intoxicating. It was novel and it seemed to stay with me throughout the day.
So, I added the extract to the water (that I had taken off the stove), stirred it up real good, added it to the keg with the appropriate amount of water, threw on the yeast, put the top on the keg and fist-pumped till I was blue in the face.
I had done it! I had brewed my first batch of beer... kinda. I was the Man of the Hour. I texted my brother a picture of the keg sitting atop the box it came in (below) letting him know he can taste the nectar of the demi-god Houston in about a month.
I ran to Facebook with that same picture and introduced the brew to my friends as "Sneaky Pete's" Classic American Light, offering the ability to pre-order a half-liter bottle once all was said and done.
Not long after, the doubt set in. It was all-consuming.
Is the tap water going to mess everything up?
Should I have refrigerated the water longer?
Did I sanitize everything properly?
What year is it?
Who is John Galt?
... and that's where I stand, though the doubt isn't as consuming as it was.
My biggest worry now is that the temperature of my apartment is too high to allow proper fermentation. It's always set at 75, but some awesome HBTers let me know in my fermentation temperature question thread that adding 5 degrees to the ambient temp gives you what the temp will be at peak fermentation aka the yeast in my precious little keg of "Sneaky Pete's" Classic American Light would be working under an inhumane 80 degrees at peak fermentation.
I've been looking up ways to cool down the brewski, and have a few things I'm going to try, but I'm currently away from my apartment and won't be back till tomorrow and am experiencing a little bit of separation anxiety as a result.
Please tell me it gets better...
Till next time!