jaybrew66
Member
Hello, just wanted to throw in my 2 cents as a newbie home brewer. I live just outside of Kansas City and have been an avid beer drinker/connoisseur most of my adult life. I always try the new Boulevard's as they are released, among other Micro and Craft brews. After trying a few home brews of some buddies, I thought I'd give it a try. I decided to start by reading the Palmer and Papazian books, so I would have a good understanding of what I was getting into.
I enlisted the help of my son, who's a senior in college here locally, and who loves any type of craft beer, the hoppier the better. I ordered some basic equipment from some of the on-line sites, along with an American Amber Ale extract kit. My son came over one Saturday, and we dove head 1st into the brewing process. We made sure we paid extra attention to cleaning and sanitizing everything, probably to excess! (as I was reading the books, and other sites and blogs, everyone says to clean, clean, clean)
We started outside on the patio, as I have a propane burner and an 8 gallon brew pot. We steeped our grains that came with kit according to the instructions, added the hops (kit came with pellets, and bags for the pellets) at the correct intervals, and then cooled the wort. I had decided early on to make my own wort chiller using stainless steel 3/8 inch tubing, and some compression fittings. I had also decided to buy a cheap submersible pump, and use ice chilled water in a cooler as my water to feed the wort chiller. I cannot say how easy this was to accomplish. We had the wort chilled to around 90 degrees in about 15 minutes. I had pre-filled my 6.5 gallon carboy with cold tap water. We proceeded to use a funnel w/screen to transfer the wort from the brew pot to the carboy. We had to stop every so often to clean the screen of all the sludge from the hops etc, but it seemed to work ok, just slow to clean the filter screen. We aerated the wort a bit by shaking the carboy and then took an OG reading, which came out 1.048 (just slightly lower than the kit specified of 1.054). The kit came with a Wyeast smack pack, which I "smacked" earlier that same morning, approx 4 hours before we started the boil. After the transfer to the carboy was complete, we added the yeast.
Stored carboy in my basement, which was a stable 66-68 degrees. After 48 hours the yeast really took off, nice large foam on top of the wort, etc. I let it ferment for just over 2 weeks (16 days to be exact). The foam was gone off the wort, and the airlock was not doing much if anything. Took another gravity reading at it was at 1.016 (the kit specified 1.014), so I decided we were close enough to start bottling.
We transferred the wort to the bottling bucket, on top of the priming sugar mixture. Gave it a nice gentle stirring, and then bottled. We ended up with 54 12 oz bottles. We then let the bottles sit, in the basement, at 66-68 degrees. My son was back over yesterday for Easter, and we decided to try our 1st brew! Even tho we knew it might be a bit early, we still wanted to "taste" the creation.
Our 1st indication was good, as when the bottle was opened, there was the "fizz" sound when opening a bottle. We poured into glasses, raised a toast, and then tasted. We were really AMAZED at how good it turned out! It had a nice, not over the top hoppiness to it, along with some caramel flavors, and very very smooth. When poured into the glass, it produced a nice head. It had a very nice amber/gold color to it, and was very clear. I was thinking it would be much cloudier. We decided to drink a couple more bottles ;-) as we were excited. I know this beer will most likely be even better the more it ages in the bottles.
My son and I are both now hooked on home brewing and amazed at all the support and interaction between members of sites like this one. As we progress and try other kits, I'm sure we'll run into questions. I will definitely be using this forum to gain more knowledge and information.
Next kit will be a hoppier IPA. Anyone have any good suggestions for our next extract kit to try?
ps: my wife even liked our 1st brew, and she doesn't care for beer that much, especially hoppy beer. She does like the MooseDrool, does anyone know if there are MooseDrool clone kits out there?
Thanks for listening. Cheers!
I enlisted the help of my son, who's a senior in college here locally, and who loves any type of craft beer, the hoppier the better. I ordered some basic equipment from some of the on-line sites, along with an American Amber Ale extract kit. My son came over one Saturday, and we dove head 1st into the brewing process. We made sure we paid extra attention to cleaning and sanitizing everything, probably to excess! (as I was reading the books, and other sites and blogs, everyone says to clean, clean, clean)
We started outside on the patio, as I have a propane burner and an 8 gallon brew pot. We steeped our grains that came with kit according to the instructions, added the hops (kit came with pellets, and bags for the pellets) at the correct intervals, and then cooled the wort. I had decided early on to make my own wort chiller using stainless steel 3/8 inch tubing, and some compression fittings. I had also decided to buy a cheap submersible pump, and use ice chilled water in a cooler as my water to feed the wort chiller. I cannot say how easy this was to accomplish. We had the wort chilled to around 90 degrees in about 15 minutes. I had pre-filled my 6.5 gallon carboy with cold tap water. We proceeded to use a funnel w/screen to transfer the wort from the brew pot to the carboy. We had to stop every so often to clean the screen of all the sludge from the hops etc, but it seemed to work ok, just slow to clean the filter screen. We aerated the wort a bit by shaking the carboy and then took an OG reading, which came out 1.048 (just slightly lower than the kit specified of 1.054). The kit came with a Wyeast smack pack, which I "smacked" earlier that same morning, approx 4 hours before we started the boil. After the transfer to the carboy was complete, we added the yeast.
Stored carboy in my basement, which was a stable 66-68 degrees. After 48 hours the yeast really took off, nice large foam on top of the wort, etc. I let it ferment for just over 2 weeks (16 days to be exact). The foam was gone off the wort, and the airlock was not doing much if anything. Took another gravity reading at it was at 1.016 (the kit specified 1.014), so I decided we were close enough to start bottling.
We transferred the wort to the bottling bucket, on top of the priming sugar mixture. Gave it a nice gentle stirring, and then bottled. We ended up with 54 12 oz bottles. We then let the bottles sit, in the basement, at 66-68 degrees. My son was back over yesterday for Easter, and we decided to try our 1st brew! Even tho we knew it might be a bit early, we still wanted to "taste" the creation.
Our 1st indication was good, as when the bottle was opened, there was the "fizz" sound when opening a bottle. We poured into glasses, raised a toast, and then tasted. We were really AMAZED at how good it turned out! It had a nice, not over the top hoppiness to it, along with some caramel flavors, and very very smooth. When poured into the glass, it produced a nice head. It had a very nice amber/gold color to it, and was very clear. I was thinking it would be much cloudier. We decided to drink a couple more bottles ;-) as we were excited. I know this beer will most likely be even better the more it ages in the bottles.
My son and I are both now hooked on home brewing and amazed at all the support and interaction between members of sites like this one. As we progress and try other kits, I'm sure we'll run into questions. I will definitely be using this forum to gain more knowledge and information.
Next kit will be a hoppier IPA. Anyone have any good suggestions for our next extract kit to try?
ps: my wife even liked our 1st brew, and she doesn't care for beer that much, especially hoppy beer. She does like the MooseDrool, does anyone know if there are MooseDrool clone kits out there?
Thanks for listening. Cheers!
