An Introduction to the World of Home Brewing

A few weeks ago, I received my introduction into the world of home brewing. And I suppose I should further clarify that statement by adding that this wasn't done at a special place for brewing your own beer. This was buy-your-own-ingredients-and-off-into-the-barn-you-go brewing. I vaguely remember my dad home brewing when I was younger, but all I can recall is that the kitchen was full of buckets and tubing, so I suppose we can count this as my first, do it yourself, at home, hope-to-God-nothing-explodes beer brewing.

One of my co-workers (same guy who gave me the home brewed pumpkin beer--which by the way, was tasty, but even tastier straight out of the tap) has a whole set up going on in his barn, so that's where I went.

As mentioned in one of my previous posts, brewing your own beer is about 85% drinking beer and standing around and 15% actually brewing. I don't mean to say that there isn't any work involved or that it's an excuse to get drunk in the middle of the day, because it's not like that at all. There's just a lot of waiting, and naturally, you need something to do while you wait.

First step is the set up. Well, if we're going to be technical, the first step should be to choose what kind of beer you want to brew, as that greatly affects the ingredients that you need. In this case, it was a Belgian Cranberry Dark Ale. At least I think that's the official name for it. It has Belgian chocolate and candied sugar in it, as well as cranberry juice, so sounds right to me. It also sounds extremely tasty, and I'm somewhat obsessed with cranberry juice, so... It's a bit of a shame I didn't get to add the chocolate to it (I was totally going to sneak some) as that happens at a later point in the process.

The ingredients. You've got yeast, the malt extract, grains, and the hops in the front.

Anyway, once you have your beer recipe and your ingredients, then you need the set up. The set up involves a lot of buckets and bucket shaped objects. (I'm going to say there were at least three separate buckets, which I guess isn't really a lot, but you can never have enough buckets when brewing beer, so go ahead and buy 20.) One of these should be fairly large and able to drain liquid in some manner. In this case, it was a Gatorade cooler with a modified spout (this was our "mash tun").

Mash tun!

You also need a method to heat up the water and the brew itself. A stove works fine, or, if you're doing it outside, a propane burner. You also may want a bucket or container with a sterilizing solution in it so you can sterilize tools and the like--important for keeping your beer free of things like bacteria. Also important to keep out of your beer: cats, mice, rodents, or wild half-crazed creatures living in the ceiling.

Oh, you'll probably want a thermometer as well, and some sort of stirring tool. You may also want to have a drink handy. Just because.

So, assuming you have recipe, ingredients, buckets, and a source of heat, you're ready to get started (theoretically).

First thing we did was to heat up the propane burner and get some water boiling. And can't be just boiling, it has to come to a certain temperature (175 degrees). While waiting for the optimum temperature, we poured the grains into the Gatorade cooler. It must be said that pretty much everything you use to brew beer smells really, really good. In this case, the grains kind of smelled like raisins. Truth be told, I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to grind the grains up like I did a Barleycorns (even though I was absolutely horrible at it). These came in pre-measured amounts, or at least I assume they did because that's how it was set up when I got there, and we did pour the whole bag in. We used two types of grains: Belgian Special B and Belgian Carapils. Originally, the recipe called for 2lbs of Canadian 2-row pale, but that was scrapped and liquid malt extract was added instead (although that was added later).

The propane burner.

Once the water was at the right temperature, it was taken off the burner and poured into the Gatorade cooler with the grains. Mix it up, put the cover on, and wait 30 minutes. This is when the first beer should be poured. In this case, it was an Ipswich Winter Ale. (Dark, a bit roasty, overall tasty.)

Mmmmmm.

It was also during this time that we prefermented the cranberry juice that was going to be added to the brew at a later point. Basically, all this involved was pouring a packet of yeast into a bottle of cranberry juice. There were two types of yeast: Champagne Yeast and Belgian Ale Yeast. I dont know which type was added to the cranberry juice, but I'm going to guess and say Champagne. There's a 50% chance I'm right.

After enjoying your first tasty beer, and the allotted time has elapsed, pour the liquid mixture back into the pot. This is is where the spout thinger came in handy. On the inside was this sort of mesh material that kept the grains from coming out with the liquid. The spout made it easy to pour into the pot, and then, voila! You have a sort of beery mixture that smells really really good. The technical name is wort, but I like "beery mixture" better.

The wort pouring out of the mash tun.

At this point, the pot went back onto the propane burner (which started off outside, but was then moved inside for the simple convenience of staying warm) and the beery mixture is heated again. Assuming you've finished your first beer, now is the time to pour the second one.

Now, there's a lot of timing involved in this part of the process that I didn't exactly keep track of. Partly because I didn't have a watch of my own to check, and partly because drinking two beers in about an hour and a half makes me a little fuzzy. Although I don't remember the timing, I do remember that we added the malt extract first, the first round of hops, then the Belgian candied sugar, then the last round of hops. (Hops were Mt. Hood and Willamette.) These were all added at specific points in the brewing process.

You can practically smell it.

After everything was added and the time was up, the brew was poured into another bucket and left to cool. (I guess that makes four buckets.)

And this is when my part in the process was over. This is when the beer is left to cool down, and then ferment once the yeast has been added. It's also when the cranberry juice and the Belgian chocolate is supposed to be added, which again, I was not there for. The cranberry juice is added in primary fermentation, and the chocolate (after being melted) is added during the secondary fermentation. The reason for this is so that a bit more of the chocolate taste would come through. Yeast, as any good beer geek or scientist knows, eats sugar and releases alcohol as a by product of its eating sugar process. If the chocolate had been added during primary fermentation, more sugar would have been eaten, and less of the chocolate taste would have been present. By adding it in during secondary fermentation, more of the sugar sticks around. (Am I getting this right? Someone correct me if this is all horribly wrong.) After fermenting for about 2 weeks, the beer will be ready for bottling, and then left a bit longer to age in the bottles.

Beer (with cranberry and chocolate added) being siphoned from the glass carboy into a bucket.

Beer going from the bucket to the bottle.

After it has aged for the appropriate amount of time, then it at that point, presumably, that I will get to taste the brew that I helped create.

And as soon as I get that taste, I might just have to review it.