*Before I jump into my first homebrew, let it be known that I decided to seriously make this blog after this batch, so this post might be a little bare compared to posts to come in regards to pictures. It might also be a bit longer and more detailed then ones to come since it is the first*
If I were to bet a few weeks ago on what style of beer I would have attempted to brew first, I would probably have put my money on an Indian Pale Ale or Red Ale. However, after going to Great American Beer Fest in Denver, I got a mean case of the "stout bug." Copper Kettle Brewing Co. out of Denver took gold in the Herb and Spice Category with their Mexican Chocolate Stout, which was easily one of my favorite samples of the day. It was a heavy stout that had a noticeable thick, chocolate flavor, but the kicker was a spicy after taste that would linger in the back of your throat and burn up through your nose because of chilies that were added during brewing. This more or less sealed the deal that I wanted to brew a stout.
So I went to Hop To It and bought their recipe kit for a foreign extra stout for about $40. The kit came with 8 lbs of Amber liquid malt extract, specialty grains (1 lb Roasted barley, 6 oz Black Patent malt, 4 oz Chocolate Malt), 1 oz Challenger hops, 1 oz Styrian golding hops, 5 oz of corn sugar (not used until bottling day), and yeast (Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale). From the smell of the grains it seems like it should have slight chocolate and maybe even coffee flavors.
On brew day (10/11/2011), I more or less followed the recipe to the tee. (However, instead of using the Irish Moss it recommends, I got some SuperMoss, which is basically a concentrated form of Irish Moss):
-Bring 1.5 gallons of water to 160°
-Once at 160°, remove pot from heat and steep specialty grains for 30 minutes
-Take grains out and let drip dry. Add the 8 lbs of extract.
-Once the extract is dissolved, bring water volume up to about 4 gallons and return to heat.
-Bring wort (the word for unfermented beer) to a boil. Add 1 oz Challenger hops and boil for 45 minutes.
-Add 1/2 oz Sterling Golding hops. Boil for 5 Minutes. (*This is where the recipe says to add the Irish Moss, so the timings are a little different from here on out compared to the kit recipe)
-Add Super Moss. Boil for 5 minutes. (The SuperMoss is prepared by taking 4oz of the wort and cooling it in a sterile glass jar. Once it is cooled you add a little less than 1/4 tsp of SuperMoss and shake vigorously. Then it's ready to go)
-Add 1/2 oz Sterling Golding hops. Boil For 5 minutes
*Total boil time = 60 minutes
Once the boil is over, it is important to cool the wort down to below 80° as quickly as possible. Because the book I read stressed the importance of a fast chill, I bought a wort chiller (~$65) in order to easily cool beer down as fast as I could. Wort chillers are a spiral of copper tubing with hose adapters at the end. You hook the hose up and run cold water through the copper coil. You stick the coil in the pot and run the water through (with the excess coming out another tube which we had going outside). We got it to about 70° in, I would guess, under 10 minutes.
Side note: Chris and I had a little scare when using the wort chiller. The hose adapter wasn't screwed on tightly and when we turned the hose on, water was spraying out of the chiller. If this water were to get in our beer it could ruin everything since their could be contaminants that would prevent the yeast from doing their jobs. Luckily we didnt get any water in the pot, so everything should be fine. Lesson learned: Run some water through your chiller to make sure their aren't any leaks that could lay waste to a pot full of hard work (and money).
Once the wort is cooled below 80° we topped it off to 5 gallons and then dumped it back and forth between the fermenting bucket and the pot in order to aerate it. This is the only time you want the wort to be aerated from here on out. At this point, it is critical to aerate the wort in order for the yeast to survive.
After the wort is sufficiently aerated, it is dumped in the fermenter. We took a sample in order to test the gravity (we nailed the target starting gravity at 1.055), and then added the yeast to the wort. Last thing to do was put the lid on, plug the hole with the airlock, and put it somewhere to ferment at 62°-72°.
And that's it. In 7-10 days it says to transfer wort into a secondary fermenter, but I am just going to keep it in the primary fermenter, since from what I read it is not entirely necessary to use a secondary for this recipe. But I will take a gravity reading at about 10 days to see how things are going.
Since I am writing this after brew day, I can also note in this post that the airlock started bubbling after about 6 hours and was bubbling rapidly at about 12 hours. The bubbling in the airlock is a good sign that the yeast is at work.
So that is it. My first beer, a stout, is fermenting (at about 61°, a little low) in a 5 gallon bucket in my room. I will update at the next gravity reading!
If I were to bet a few weeks ago on what style of beer I would have attempted to brew first, I would probably have put my money on an Indian Pale Ale or Red Ale. However, after going to Great American Beer Fest in Denver, I got a mean case of the "stout bug." Copper Kettle Brewing Co. out of Denver took gold in the Herb and Spice Category with their Mexican Chocolate Stout, which was easily one of my favorite samples of the day. It was a heavy stout that had a noticeable thick, chocolate flavor, but the kicker was a spicy after taste that would linger in the back of your throat and burn up through your nose because of chilies that were added during brewing. This more or less sealed the deal that I wanted to brew a stout.
So I went to Hop To It and bought their recipe kit for a foreign extra stout for about $40. The kit came with 8 lbs of Amber liquid malt extract, specialty grains (1 lb Roasted barley, 6 oz Black Patent malt, 4 oz Chocolate Malt), 1 oz Challenger hops, 1 oz Styrian golding hops, 5 oz of corn sugar (not used until bottling day), and yeast (Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale). From the smell of the grains it seems like it should have slight chocolate and maybe even coffee flavors.
On brew day (10/11/2011), I more or less followed the recipe to the tee. (However, instead of using the Irish Moss it recommends, I got some SuperMoss, which is basically a concentrated form of Irish Moss):
-Bring 1.5 gallons of water to 160°
-Once at 160°, remove pot from heat and steep specialty grains for 30 minutes
-Take grains out and let drip dry. Add the 8 lbs of extract.
-Once the extract is dissolved, bring water volume up to about 4 gallons and return to heat.
-Bring wort (the word for unfermented beer) to a boil. Add 1 oz Challenger hops and boil for 45 minutes.
-Add 1/2 oz Sterling Golding hops. Boil for 5 Minutes. (*This is where the recipe says to add the Irish Moss, so the timings are a little different from here on out compared to the kit recipe)
-Add Super Moss. Boil for 5 minutes. (The SuperMoss is prepared by taking 4oz of the wort and cooling it in a sterile glass jar. Once it is cooled you add a little less than 1/4 tsp of SuperMoss and shake vigorously. Then it's ready to go)
-Add 1/2 oz Sterling Golding hops. Boil For 5 minutes
*Total boil time = 60 minutes
Once the boil is over, it is important to cool the wort down to below 80° as quickly as possible. Because the book I read stressed the importance of a fast chill, I bought a wort chiller (~$65) in order to easily cool beer down as fast as I could. Wort chillers are a spiral of copper tubing with hose adapters at the end. You hook the hose up and run cold water through the copper coil. You stick the coil in the pot and run the water through (with the excess coming out another tube which we had going outside). We got it to about 70° in, I would guess, under 10 minutes.
Side note: Chris and I had a little scare when using the wort chiller. The hose adapter wasn't screwed on tightly and when we turned the hose on, water was spraying out of the chiller. If this water were to get in our beer it could ruin everything since their could be contaminants that would prevent the yeast from doing their jobs. Luckily we didnt get any water in the pot, so everything should be fine. Lesson learned: Run some water through your chiller to make sure their aren't any leaks that could lay waste to a pot full of hard work (and money).
Once the wort is cooled below 80° we topped it off to 5 gallons and then dumped it back and forth between the fermenting bucket and the pot in order to aerate it. This is the only time you want the wort to be aerated from here on out. At this point, it is critical to aerate the wort in order for the yeast to survive.
After the wort is sufficiently aerated, it is dumped in the fermenter. We took a sample in order to test the gravity (we nailed the target starting gravity at 1.055), and then added the yeast to the wort. Last thing to do was put the lid on, plug the hole with the airlock, and put it somewhere to ferment at 62°-72°.
And that's it. In 7-10 days it says to transfer wort into a secondary fermenter, but I am just going to keep it in the primary fermenter, since from what I read it is not entirely necessary to use a secondary for this recipe. But I will take a gravity reading at about 10 days to see how things are going.
Since I am writing this after brew day, I can also note in this post that the airlock started bubbling after about 6 hours and was bubbling rapidly at about 12 hours. The bubbling in the airlock is a good sign that the yeast is at work.
So that is it. My first beer, a stout, is fermenting (at about 61°, a little low) in a 5 gallon bucket in my room. I will update at the next gravity reading!
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| The only picture I got. This is the tube I put the sample in to test. The hydrometer (which measures the gravity) isn't in there though |
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