NOTE: This is a slightly longer post, as it was the first time I actually went through a "true" brewing process, so there were a lot of lessons learned on this day...
So if you've been following along, you'll know that up to this point I have brewed two completely different Mr. Beer recipes, only to find them tasting identical: Not good.
I decided to look at some other beer kits. I finally decided on a kit from Brooklyn BrewShop -- an IPA -- because it had all the equipment I thought I would need to brew 1 gallon batches in a more "experienced" way; it had a glass carboy instead of the plastic "keg" from Mr. Beer, an airlock, siphon, tube clamp, thermometer. I felt like a brewmaster when I bought this...but there was a problem...
What in the world was I supposed to do with this giant bag of grains? What are these little pellet things that look like rabbit food? Seriously...everything I thought I "knew" about brewing was thrown out the window.
So I resigned myself to reading the instructions that came with it to figure out what I'm supposed to do.
Following the instructions was really simple and they were well written. The first part was basically:
So I filled a 5 quart pot with water and started heating it up on my electric stove-top. Using the very basic thermometer, I dumped the grains in when the temperature was somewhere in the range I was told, and stirred it together.
After about 20 minutes I checked the temperature again, and it was WAY too low, outside the range I was told to keep it in. So I had to start the stove-top again...but then it got too hot! It took a lot of tinkering to get the temperature where I wanted it and a lot more tinkering to KEEP it there.
After constant monitoring and stirring and turning heat on and off, the 60 minutes was over, and I needed to remove the grains. I put the large strainer over my second large pot and dumped the whole contents of my brew pot in...it worked remarkably well (a few husk pieces made it through, but that shouldn't matter...right?!), but it definitely filled the strainer to its full capacity. Time to pour the next batch...of...hot...water...
$#@*! I forgot to heat up some other water on the stove to pour over the grains! But wait, both of my pots are now dirty...do I really need 3 large pots for this whole process?! Either way, I went ahead and washed the now-empty pot, filled it with water and got it up to temperature on the electric stove (which took quite a while!). Hopefully the grains just sitting there in the strainer isn't a problem...
Eventually, I poured the water over the grains into the pot below and I was ready to move on to the next steps...I was already tired and stressed out at this point... Luckily the next steps seemed easy enough :
YIELD: 1 gallon
COST: \$40 ($5.00 per pint)
REVIEW: This was actually pretty good beer. The instructions were very easy to follow, but I should have planned the day better to make my life easier. It actually tasted like the style I was going for, too! A hundred times better than Mr. Beer. Plus, I actually learned a bit about actually brewing.
TOTAL BREWS: 3
CUMULATIVE YIELD: 3 gallons -- Plus equipment for brewing 1 gallon batches!
CUMULATIVE COST: \$105 ($4.38 per pint)
So if you've been following along, you'll know that up to this point I have brewed two completely different Mr. Beer recipes, only to find them tasting identical: Not good.
I decided to look at some other beer kits. I finally decided on a kit from Brooklyn BrewShop -- an IPA -- because it had all the equipment I thought I would need to brew 1 gallon batches in a more "experienced" way; it had a glass carboy instead of the plastic "keg" from Mr. Beer, an airlock, siphon, tube clamp, thermometer. I felt like a brewmaster when I bought this...but there was a problem...
What in the world was I supposed to do with this giant bag of grains? What are these little pellet things that look like rabbit food? Seriously...everything I thought I "knew" about brewing was thrown out the window.
So I resigned myself to reading the instructions that came with it to figure out what I'm supposed to do.
Following the instructions was really simple and they were well written. The first part was basically:
- Heat some water up to a specific temperature range.
- Add that big bag of grains.
- Let it sit for a specific amount of time
- Remove the grains from the water
- Pour more hot water over the grains to rinse them out
So I filled a 5 quart pot with water and started heating it up on my electric stove-top. Using the very basic thermometer, I dumped the grains in when the temperature was somewhere in the range I was told, and stirred it together.
After about 20 minutes I checked the temperature again, and it was WAY too low, outside the range I was told to keep it in. So I had to start the stove-top again...but then it got too hot! It took a lot of tinkering to get the temperature where I wanted it and a lot more tinkering to KEEP it there.
After constant monitoring and stirring and turning heat on and off, the 60 minutes was over, and I needed to remove the grains. I put the large strainer over my second large pot and dumped the whole contents of my brew pot in...it worked remarkably well (a few husk pieces made it through, but that shouldn't matter...right?!), but it definitely filled the strainer to its full capacity. Time to pour the next batch...of...hot...water...
$#@*! I forgot to heat up some other water on the stove to pour over the grains! But wait, both of my pots are now dirty...do I really need 3 large pots for this whole process?! Either way, I went ahead and washed the now-empty pot, filled it with water and got it up to temperature on the electric stove (which took quite a while!). Hopefully the grains just sitting there in the strainer isn't a problem...
Eventually, I poured the water over the grains into the pot below and I was ready to move on to the next steps...I was already tired and stressed out at this point... Luckily the next steps seemed easy enough :
- Bring the liquid (they called it "wort") to a boil. They made a big point to be careful for "boil-overs" on this step!
- Add the rabbit food (apparently those were "hops") at different time intervals throughout the boil
- After a total of 60 minutes of boiling, cool it down as quickly as you can
This was pretty self-explanatory. The thought of a boil-over scared me, though. You know the expression "a watched pot never boils"...yeah...I watched that pot from the second I turned the heat on until it started showing the first signs of a boil...and it seemed to take forever! I will say, though, I'm glad I did, because they weren't kidding: that liquid boils like milk. It starts at nothing and then grows exponentially. If you're using an electric stove, the heat doesn't go away by turning it off, either...so...Either way, these 3 steps were pretty easy to follow, but actually quite exhausting and didn't give me the rest I was expecting.
After 60 minutes of watching and adding rabbit pellets, it was time to cool it down. They made it very clear I needed to do this as fast as possible and recommended using an ice-bath in the sink. I was not prepared for this. Again, I scrambled around to empty the sink (from all the dishes and pots I had used up to this point), fill it with cold water, find enough ice to dump in, etc.
Long story short (too late), it took almost an hour to cool down to the temperature they told me, and then I was ready to put it all in the glass carboy -- which of course I hadn't cleaned and sanitized yet. Plus, I've used siphons before, but how to get it started without introducing bacteria was something I didn't know. I cleaned the carboy and airlock, and decided to fill the siphon tube with sanitized water and clamp it shut. I then started the siphon from my brew pot into a spare bowl. Once the sanitizer had run out and beer filled the tube, I clamped it shut again. Move the tube into the carboy and let it flow!
*whew* Almost done! The next 4 steps were simple:
- Add yeast to carboy
- Shake
- Add airlock
- Store in cool, dark place for 3 weeks
Finally, after almost 4 hours of messes, spills, running around, and waiting, I was finally done with my brew day...well, after I cleaned everything up, which added another 30 minutes...
Three weeks go by, airlock bubbled away, I was ready to bottle. I decided to just use the plastic bottles from my old Mr. Beer kit, so I added some sugar to each (less than when I did the Mr. Beer!), and let it sit.
At long last, my first "true" beer. I cracked it open, half expecting it to taste exactly like my last two Mr. Beer kits...but right off the bat, I knew this was going to be better. There was a nice rush of CO2, but not nearly as much as last time, so I just knew the carbonation level was much better. I could actually smell the hops, so I also knew it was going to taste differently.
Needless to say, these beers did not last very long as I thought they were pretty solid IPAs! At \$5.00 per pint, I would certainly hope so, but it was good to know I didn't completely butcher it in the process. Probably the most important thing about this, was I really felt like I was a brewer now (ha!)! I still didn't know any of the chemistry or science behind anything to feel like I could tweak anything, but I brewed all-grain beer!
YIELD: 1 gallon
COST: \$40 ($5.00 per pint)
REVIEW: This was actually pretty good beer. The instructions were very easy to follow, but I should have planned the day better to make my life easier. It actually tasted like the style I was going for, too! A hundred times better than Mr. Beer. Plus, I actually learned a bit about actually brewing.
TOTAL BREWS: 3
CUMULATIVE YIELD: 3 gallons -- Plus equipment for brewing 1 gallon batches!
CUMULATIVE COST: \$105 ($4.38 per pint)
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