Baby Steps

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:

1. Heat some water up to a specific temperature range.
2. Add that big bag of grains. 
3. Let it sit for a specific amount of time
4. Remove the grains from the water
5. Pour more hot water over the grains to rinse them out

Ok... so I started thinking through this and realized pretty quickly that I would need at least two large pots instead of the one that I was able to use before. Luckily I had that, but it would be very easy to overlook that until it was too late. I also realized I would need some way to "separate" the grains from the water. Again, luckily, I had a pretty large strainer in my kitchen, so I figured I'd use that, but again, it would be very easy to realize this too late and be in a bit of a tough spot.

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 :

1. Bring the liquid (they called it "wort") to a boil. They made a big point to be careful for "boil-overs" on this step!
2. Add the rabbit food (apparently those were "hops") at different time intervals throughout the boil
3. 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:

1. Add yeast to carboy
2. Shake 
3. Add airlock
4. 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)

We Meet Again

In my last post, I talked about my introduction to homebrewing by way of Mr. Beer. After such a (seemingly) successful first venture into the world of homebrew, I bought another Mr. Beer kit. This time, since I already had the starter kit, I just needed a refill, so it wasn't nearly as expensive. I believe I bought a Brown Ale this time as what I felt was missing from the last kit (Pale Ale) was that malty sweetness and depth of flavor.

This time, I opened the kit with the confidence of an experienced brewer. I no longer looked at the cans and packets with complete ignorance, and I started the brew day with no hesitations. I mean, I had done this once before, and it was so easy...

Just like last time, I brought my water to a boil, removed it from the heat, poured in my magic syrup, and added it to the keg. Then I just threw in my yeast and sealed it up. Done and done. No issues here, nothing went wrong...I mean, how could it? Brewing was easy!

Fast forward 6 weeks, after letting it ferment, transferring it to my gigantic plastic bottles with some sugar, and letting it carbonate, and I was ready to drink the spoils of my work.

Psshhhhhh!

Ahh, another successful carbonation. I have got this brewing thing down!

I went ahead and poured my beer into a glass. It was slightly darker than my last brew, which made sense since it was supposed to be a darker beer, but it wasn't nearly as dark as I expected. Oh well. I took a sip.

...Wait a second...

Where's my malty goodness? Where's the body? Where's the depth of flavor?? This beer tasted exactly like the last one I made. This time, since I was approaching it with an expectation and a more discerning palate, I realized: it was not good.

Yes, I made beer, but it wasn't good beer. The beer was way too carbonated (which, at the time, I didn't understand how to control), way too cloyingly sweet, had no depth of flavor, no malt flavor, no hops flavor; it almost tasted like overly carbonated apple juice. I honestly don't remember if I finished all of it, because it just wasn't good.

So now that the initial excitement of creating beer had worn off, I was starting to realize that maybe I didn't know what I was doing as much as I thought, but before I conceded that, I figured I would try another brand of brew kit. One that was a bit more "involved"...

YIELD: 1 gallon
COST: \$20 (\$2.50 per pint)
REVIEW: Not good...just not good at all...

TOTAL BREWS: 2
CUMULATIVE YIELD: 2 gallons
CUMULATIVE COST: \$65 ($4.06 per pint)

Humble Beginnings

"Of course I'd love to brew my own beer! How cool would that be?"

Like many people, I have a friend that brews his own beer. Unlike many people, his beer is some of the best beer I've ever had. My wife noticed how much I liked his beer and how I kept asking him questions about it. She decided it might be fun for me to learn how to make beer myself.

Enter Mr. Beer.

For most people who are interested in making beer, a quick Google search will point to Mr. Beer as the best way to get started. Well, my wife purchased one for me for Christmas in 2012. I was ecstatic. If memory serves me right, it was a standard Pale Ale. I remember opening it up and seeing the different cans and bags and plastic bottles and having no idea what everything was used for, but being excited that with those items, I could BREW!

The day of brewing arrived. I read the instructions a few times to make sure I knew what I was doing (I didn't want to mess up my first batch of beer!). And so it began...

1. I cleaned the "keg" (a plastic container with a plastic cap and plastic "tap" in which you ferment the beer)
   Of course I was meticulous about my cleaning...
2. Boil some water
   The anticipation begins to rise...
3. Remove the water from the heat and dump a can of syrupy liquid into the water
   Ooo, that smells pretty good, and it has good color...
4. Pour that mixture into the plastic keg with some more cold water
   Alright, I'm ready to really get into the process of brewing now...
5. Mix in the yeast
   Ok...Ok...

...and that was it...wait, what?! I thought my friend said that brewing day took hours and it sounded so much more complex than this! I re-read the instructions to make sure I didn't miss anything. After I convinced myself that I was done, I put the keg in the basement and let it do its thing for the next few weeks.

During this time, I thought there was no way what I did was create beer. Now, I had no idea what I was actually doing with the kit or what the actual process of "making" beer was (since the instructions didn't really educate you on the process), so I figured there was a very good chance I did something wrong and that it was all a wasted effort. Once 3 weeks passed, I followed the last steps on the instructions:

1. Pour some sugar into each of the 8 plastic bottles supplied
2. Fill them from the tap of the keg
3. Close the cap and wait another 2 weeks

There was no way I thought this was going to work. I didn't really do anything!

Then came the moment of truth: I took one of the bottles out of the fridge (having put them in the day before to get cold) and twisted the cap. Psshhhhhh. It was carbonated! It was magic! Seriously...like I said, I had no idea what was actually happening at this time, so it really seemed like magic! Ok, ok...so there are bubbles in there, but it can't actually be beer, can it?

I pour it into a glass, because drinking out of a plastic bottle just felt wrong, even if it was just Mr. Beer beer. It looked like beer; it smelled like beer; so I took a sip.

Now, have you ever created something -- art, music, sandcastles, whatever -- that when you finished it you were so proud of it, and it looked like the greatest thing ever to you. But then after a while, you looked back on it and realized how bad it truly was? That was this beer, but at the time, it was amazing. I drank the whole bottle, enjoying every sip, giggling like a school boy because I. Made. Beer. It was so cool.

I was so happy and my wife noticed how much I enjoyed the fruits of my "labor" (she doesn't like beer, so that enjoyment was lost on her), so she decided she would encourage my new hobby...but that's the next chapter in this story.

YIELD: 1 gallon

COST: \$45 (\$5.63 per pint)

REVIEW: BEST. BEER. EVER. Simply because I made it!

TOTAL BREWS: 1

CUMULATIVE YIELD: 1 gallon

CUMULATIVE COST: \$45 (\$5.63 per pint)