Attention beer enthusiasts!

If all goes to plan, there should be bottling pics and a batch of red ale soon.

Steam Beer: Carboy day 2

Full day #2 in the carboy, some Krausen (that's the foam from the action of the yeast). It's looking pretty good.

Brew 1: Steam Beer

First our ingredients:


1 1/2 pounds Milled crystal malt.
Milled means it was run through a grain mill to open the hulls.
Not Shown: 1/2 pound milled dextrin malt



















7 pounds Extra light liquid malt extract







Hop Pellets: Northern Brewer is a variety of Hop, and pellets mean that they have been pre-processed to release the resins more easily

Liquid Yeast: This is a lager yeast and not what was recommended by the recipe I am using, however they were out of what I needed, so I asked the hombrew store guy for assistance. Trust your homebrew store people.

Whirfloc tablet: 1 used in the process, it helps settle out sediment so you get less when bottling.

That plus 2 gallons of water is what I started with.


On to the process!

2 gallons of water on the stovetop,
note the candy thermometer, perfect because I need to leave it in for the beginning of the process to monitor the temperatures.

My grain in a steeping bag (think of it like a giant re-usable teabag) ready to go in once the water hits 165 degrees



Grain in the pot and closeup on our thermometer. I need to keep this at 160-170 degrees for half an hour to ensure proper extraction, otherwise I will get less than ideal beer.


Half an hour later, I have removed the grain. At this point I took it off the heat and stirred in the entire bucket of liquid malt extract. I also removed the thermometer, as I no longer was as worried about exact temperature.

After boiling 5 minutes I added 1.75 ounces of the hops for bittering purposes, you can see the cheesecloth sack I used (so I don't have to strain out the hop pieces later).



The I boiled it for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes I added another .75 ounces of hops to the bag, for flavor.



After 20 more minutes of boiling I added the last .75 ounces of hops to the bag and dropped a whirfloc tablet into the wort.

Ten more minutes of boiling followed.


Then the whole pot (sans hop bag) went into a water bath in my sink to cool. I wanted to reach around 85 degrees in the sink.



Once cooled enough I funneled it into my carboy (5 gallon glass fermenting jug) and added just over 3 more gallons of cool water. Total volume was approximately 5 gallons (give or take a little)



Then I pitched the yeast. With liquid yeast you just shake it up and dump it in. Then I gave the whole carboy a good shake to aerate (introduce air into) the wort.



Last step was moving in into the
closet and attaching a blow off hose (used during early fermentation to prevent foam from flying everywhere and to keep unwanted micro-organisms from joining the beer party. The end of the tube is in a can of water to keep air from getting in.

Now I wait for a couple weeks, and then bottling. More pictures of fermentation as they happen.

I should have pics of bottling my amber ale soon and I'll be making a red ale soon.

Welcome to my beer blog!

I love beer. Beer is at it's core extremely simple, but possesses infinite variations and possibilities.

My aim is to educate about beer, ales and homebrewing. Simple right?

Lets get started with some terms that I will be using.

Beer: According to the 1516 Reinheitsgebot, the ingredients in beer are Barley, Hops
and water (Yeast was not included in that text, as the role of it in beer making had
not been discovered at that time). The use of other, starchy, cereal grains is also common, but
may people will claim that those are ales rather than beer. There is documented information
showing beer production as far back as 3000 BC in various parts of the world.

Yeast: Yeasts are fungal microorganisms found just about everywhere on our planet. Their role in
brewing is to consume sugars in the brew and release ethanol and carbon dioxide as a waste
product.

Fermentation: Fermentation is the process whereby the yeasts do their work.

Wort: Wort is what you have after you've used water to extract the grain when making beer, it
contains the sugars that will be fermented, as well as other particulates that add flavor and color
to the finished product. The wort also has the resins from the hops extracted into it.

Hops: Hops are the female flower cones of the hop plant. They serve to bitter the wort, add flavor
and add aroma. Hops are also a mild antibiotic and help prevent bacteria from taking hold in the
brew, instead they favor the activity of the yeast.

Malt: Malt is the product of sprouting grains in water and then quickly stopping the process by
rapid drying. This has the benefit of converting starches in the grain into sugars, making
the process of fermentation simpler and faster.

Priming: This is the process of adding additional sugar to the beer after fermentation to kick start
the yeast to cause it to produce carbon dioxide during bottling/kegging.

Pitching: Adding a yeast culture to a wort to start fermentation.

A note on sanitation: it is important to sanitize anything your beer will be in contact with. That means your funnel, fermenter, spoons and anything else you can think of.
Wood is not a good candidate for stirring spoons. Plastic or silicone is better. BACTERIA IS BAD.

That should be enough to get started, anything else will be covered when I think about it.

Next Post: Steam Beer!