brew my own beer

My latest batch isn’t so good. Hoping that it just needs some extra time in bottles.

Went to the homebrew store today with a friend. She got ingredients to make a batch and we’ll brew it on my set-up and share the results. Will be my 5th batch.

I couldn’t get out of the store without going all “hyper-consumer” and spending money. I got myself a bottle rack which should be really handy and save a ton of counterspace on bottling days.

We’re planning to brew batch #3 tonight. An amber ale this time. I’m excited!

Not great either. But it was a first try.

We bottled tonight. Again it was so much fun that I’m not even going to be too upset if the beer turns out bad. We didn’t have any major mistakes or anything all day! Shocking.

A couple friends came over last night and we had a blast brewing beer.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go exactly according to plan. For various stupid reasons, we managed to let the beer get way too cold before we added the yeast. When we took the temperature, it was 64, supposed to be 78-72 according to our recipe, (the bottle of yeast said 78-70) when the yeast is added! So we hefted the carboy up into the sink and filled the sink with hot water, hoping to heat it up. Eventually the temperature (which was taken by a stick-on thermometer on the outside) got up to 71 so we added the yeast then.

Nothing has happened so far. It hasn’t started bubbling, as of 12 hours later when I left for work this morning. A friend at work says that it should be ok, it will just take longer for the fermenting process to start and that by the time I get home tonight it should be bubbling. I hope so. I left it in the unused shower, which happens to be in the warmest room of the house. I also reset my thermostat so my house will stay above 65, even at night and while I’m at work (I’m cringing at all the extra gas I’m using to do this). Hopefully it will get warm enough to start fermenting.

Also, the specific gravity was quite a bit lower than it was supposed to be. that means the potential alcohol content is lower. There may be other implications of it, but I’m not really familiar with what in means.

I went to a class at a local homebrew store. I’m now even more excited for this than I was before! The whole process is a lot more clear now that I’ve seen it in person and it doesn’t seem so hard. Also meeting the staff at the store, I’m no longer intimidated by the idea of going in there as a total beginer and asking for help. They were so friendly and nice that when I do go in to buy I know I can ask all the dumb questions I can think of without seeming like an idiot!

I’m so excited about this now. I want to turn into a total beer geek and make up my own recipes and be able to tell what’s in a beer just by the flavor and know all the differances between all the different kinds of beer, join the local homebrew club, tour microbreweries….

But before I get carried away, I need to start saving. Looks like its not going to be cheap to get all the equipment. But once that initial investment is made, then each batch isn’t too costly. In the mean time, my friend who I went to the class with is going to be making that investment soon! I am so going to invite myself over to help him, and we’ll see how much of the equipment I can borrow.