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Adventures in Homebrewing Conclusion

Success!

Indeed, I am considering my first foray into homebrewing a success. Two weeks after bottling my porter I’ve cracked one open and it is officially beer.

It’s a little sweet, which is to be expected with the low alcohol content I estimated two weeks ago. My fermentation apparently didn’t get as much of the sugar converted as it should, but I think I know how to fix that next time. I’m going to cool the wort properly, down to 65 degrees as I should have, and probably use a starter instead of pitching the yeast dry. That should give it a better hold and keep the fermentation going stronger.

It also came out a little over-carbonated for a porter, at least for my taste. This can obviously be fixed by adding a little less corn sugar than the 3/4c suggested by the guy at the store when I bottle it.

Those two points aside however, it is still a very drinkable porter. It’s got good flavor.. not too hoppy, but not all malt. It’s nice and dark and has a fuller mouth feel than I expected for an extract-only brew.

I’ve got a long ways to go before I’ll feel confident in what I’m doing here, but this was a good start. I’ll be doing my second batch next weekend, and I’m sure it’ll come out even better than this one.

Adventures in Homebrewing Pt 2

I finally made the time tonight to bottle my first homebrew, and it turned out to be a bit more time consuming and involved than I expected. I think it went well overall, but if even one of those bottles is untainted it’ll be a miracle.

Let me be clear, I think it went pretty well for my first time, and I enjoyed the process, but there are a few things I’m going to change next time around.

Firstly, I’ll be a little better organized. There was a lot of shuffling around during crucial moments. I don’t have a lot of counter space and once everything is sterilized you really want to touch and move it around as little as possible. It’s safe to say I got myself a little overwhelmed at first trying to find places to set hard tubes and soft tubes and clamps that that were in my kit, most of which I didn’t actually need. I had to restart my siphon four times during the transfer from fermentation to bottling bucket and I’m afraid that there was too much touching of hands, sink, counter and tap water involved to remain sterile, but only time will tell. I am really grateful to this Make: Online post and homebrewingvideo.com for the video on starting a siphon.

Secondly, I’ll never use bleach as my sanitizer again. The guy at my homebrew store talked me out of buying one of the no-rinse sanitizers and said that bleach is the easiest and cheapest way to go. Well, having to rinse everything so thoroughly to get the bleach off after sanitation just makes me feel that I defeated the purpose. Plus, my hands smell like bleach now, which is really bothering me.

Finally, I’ll make sure that I take the labels off of my recycled bottles long before bottling day. Labels are a bitch to get off even with soaking. Some of them popped right off, but most bottles took several minutes of intense work to get clean. In any case, I’ll make sure that next time my bottles are ready before hand. This go around about half of my bottles are label-less. The rest still retain the symbol of their former lives. Hopefully it won’t make me feel too bad when I’m drinking my porter and thinking “man, I wish this really was an Arrogant Bastard.”

As for the beer itself, it tasted surprisingly good for a flat, warm beer. I am really pleased that it survived the first half of the process and actually tastes like something I would drink. If the bottle conditioning goes well then I think I’ll have a passable porter - definitely a win for my first go. The final gravity came to 1.016, which, after accounting for a slight calculation error in the original gravity due to temperature (should have been 1.046), puts the final porter at ~3.93% alcohol. That’s pretty weak, but still beer. I’ll need to figure out how to get it bit higher for next time.

Speaking of which, I’m already pretty excited about making my next brew. This experience has been a good one and I’m thinking my next try will be an IPA. I got quite a few in our company beer trade last week, so they’re on my mind, but who knows, that may change before I get to the store again. One thing’s for sure though.. I’m going to make that guy sell me some Star-San whether he wants to or not.

Adventures in Homebrewing Pt 1

I started my first batch of homebrew tonight. The process went fairly smoothly.. almost too smoothly. I’m suspicious that any good beer will come from this because it was so easy. I know I must have messed something up, like pitching the yeast while the wort as still around 90 degrees, or not rinsing the fermentation bucket thouroughly enough to get all of the bleach residue out. I rinsed that bucket for five minutes straight, but I won’t be satisfied until I’m sipping on my very own bleach-free English porter.

I talked to the guy at my local homebrew store, Beercrafters in Turnersville, NJ. The guy was really helpful and got me set up with a custom starter kit and everything I needed for my first brew. I decided to go with a porter and he suggested I start with a simple extract, but because of my tastes he also gave me some additional hops and a better yeast.

English Porter

Extract: Muntons gold docklands porter kit.
Flavoring hops: 0.5oz East Kent Golding pellets.
Aroma hops: 0.5oz East Kent Golding pellets.
Yeast: 11g Danstar Nottingham brewers yeast.

Started: 03-21-2009

Sterilized everything in the fermentation bucket full of water with 1/4c bleach and began 2 gallons of water boiling.

09:56 - Water is at full boil, adding the extract. Smells good.
10:08 - Full boil achieved, start timer for 40 minute boil.
10:28 - Added flavoring hops to wort. Used a satchel. Smells awesome.
10:45 - Added aroma hops to wort. Used a satchel. Smells incredible.
10:48 - Boil complete, turned off heat and began cooling process.

After a few minutes sitting covered on stove, moved the wort to an ice bath to help speed cooling.
Added water to fermentation bucket and added wort. Topped off to five gallons.

Original Gravity: 1.042. This supposedly means that my brew has a potential for just over 5% abv.

I tasted my brew at this point and it tasted really good. Obviously not beer yet, but I could taste the porter waiting to come out for sure. Very hoppy and already quite complex.

I got impatient and pitched the yeast while the wort was just under 90 degrees. This is a bit hotter than they recommend, but knowing what I do of yeast from baking it should do fine, I hope. I worked a lot of air into it with an industrial sized whisk we have (which I sterilized in the bucket prior.)

I sealed up the bucket with the hydrolock to create the one way valve and carried it to the basement where it will hopefully get a nice 65-70 degree average temperature. I’m a little worried about that, but it’s the best I can do for now. My wife likes it warm, so the living areas of our house are typically too hot, I think. Hopefully the basement doesn’t get too cold. I stuck it next to the heater, and a temperature reading down there said it’s currently 65.. good luck my little porter.

I’ll do another update in a few days once I see how fermentation is going. I have some more research to do, as I have a glass carboy and I don’t know if this beer would benefit from a second fermentation. The guy at the store seemed to think that any beer will, but I don’t quite understand the purpose just yet.