Bottle conditioning - waiting stinks

I walk past my stash every day, waiting and anticipating that first taste.  The bottles have to sit for another week and it is killing me!  I tried to get a pic of the beer's current state, but it really doesn't depict very well.  Their is some settling going on, but the beer is quite hazy right now.  I did not use any clarifying agents with this batch so there will probably be some haze even when completed.  Next week, the beer should be markedly clearer and refrigeration will help as well.  In the mean time, I patiently wait.  I am already thinking of my next batch.  I will need to keep a rotation going to make the waiting less painful until I get a keg set up.  I am thinking Belgian for my next batch.  Maybe spiced a bit and higher ABV for the fall/winter weather.

Capping the batch

Once I have the beer transferred into the priming tank and the sugar is stirred in well, it is time to fill and cap the bottles.  I was working solo here, so I found it best to fill about 12 bottles and then cap 12.  This went pretty quick.  I was a little rusty with the valve - it has been a while - so unfortunately their was some overflow.  I do hate wasting beer.  I have a very basic bottling set up.  You get a bunch of caps with the kit I bought.  Capping is pretty easy, set the cap on top and use the cap crimper to pop it on.  It takes some practice with this tool to get them on straight, but you can pick it up relatively quickly.  I would recommend bottling with a friend, it goes much quicker.  I had no takers at my house this night so the process took a little longer than planned.  I would say from sanitizing through packing up the beer I spent about 2 hours.  Net yield was 50 bottles.  Now they sit for 2 weeks conditioning in the bottle.  At the 2 week mark, I will chill one to see how it turned out.  For now, it's a waiting game.

Bottling day

Transferring beer to priming tank

Bottling day arrived at last.  Fermentation visibly stopped on Wednesday so I targeted Saturday to bottle.  You want to wait at least 2 days after bubbles stop to bottle to ensure fermentation is complete.  The arduous task of cleaning and sanitizing 50+ bottles as well as the fermenting equipment took up quite a bit of time.  I need to switch over to kegging, bottling is a huge pain in the rear.   Once everything is clean and sanitized, I moved the fermenter back into the kitchen and began moving the beer into the priming tank.  You officially have beer now, if kegging you could move it directly into your keg and force carbonate.  The more traditional route is to add some sugar to the priming tank and then bottle it up.  The sugar provides some additional fuel for the yeast.  This produces more fermentation and waste CO2 which carbonates the beer in the bottle.  The downside here is that you will end up with some sediment in your beer.  Filtering and kegging would give you a "clean" bottle but also can take away from some of the aging flavors you can realize especially on higher alcohol content brews.  Prior to starting the bottling, I took a final gravity measurement.  Using a simple math equation, you can determine the alcohol content of your beer (SG - FG x 131.25). For this beer, I look to have an alcohol content of 5.25%.  A good session beer, but lower alcohol content than expected by the recipe.  My starting gravity was lower than expected, which I suspect was due to an in efficient grain conversion.  Not surprising as this is the first time I have integrated a significant amount of grain with my extract.  If any of you have advice on how I can increase my efficiency, please post a comment.  I am pretty sure my sparging process kind of sucked.

taking my finishing gravity reading

Always a sign that the Holidays are near

The last few trips to the store have revealed the "Pumpkin Ales" and "Harvest Ales" give way to the stronger alcohol spiced Holiday ales.  But for me living in NE Ohio, there is one beer's release that truly means the holidays and winter weather are heading in quickly.  Yesterday was that day - Great Lakes has started serving Christmas Ale at the brewery.  It is only a few short weeks before this elixir makes its way into local bars and stores.  Can't wait to sample this year's batch!

Bubbles have stopped

Active fermentation on the Pale Ale appears to be concluding.  The airlock stopped bubbling yesterday when I went in to check on it.  Looks like bottling this weekend!  Then 2 weeks until chilling and enjoying!  Stay tuned for bottling documentation.

Christmas Ale Ice Cream???

It is a Christmas miracle come early.  Great Lakes Christmas Ale ice cream  Nothing more to say really.

Reflections on a good beer weekend

Thought I would reflect a bit on a weekend full of great beer.  Once I tucked my home brew in for some quality fermenting time, the wife and I headed out to dinner.  We met some friends at Lolita for dinner.  They have a fine selection of beers and I settled on an old favorite.  Dogfish head's 60 minute IPA.  I love hops, and this beer is loaded with hop character.  Not the hop hammer of the 90 minute, but you can actually have a couple of these and not fall over trying to stand up.  

After dinner, we stopped by a new brewery on the way home.  This was my first visit to Market Garden Brewery and I came away impressed.  It was a nice but cool evening and the inside was packed.  We opted to grab a beer and go out onto their patio.  It is a nice setting with a large fireplace dominating the common wall separating the bar from the patio.  The well tended fire and finely crafted beer kept us nice and warm.  The Hop Soup was very tasty.  Loaded with hops but finely balanced, it was scarily drinkable. My wife's wheat was fine as well.  It was a surprisingly full beer. It had a very full mouth feel and the sweet wheat flavor dominated.  Would be even better on a warm afternoon - sadly, we won't be seeing more of these for awhile.

On Sunday, I settled in at home with some football and one of my favorites - Raging Bitch by Flying Dog brewery.  I love Belgians and Pale Ales, so this combination is heaven.  If you like these varieties of beer, you need to check this beer out if you can find it.  Too bad the Browns sucked up and down the field, but at least I had a little medicine to wallow in while they did it.

Bubbles

Fermentation has started. The airlock was bubbling away this morning so we are on our way converting the wort to beer!  In about 2 weeks, we should be close to bottling.

When your beer hits the correct temperature, it is time to move it to the fermenter.  I use a plastic bucket for this, many use a glass container - I have one of these for secondary fermentation on some beers.  The bucket has worked well for me and this one is designed for fermenting so it is much easier to work with than the glass carboy.  My recipe is for 5 gallons (fairly typical) so I poured in my wort and filled to the 5 gallon mark.  

You should have a specific gravity associated with your recipe.  There is a starting gravity and a finishing gravity.  These are usually ranges and you will need a hydrometer to measure them.  The specific gravity basically tells you how much sugar is available for conversion to alcohol.  The higher the starting gravity, the higher the ABV of your finished product in general.  Once your beer is done fermenting, you take a second reading and then there is a simple calculation to tell you what the ABV of your finished product is.  

I should have taken a specific gravity reading before filling it up - mine turned out too low which I hope will not hurt the beer too much.  I could have shorted my water fill a bit to keep me in the range for the recipe.

Once you have all your measurements complete, you cover up the fermenter and add an airlock to allow the fermentation gases to release.  You should start seeing bubbling in 6-24 hours.  Keep the fermenter in a cool dark place and leave it alone.  Fermentation can take 2-3 weeks.  I chose the work out corner of our basement - it will certainly not be disturbed there!

Here is my brew waiting to ferment.  I will check it later today - the airlock should be bubbling which means the magic is starting!

Sanitize, sanitize, sanitize

 By far the largest factor in many home beers that end up with off flavor is introduction of contaminants.  Your best protection against this is ensuring absolutely anything that comes in contact with your wort is sanitized.  There are several products out there you can use to achieve this, I use iodophor.  It is cheap and effective, but does require thorough rinsing or will impart it's own off flavors.  Your batch is most susceptible to contamination right after the boil.  Once the yeast starts producing alcohol, the risk diminishes, but precautions must be taken.  You do not want to spoil your hard work!

Iodine solution sanitizes thermometer

sterilizing the fermentor and other tools

Cool down the wort

Once your boil is complete, you need to cool down the wort.  It is crucial to complete this process as quickly as possible to avoid contamination.  You want to get the wort down to about 70 degrees F prior to getting it into your fermenter and pitching the yeast.  I need to pick up a floating thermometer, it comes in handy both when Mashing and when cooling.  I had to make due with a meat thermometer and constantly washing/sanitizing during the process.  They make wort chillers which will speed this process up tremendously.  I may look into getting one of those as well.  They are basically just a looped copper tube that allows you to pass cold water through the inside of the wort.  I had this batch cooled down to about 80 degrees F in about 20-30 minutes.  I had to change out the water 4 times to get there.  80 was fine for me, because I needed to add cooler water to get me up to 5 gallons.  That brought me down to 70.

Boiling the wort

Now it is time to boil.  Kick up the heat and wait for the boil to start.  If you have extract, you add it now.  I had both liquid and dry extract for this recipe, so I added both once I had a nice rolling boil.  You need to make sure you stir during the add, especially with the liquid as it will pour right to the bottom of your kettle and could burn before dissolving.  You will also be adding some bittering hops now.  Depending on your recipe, you may add bittering hops several times during the boil.

Again, pretty tough to see, but through the steam is a boiling brew!  If you have a family - this is about the time they will become disgusted with the brewing process.  The boil takes an hour, and is a pretty smelly operation.  In my opinion, it smells great!  It is a mix of hops and hay smell.  My wife and kids disagree entirely.  They packed up and left today once the boil got going.  At about 55 minutes, you will add an additional dose of hops for aroma.  The stuff you added earlier in the boil will contribute to the mouth and lingering flavor of the beer.  The aromatic hops hits you when you smell a fresh beer as well as when it first hits your tongue.  Hops.. are... fantastic.

Mash and sparge

"Mashing"

Sort of tough to make this out, but if you peer through the steam you will see the grain bag soaking in the hot water.  Note the color change brought on by the steeping.  Once you reach your target temp (or a few degrees higher to account for adding room temp grain), you should turn off the heat and ideally leave it off during steeping.  I have heard some having trouble keeping the water temp up, but I had no problems.  My pot is very heavy, so this is probably why the temp remains pretty constant.  It is ok to turn the burner back on, but keep it very low in an effort to just maintain temp.  You also risk burning the grains if they are sitting on the bottom of the pot.

Once you have let the grains sit, you should pull the bag in and out of the concoction in your pot several times to extract more of the sugars.  You should then "sparge" the grain.  You can do this either by pulling the grains out above the pot and pouring hot (again 150-160 or so) water over and through the grains or by having another pot at the ready with heated water that you can slosh the grains through.  I chose the latter.  If you choose to pour the water over, many folks find dropping the bag in a colander and holding the colander over the brew pot is the best method.  When you are done with this, your concoction is now known as "wort".

Starting the Pale Ale

Ingredients in order of add

Brewing day is arrived this morning.  I started about 9:30 getting set up.  I have found it useful to lay out what you need in order.  I have a tendency to get a bit distracted while brewing, especially while enjoying a beer during the process.  As this was a morning operation, coffee kept me in line.

It is also a good idea to keep your aromatic hops clearly separated from your bittering hops.  If you are using all pellets, it is easy to mess up and add the wrong one during the boil.

Brew pot on left, sparge on the right.

After the set up, time to get the water going.  This batch was a combination of grain and malt.  That means I need to "mash" the grains first.  Think of this like making tea.  You take the cracked grains and put them in a muslin or nylon bag.  Steep them in 150-160 degree water for about 20 minutes to release the sugars.  The heat from the water releases the sugars from the grain.  You can't do this in the boil as this added heat will release the tannins from the grain husk imparting bitter flavor in your beer.  

India Pale Ale on deck

Here is what I plan on brewing next.  Nothing fancy, a basic kit which I do not plan to modify.  I just want to see if I remember how to do this stuff.

This is a pretty typical kit including:

• Malt extract - the cans in the picture
• Whole grain malt
• Multiple hops for bittering and aroma
• Some priming sugar 
• Straining bags for your grain to steep in

Hopefully, brewing postings within a few days.

Why am I here?

I am a man.  A man who really loves beer.  In an effort to align life around my passions as well as attempt to disguise a borderline alcohol problem I have decided to jump into home brewing. Secondary motivation was provided by the need to defend my collection of empty beer bottles in our ever shrinking basement space. Those damn things take up a lot of room!

Having tinkered with this in the past, I reasoned that it would be fairly easy to start back up again.  I went to my local home brew supply house (by the way, there are a lot of these out there all of a sudden) and picked up a kit.  No need to get complicated, just cook it up one afternoon and bottle in a few weeks - a snap.  That was about 2 months ago.  I needed a kick in the pants.  This blog is meant to be that kick in the pants. 

I intend to post at least twice a week about brewing or drinking beer.  My hope is that this constant discussion will "encourage" my lazy rear to jump back into the art of home brewing.  So if you like beer and have even a passing interest in brewing, follow along friends.  Hopefully you will learn a little about the process, or maybe help myself and others learn.  Please, comment away!