1st Beer Brewing

I started brewing a batch of beer at home using a brew kit from a couple of Christmases ago (thanks, Granny and Grandpa!).

The kit, from Northern Brewer, comes with just about everything needed to make a gallon or so of beer (ten bottles). This particular kit makes an Irish Red Ale. 

The first step is setting up and sanitizing the fermentor, charmingly named the "Little Big Mouth Bubbler." This fermentor has a spigot which needs installing. After my first install, I added water and discovered a leak. Emptying the plain water from the fermentor, I reversed the gaskets on the spigot and got a perfect seal. With a gallon of warm water in the fermentor, I added a pouch of cleanser (sanitation is very important in brewing), stirred, and sealed the container. Also, I marked the level of the water as per the brewing instructions (the mark will be important later).

Sanitizing the fermentor

The gallon level

The kit does not come with a two-gallon pot but we had one in storage that was easy to clean. Into that, a gallon of cool water is added and put on medium heat on the stove. 

Water ready to boil

Then I added the grains (just called Irish Red Ale, so literally a mixed bag) to a mesh bag, tied the end of the bag shut, and steeped the grains in the slowly warming water. After twenty minutes, I took the bag out and let it drip. I tossed the bag in the compost and turned the heat to high so the brew would boil.

Mesh bag and grains

Starting to steep

Just about done

Ready for the next stage in its lifecycle

After boiling, I took it off the heat to add in a pound of Amber Dried Malt Extract. Stirring to dissolve it into the brew, I now had wort, the term used to describe unfermented beer. The pot went back on the stove to return to a rolling boil. That's a bit tricky since I had to figure out the right setting to keep it from boiling over. With a little trial and error, I discovered 5.5 on the dial kept the wort boiling without making a huge head of foam that would spill out of the pot. I added seven grams of Willamette hops to the brew and let it boil for 45 minutes.

Next ingredients

Malted

What the hops look like

Adding hops

While I was waiting, I got some other bits ready for sanitizing: the rubber stopper, the airlock, a pair of scissors (not included in the kit), and the yeast packet. I put them all in a Tupperware bin that would get the cleansing solution from the fermentor. At this point, I discovered a potential problem.

Can you spot the problem?

The yeast was long expired. It was too late to run out to the store and I did not have the nerve to try bread yeast (the only other yeast in the house), so I decided to use the packet anyway. I guess I should have brewed when I first got the kit!

Once the 45 minutes finished, I turned off the heat and covered the pot. I moved it to the sink where I added cold water and ice to cool the wort. With a 30-minute cool-down timer going, I decontaminated the other equipment.

Wort ready to go in the sink

Ice ready to go in the sink

Happy combo

After swirling the cleanser around in the fermentor, I added enough liquid to the Tupperware to cover (and sanitize) the next tools I would use. The rest of the solution I poured down another sink since the kitchen sink had the wort.

Sanitizing instruments

After 30 minutes of cooling, I poured the wort into the fermentor. The idea is to pour it carefully so that none of the solids in the pot wind up in the fermentor. Since this project was a one-person job, I did not get a picture of myself pouring the wort! I did realize that the "solids" were very small and eventually used a strainer (which I had dipped in the cleanser) to pour the last bit. After the wort was in, I filled the fermentor up to the one-gallon line with cold water from the tap (using a measuring cup that had also gone through the cleanser!).

Straining and adding more water

At this point I pitched the expired yeast into the wort and hoped for the best.

Yeast on the top of the wort

The next step was securing the lid of the fermentor and adding the airlock. The rubber stopper and a small valve system lets excess gas out of the fermentor without letting air in--it's a way both to keep the inside sanitized and to prevent the fermentor from exploding.

The final setup

I moved the fermentor to the basement since it is supposed to be in a temperature-controlled environment (65 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit) away from sunlight. The laundry room has plenty of space!

Home for two weeks

Discussing the yeast situation with my family, someone asked if I could just pitch some new yeast in. The next day, I went to the local home brewing store and talked to the guy. He said that would work fine and recommended a substitute yeast.

New yeast

Second pitching

The brewing process for this kit took me 2.5 to 3 hours (not counting the extra time to get new yeast and re-pitching it). Then the 14-day wait started for fermentation to peak. More in a future post!