1st Beer Results

In the interests of science (and with a little lack of patience), I put one of the brew bottles (see the brewing and the bottling) in the fridge the day before the 14-day carbonating period was over. I opened the bottle that night. The cap removal had that nice "fizz" sound and some CO2 wafted out the neck. A little bit of head formed but vanished before I could take a picture. For an Irish Red the color is fairly dark. The flavor is a little more on the sour and the bitter side but it still drinks okay. Considering how long I waited to make the brew and this attempt was a first time, I am satisfied with the Day -1 results.

Before the moment of truth

Not the right shade of red

I put another couple of bottles in the fridge on the proper day. That evening, I tried one with slightly better flavor. Did the day really make a difference or is it just my imagination playing tricks on me? The color is still very dark and the flavor is still fairly sour. Surely something went wrong in the process. I still put the blame on expired ingredients (which is putting the blame on me for waiting so long to try it out). 

I opened the bottle that was only two-thirds full to see how that turned out. It had a lot of fizz when I popped the cap. The beer had at least a slight tinge of red but the flavor was more of the same. It's just not satisfying. 

Even the light barely helps it look red

I tried another bottle on proper day plus four. The flavor is the same awfulness with no change in color. It is time to admit failure and move on! I will pour the rest down the sink and try a new recipe from Maryland Homebrew. They recommend a brown ale for starters, I will give that a try.

1st Beer Bottling

See the brewing process here.

After fermenting a home brew for two week, I had the next task, bottling the beer.

I've accumulated empty bottles over the years, but only 24 or so. I don't have some giant horde! Of course, the labels would be wrong if I didn't remove them. After looking around online, I tried soaking them in water and dish soap for about 24 hours.

I had to fill them to keep the bottles from floating!

That did not work too well. I had to do a lot of scrubbing afterward. The bottles eventually were clean and ready for bottling day. I had a bunch of other stuff from the brewing kit.

More tools of the trade

The first part for bottling is putting the fermentor in a high location, like the edge of a sink or table. I had pre-planned for this, so the fermentor was already on the table in the laundry room. I just had to move it to the edge so I could attach the hose and bottle filler. The hose is a tight fit around the end of the bottle filler, so I had to soak it in hot water for a minute to make it expand. Even so, getting it on the filler required some effort. At least it makes a good seal.

Close up of the house/filler connection

I made another batch of sanitizing solution, then soaked the bottles and caps in the solution, setting them up to dry. Drying bottles upside down is a challenge, so I used a box in the rack to keep them from falling over.

Bottles went one at a time

All the caps went together

Drying bottles upside down is tricky!

Caps are easy

I sanitized the bottle filler and hose. Then I put the other end of the hose on the spigot (which required another hot water immersion to make it slightly larger) and then dispensed some beer through it to clean out any of the sanitizing solution still in the hose and filler.

Heating the other end of the hose

On the spigot

In order to carbonate the beer, it needs another round of sugar for the yeast to consume. So little tablets went into each bottle before filling. Out of the ten more or less identical bottles I used, two had trouble swallowing their tablets. I am pretty sure it was the tablets' fault since they had melded together a little bit (another side effect of waiting too long to use the kit). Some industrious jabs with a pointy item made the tablets go all the way inside.

Give me some sugar, baby!

Filling the bottles was fairly easy. Just stick the bottle filler in the bottle and let gravity drop the uncarbonated beer into the bottle. Filling the bottle all the way to the top left a small amount of air once I took out the filler. Then a cap sat on top and the next bottle got filled. Out of the ten bottles, only the last one came up a bit short, about two-thirds full when the fermentor ran out of liquid. So one bottle will be very fizzy or very potent? I will find out in two weeks when the carbonating is done.

Gravity does the work

A little space left over after taking the filler out of the bottle

The capping gizmo was very easy to use. The one from the kit even has a magnet in the middle to hold the cap in place!

Sealing the bottles

I stored the bottles in a box on a shelf in the basement to maintain the 65 to 75 degree temperature. Then I cleaned up all the other supplies in hopes of using them again soon...as soon as I see how this batch turns out.

Sanitized bits (except for the bottle capper)

The fermentor required a little work to get clean

Now the two-week wait...

The bottling process was about two hours with some down time while items were drying from the sanitizing solution. You definitely do not want to serve santizer-flavored beer to your friends. Or yourself!

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!

Mudhook Brewing Company, York, Pennsylvania

Superbowl night 2016 (which was a while ago, sorry for the blog lag!) we went out to eat at Mudhook Brewing Company in downtown York, Pennsylvania. It's located just behind Central Market House.

Mudhook Brewing Company

The brewery's restaurant wasn't crowded, mostly because they just started opening on Sundays and they are only open till 7 p.m. on Sundays (meaning patrons could only watch the beginning of the game). They have a nice menu of pub grub and a variety of their own brews for sale. I couldn't decided which individual beer to try, so I ordered the flight of beer!

A taste of each

It was six of the seven currently available beers. Here are the descriptions of the beers from left to right in the picture.

• Wild River Weizen--a nice wheat beer that is refreshing and easy to drink.
• Redeye Irish Red--a malty beer with initial sweetness and a dry finish. Very yummy.
• Belgian Dubbel--Trappist-style ale that was my favorite of the bunch (because Belgian is my favorite).
• Tweed River Strong Ale--a Scottish Wee Heavy ale with roasty and smoky flavors. Not bad but not my favorite.
• Hook Bender Double IPA--a strong IPA with lots of hoppy bitterness. Not my style so not even close to a favorite for me.
• The Deep Sea Stout--chocolate malt and barley flavors with a bold taste. A great finisher!

The brewery part of the restaurant was through a door right next to our table. My daughter and I admired the equipment and did a little exploring of the Central Market.

Supplies

One set of vats

More vats

Central Market, only open Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday in the morning and early afternoon

In the almost deserted market, we ran into a lady cleaning up her booth. She gave my daughter a craft from the day before--making your own football. We thanked her and took it back to the restaurant. My daughter didn't have any problem waiting for food, which is more than I can say for other customers.

Ready to order beer or eat the camera!

The meal was great and I wished that I could bring home the Belgian. Maybe they will start bottling in the future!

Heavy Seas Brewery Tour

Heavy Seas Brewery is just outside of Baltimore. They offer free, child-friendly tours on the weekend, so we took advantage in the middle of a cold January. The brewery has a nice tap room that serves their ales. Tour participants can pay five dollars to get a souvenir pint glass and five samplings. We arrived just before the tour started so I did get a glass but not a sample before we headed onto the floor of the brewery.

First stop on the tour

The tour guide explained the bottling process in some detail. The equipment they use is fairly new, having replaced the old bottling equipment from the previous soda-producing plant. The brewery spent years finding replacement parts for the fifty year old equipment and finally upgraded in the past few years. The machinery is now much quicker and easier to maintain.

Modern technology!

Beer bottles on the line

The guide asked us to guess the two most common enemies of beer. They are light and oxygen. To prevent as much UV light from hitting the beer as possible, they use brown bottles. To prevent as much oxygen as possible, they use a special filling and capping machine that uses carbon dioxide to force out any air in the top of the bottle. That's why a bottle has that sound when opened.

Next, he showed us one of the key ingredients in beer--hops. Hops are flowers that are dried. They give bitter flavoring to beer. He handed some out to us to feel and crush in our hands. Then we smelled our hands and they smelled delicious.

Hops

Nearby I saw an interesting barrel but didn't get to ask about it. I assumed it was some sort of cleaning solution.

Suspicious barrel

Label that causes suspicion

We walked among the large vats and the guide told us about another key ingredient--malt. Malt comes from the barley plant and it gives beer a sweet flavor. The brewer's art is in balancing out the hops and malt to provide a pleasing taste for customers.

Malt

The vats were impressively huge and had their own fun warning signs.

Barrels and vats

Where do I get a permit?

Near the end of the tour, we saw the old equipment that was no longer used by the brewery.

Old equipment

More of the old equipment

We walked back through the storage area to the tap room where I had the chance to try some of the ales:

• Gold--"This easy-drinking session beer pours a deep golden color. It smells slightly floral and herbal, thanks to a hopback full of Cascade and Centennial hops. Gold is tasty and refreshing, with a round mouthfeel. In 2010, it took awards at both the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup." I enjoyed this beer though it wasn't my favorite.
• Powder Monkey--"At Heavy Seas, we brew a traditional English-style pale ale with our own East Coast twist: UK Fuggles and Goldings dominate the flavor of Powder Monkey, but has subtle notes of citrus and flower from Cascade hops added in the boil and hopback. Brass in color, Powder Monkey, like all of our beers, is well balanced: distinct bitterness and a slight malt sweetness characterize the taste. In 2010, it won a bronze medal at the World Beer Cup; in 2008, it won a silver medal at the Great American Beer Festival." I liked this a lot, it reminded me of European beers.
• Siren Noire--"Our Siren Noire isn’t your father’s chocolate stout. We’ve used almost 3 pounds of Belgian coco nibs per barrel. We’ve aged it for five weeks in bourbon barrels with vanilla beans added. A mix of dark malts gives Siren Noire a well-rounded body that is decidedly chocolatey—but without being extraordinarily sweet. Brewers Gold hops contribute an earthy spiciness, with notes of black current." This was very chocolaty and amazingly delicious. If we hadn't had to run out because J was bored, I probably would have bought some.

We definitely recommend visiting the Heavy Seas Brewery for their tour!

N in awe