Let's Brew Beer: Part 1

Beer is one of the oldest and greatest inventions of humankind, but its creation is a borderline lost art. Most people don't care to work harder for their beer than popping the cap off via frat house theatrics. This makes it perfect for my pretentious desire to perform ancient crafts. I also know the Internet enjoys watching people perform complex tasks in hopes they will fail spectacularly, so without further ado: Beer.

The most important part of this project is having somebody smarter than you give you everything you need to succeed. So here's the ingredients going into our task for the evening. Thanks to Midwest Brewing we have crushed grains, hops, a vial of yeast, and a jug of Liquid Malt Extract, just like the ancients used. We also have our vital brew pot and a hilariously bootstrapped wert chiller that we'll see in action later on.

If you've stumbled on this page hoping to learn something about how to brew beer, I recommend finding out from someone that actually knows what they're doing, like the writer of The Complete Joy of Home Brewing. I learned everything I know about brewing from this book.

I'm lazy, so I made Midwest Brewing crush my grains for me, even though I have a brand new rolling pin that would have been perfect for the job. Instead, the grains go in a boiling bag. Typical of many steps in the process, this results in a mess.

Next, we measure out water for the boil. Turns out I don't have convenient way of measuring out three gallons so I use the graduations on my primary fermenter AKA bucket.

Throughout the process I am assisted by my lovely assistant/photographer, as well as his mother. Sorry, kid, you won't get to partake of the fruits of our labor.

 

Pretty sure I was supposed to heat the water to ~155 F prior to adding the grains to steep. Heck with the directions! Let's brew!

  

Yeah, you're cute kid, but it's not going to get you a taste of my delicious brew. I have to draw the line somewhere.

 

Something more likely to ruin your brew than steeping the grains too long is contamination, so make sure to sterilize everything it will come into contact with after you finish the boil. I filled my primary fermenter with sanitizing solution to soak all the insides. Sanitizing solution beats soap because it won't affect the brew down the line.

Still not hot enough. The biggest burner on my worthless stove took nearly a half hour to heat the 3 gallons to the 155 F idea temperature for steeping the grains. Add a propane burner to my want list for subsequent home brews.

Finally, the steeping is done. Out comes the grains. Their mysterious job is complete. Next we bring the water to boiling to prep it for adding the Liquid Malt Extract.

There's a lot of different recipes for making beer, ranging in complexity from a big jug you boil then ferment, to intermediate formulas such as this with both grains and Liquid Malt Extract, to the most complex and traditional brews involving all dry ingredients combined properly. There's a million paths to a fine beverage. It's only natural to leave the most complex portions to later brewing attempts, so that is why my brew is intermediate. This LME stuff is thick and syrupy, so make sure to stir to keep it from settling on the bottom and getting burnt.

My lovely assistant's mom, AKA my wife, even joins in on the fun. We used hot water make sure to wash out every drop of the malt extract. Not pictured: Thick bready smell, like bread pudding or dough. Our mixture is now officially the Wert, pronounced "Wort", which is just a term for the liquid containing all the sugars from the malted barley that will be fermented into delicious alcohol by the hard-working yeast.

Hops are a flowering herb native to Europe used to give most beers their particular flavors. I'm sure there's a long path from the natural flowers to these freaky green pellets that smell pretty much exactly how they look. These go into another mesh bag to boil for 60 minutes, which extracts the resins we want in our wert. Hops also has natural antimicrobial qualities that will help stave off any bacteria that may find their way into the wert after the boil.

Not shown: Vigorous boiling

Make sure to save the crystallized hop ring that forms around your wert during the boil, it makes for a delicious candy.

The real star of the show is my redneck wert chiller, which amounts to 50' of 1/4" copper coil soldered into a sort of helix and hooked up to a convenient water source. Make sure if you use a wert chiller to stick it in the wert for a good 15-20 minutes of boiling first, to kill any bacteria present on the chiller. If you don't use a wert chiller there's other methods, like using ice to top up your wert to the 5 gallon mark or sticking the brew in an ice-filled sink. These methods are slower, however, and the longer between the end of the boil and putting your brew in the fermenter the more likely it is to get contaminated. Good luck!

I have clear plastic tubing making the connection between copper coils and garden hose.

The source of my cooling water. This was extremely effective. The copper coils were so cold vapor was condensing on the cold side, and the hot discharge end of the coils was too warm to touch. The whole process took about 10 minutes, much faster than any other cooling method.

Boiling will naturally remove all the gases in solution which is bad since our yeast needs oxygen to perform the fermentation process. I got things aerated again by pouring the brew into the fermenting bucket. There are fancy air pump systems you can use to aerate your fermenter, but that seems like one more way to introduce contamination to me.

Plenty of bubbles to get that much-needed oxygen back into my wert. 

I opted for a liquid yeast vial, which is much simpler than dry yeasts that have to be revived prior to use. This just stays in the refrigerator until 3-6 hours before use, then shake it up and pour it into the wert.

Not shown: sanitizing the outside of the yeast vial. Because I didn't.

Now you cap the bucket, install the (sanitized) airlock which lets the CO2 byproduct of the fermenting process vent off, and wait about 2 weeks for the fermentation process to finish. You can either leave it in this bucket for the full 2 weeks or transfer it about halfway through which helps filter out the unwanted sediment that is also a natural byproduct of brewing. Take regular hydrometer readings to keep track of the fermentation process, since as the yeast turns the sugar into alcohol the density will increase. Now is also a good time to take a baseline hydrometer reading.

Stay tuned for updates on my brewing progress. The next milestone is bottling day, which will be at least two weeks from now, depending on the fermentation progress.

Move on to Part 2

Move on to Part 3

Comments

[Bree]

Awesomeness love your assistants lol