Beer Hiatus

So now the beer is bottled and I have to wait four weeks to try it.  This is the downside to this hobby.  No instant gratification.

I did taste the beer as I bottled it.  It's similar to other microbrews that I've tried.  I'll take it to the next Berks Homebrew Club meeting and see what  feedback I get.

In the meantime, I'm drinking as much microbrew as I can, to get empty bottles for my next batch.

It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

What's Brewing?

Well, I finally started my first brew.  It's in the primary fermenter now.  Somewhere around Friday, I'll move it to the secondary fermenter.

I decided to start small for this first brew and made an extract kit of Full Sail Amber Ale that I ordered from Austin Homebrew Supply.

I did have to steep some specialty grains in addition to boiling the malt extract and hops, so it was more than just a boil, but not a lot more.  By the end of an hour, I had 2 gallons of wort (non yeasted liquid)

Due to lack of equipment, I used a 2 gallon spaghetti pot for the grains and the extract boil, then diluted it with water in the fermenter.  To chill down the wort, I made up some sanitized ice bricks in some freezer containers the night before and then added them to the water before adding the wort.

To aerate the wort, I attached my DAN (scuba) oxygen bottle to a 6 inch aquarium stone and let the oxygen bubble through the wort.  I used my large wooden stirring paddle to keep the wort moving over the stone.

Next week, I'll publish an update and in a month, a full report including brew club feed back.