Good evening! We're 24 hours into brewing our first batch of beer!!!! We're making 5 gallons of a deliciously hoppy India Pale Ale at the moment. Some pics of the boiling/cooling process below.
I'm hoping this will be the first of many posts on this amazing, entertaining and already fulfilling hobby! About a month ago, I attended a Brew Science evening at COSI here in Columbus where a lot of local homebrewers came together to teach, compete and of course drink some beer. This was a wonderful experience! We met some semi-pro and professional brewers out on the main floor at COSI. Had some tasty brew and received an education on the subject of Homebrewing. What a great time. Also had the pleasure of going to a brewing session on November 7th, 2009 which was National Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day. That was a blast. We got to taste some extremely fresh Winter Bock and talk to many a homebrewer. I learned a few things about mashing, about bottling in kegs versus bottles and why not to use growlers like I'd hoped. Great time! The guys over at SODZ are a bunch of great teachers and patient listeners!
As I mentioned, I've only officially been a zymurgyst for 24 hours, and I can already tell it's going to be a wonderful hobby. The house smelled of hops and rich grains for the whole boil and was quite aromatic. The family really enjoyed it. I'm hoping my yield will be palatable enough to give as christmas gifts. I've saved my notes and recipe in case I wanna repeat! We'll see...
In the meantime... be kind, tell the truth, and drink good beer!
Cheers, everyone!
Ed VW
All my ingredients and suppies, ready for brew day, except for my sipon. Will show up later...
Steeping the specialty grains, just like tea...
Here, all the liquid malt extract and dry malt extract has been added...
First hop addition for bittering....
Stirring up the delicious hops. Very aromatic!
Final aroma hops added in the last five minutes, along with my special ingredient!
Hops have fully integrated into the boil....
Here is my chill station, as close to the boil as possible. Want to make sure this is chilled asap...
Here is the fully chilled wort after about 1 hour in the frigid sink.... After this I siphoned into the primary fermenter right there in the kitchen...
And here is the wort sitting in the fermenter in our basement! Some other EQ in the background... bottling bucket, carboy and a growler I may use when travelling.
Here are about 50 sanitized caps, ready for battle.
Boiled my priming sugar (5 oz. in 2 cups water)
Here is my bottling station. The tray with papertowels has my caps, bottling hose and wand... 
About halfway through the siphoning from secondary fermenter to bottling bucket. Giddyup.
And here is my yield. 45 12 oz bottles and 2 22 oz bottles. After it's all said and done, my batch cost about $0.98 per bottle. Not too shabby for what should be a tasty, high abv IPA.
Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout, Rogue Hazelnut Nectar, Santa's Butt and Samuel Adams Holiday Porter.
Here are quite a few bottles I've been collecting here and there. We've got awhile yet, but getting a few ready at a time makes for an easier task than having to peel/clean off labels 50+ times in one day!
Here we are 4 days of fermenting in the primary. We had bubbling in the airlock very quickly after we pitched our yeast, and it slowed way down to about every 45 seconds. Per the recommended procedures in my kit, I elected to transfer to the secondary...
I took my original gravity on brew day 11/29 and this is a pic of me taking my SG, or specific gravity. Things are right on track!
Siphoning from primary to secondary, moving cleanly and quickly to make sure no outside microbes or anything bad gets into the brew... Was pretty easy to keep things clean I thought. We'll see how the finished product reflects that!
Here is the bottom of the primary fermenter. That's spent yeast cells and proteins at the bottom... The use of a secondary helps deter this bi-product from integrating into the brew.
Here is the IPA with a nice amber hue after 24 hours in the secondary... Coincidentally, this carboy and airlock were used by my wife's Grandfather in making various types of wine. Very cool!
This is a view from the top. A few CO2 surface bubbling, indicating that there is still a bit of fermenting going on. Per instructions in my kit, this is right where we want to be!
Here is a view of even more sediment collecting in the secondary. No harm in this, as it's exactly what happened in the primary. All we did was transfer from one vessel to another to help with pure flavors and clarity. Our next step will be transferring this into our bottling bucket, bottling and capping. It may not sound like a great time, but I'm having a blast learning all of this stuff!
All my ingredients and suppies, ready for brew day, except for my sipon. Will show up later...
Steeping the specialty grains, just like tea...
Here, all the liquid malt extract and dry malt extract has been added...
First hop addition for bittering....
Stirring up the delicious hops. Very aromatic!
Final aroma hops added in the last five minutes, along with my special ingredient!
Hops have fully integrated into the boil....
Here is my chill station, as close to the boil as possible. Want to make sure this is chilled asap...
Here is the fully chilled wort after about 1 hour in the frigid sink.... After this I siphoned into the primary fermenter right there in the kitchen...
And here is the wort sitting in the fermenter in our basement! Some other EQ in the background... bottling bucket, carboy and a growler I may use when travelling.
