FIRST BATCH!

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.