PDF That’s right, this is a story about an IPA. The IPA we are talking about is an extract brewkit made by True Brew.
It contained:
Brew Process:
Brewing extract beer really is quite basic, you boil water, steep grains, stir in malt, add the hops, boil for a length of time, stir in more hops, cool the wort quickly, once cooled, add to fermentation device, aerate, pitch yeast, and wait.
That is the basics, but like an good craft there are subtleties to each and every part of this process. Those subtleties are what make this hobby great. Now getting back to Batch #1 : A story about an IPA, this beer being my first time ever, as well as my friend Tony’s, first time ever brewing beer, we weren’t fully aware of all of those previously mentioned subtleties, but did our best to follow the instructions the best we could.
Every tutorial or suggestion started with cleanliness. Cleanliness is the key to a successful brew! So we started by cleaning all of the equipment, the carboy, and brew pot. We then filled the brew pot with 1.5 gallons of filtered water, put it on my backyard propane turkey fryer burner and got cranked up the heat. Once the water came to a boil it was time to turn the heat off and steep the 1lb of Crystal grains. To do this the grains are placed in a mesh disposable bag which is then tied off and placed into the boiling water. Tony and I steeped our grains for about 25 minutes with the heat off. While waiting for the grains, Tony suggested we crack a beer, so I pulled out a La Trappe Quad and some glasses and started our beer.
The 25 minutes are now up and the steeping has completed so out goes the grain and on goes the burner. We need to get that water a bit warmer to help dissolve the LME (liquid malt extract). This stuff is thick and sticky to pour so it is best to peal the labels and wash the can before pouring, they also suggest setting it in some warm water to loosen it up and thin it out a little to make the pouring easier. While I pored the malt, Tony did the stirring doing hos best to not let it stick to the bottom of the pot. Once both cans, a total of 6lbs of amber malt, has dissolved into the water the first set of hops gets tossed in. The first set of hops is known for adding the flavor to the beer, the second set which we will get to later is for the aroma. So the malt and hops are dissolved so it’s time to get the wort boiling and let it boil for 45 minutes. At this point that delicious quad is now a historic event, and it’s time for the next bottle of nectar. Out came Rogues John John Ale.
Do you remember the first thing everyone said about brewing beer, cleanliness yes thats right. Well once that wort is done boiling cleanliness could not be stressed enough. Sanitize everything, I mean everything. The carboy, the funnel, the airlock and the carboy cap. Sanitize everything that is going to come in contact with the wort. Once the wort is done boiling Tony and I removed it from the heat and stuck it into the snow. Cooling the wort quickly comes highly recommended by many home brewers. I also had a small wired thermometer so I put the probe into the wort so we could monitor the temp and know when it was ok to move it to the carboy (yes I sanitized the probe).
While the wort is cooling it’s a good time to fill the carboy full of cooled boiled filtered water. The cooled wort is then poured through the sanitized funnel into the sanitized carboy. I then gave the carboy a good shaking to aerate the wort. Boiling removes air from the water, and the yeast we are about to add require some air to live so there you go. Next we pitch the yeast.
Pitching the yeast is the start of the magic, the science, the fermentation. There are lots of suggestions on how to make a yeast starter and activate the yeast before pitching them. This sounds like a good idea and you know I really was planning on doing it, but Tony and I, well we didn’t. We poured the dry yeast into the carboy and waited about 10 minutes and then gently swished the carboy to mix the yeast a bit. Then capped it off with the sanitized cap, and put the sanitized airlock in the cap, filled the airlock with water and watched. We also thougth ahead and put the carboy in a rubbermaid bin in the case that there might be some over flow from some super happy yeast.
We were done! 3.5 hours after starting, slightly buzzed form the delicious beers we drank, it was time to eat some panko fried shrimp my fiance’ made for us.
