Brew day English Brown Ale

Here's all the ingredients to make beer. I just need to add water. I used tap water. Next time, I might buy bottled water. 

Here's the dry malt extracts. 

This sock full of malts is soaked in water for about twenty minutes. Once that's done, the liquid is called wort. 

The beginning of the steeping. Let the water turn to wort!

Selfie with the malt sock. I had to hold it while it drained and that took forever!

Next, I started the boiling portion which toon a total of 60 minutes to complete. 

Dry malt extract is added to the boiling water. 

Liquid malt extract is added next and then the wort is brought back to a rolling boil. 

Three different hops were used for this beer. After the book was over, I had to chill the wort as quickly as possible. This time I used ice in the tub with water. It was faster this time. I think my thermometer died. It got stuck on 80 degrees. I needed to bring the wort to 70. After I decided it was stuck, I transferred the wort to the fermenter. (I didn't lift the 2.5 gallons, my muscle di,d aka husband.)

Here is the beer before I pitched the yeast. 

Here is the yeast. 

Here is the yeast on top of the wort (is it still called wort at this point, because I'm not totally sure.)

Here is the air lock. Over the next 4 to 6 days, I will be monitoring the fermentation process and logging it on my blog. The goal is to bottle on Sunday. The instructions indicated that I need to wait 48 hours after the yeast is finished.

After all that, I got a beer at TapWerks. Now I'm pooped. 

Beer will be brewed

I've been going through my equipment, taking stock of what I have and what I need. 

This is the all important kettle for boiling the water and wort. Wort is hops and water combined. All of this learning about brewing beer has me so excited!

These are the food grade buckets. One will act as a fermenter and the other will be used on bottling day. There's a lid for the fermenter. Fermentation will take about a week.

The important ingredients include the malt extract (I've learned that what I bought was an extract kit and it must get this name from the malt extract). The hops come next and the final step will be to pitch the yeast. I hope the yeast is hungry and eats all the yummy hops I'll be providing. The instructions say this is an easy kit. I hope so. I'll brew by myself and maybe bottle by myself. Things I'm missing:thermometer and hydrometer. I'm also trying to figure out how to use my sanitizer. I have a powder that needs to be mixed with hot water.

Future posts include, TV, Picasso Cafe veggie dinner and Sandals reunion week. I have so many photos to get to from Antigua! In other news, Prickly Pete has come to live on our front porch. We let the winter kill the last cactus. Why not try again?