Brewing beer: attempt #4

This is my fourth attempt at brewing beer and my second run at the Blonde Ale. This time I have 8 pounds of liquid malt extract (LME). If you recall, my last attempt was 6.6 pounds and the recipe calls for 8.3 pounds. Apparently, it's not possible to buy the correct amount but 8 is certainly sufficient. 

In steeping the grains, I didn't wait until the proper steeping temperature. I waited until the temp was correct and then steeped it for 20 minutes. No harm, no fowl. 

After steeping the grains, I let the liquid drip out until I was tired of it dripping slowly. 

This stuff is super goopy, kind of like syrup. It smells good! 

Here I am, waiting on the wort to come to a rolling boil. Then my sister called and I couldn't take any more photos. We talked nearly the entire boil, which is 60 minutes long. I through the Willamette hops in at the beginning of the boil and all of the LME.

About 20 minutes before the boil was over, I installed the wort chiller into the kettle. There was so much condensation that came out of it! I don't remember it doing that the last time but it was brand new the last time.

I accidentally turned the garden hose on too high and the seal on the wort chiller appeared to be breached somewhat. Oops. 

Here's the yeast! I lost a little to the ground when I opened up the package. 

As you can see, the yeast is evenly dispersed across the top of the wort (I'm actually not sure if this is considered beer at this point or not.) In approximately two weeks, I will be moving the beer to a secondary fermenter to help clarify it. At that point, I will also introduce pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice. Cheers!

Red Earth Brewers club meeting, October

We had fantastic weather last night and our presentations were held outside of Roughtail Brewing at the picnic tables. 

Fortunately, the presentations were short because loud planes started to fly over. 

Everyone brought beer to share and sample. We also had some people bring snacks. My beer had good reviews from everyone and we drank two bottles of it. 

Empty cans, waiting for beer. 

Me and the new club president. It's great that there are so many women who brew beer!

I walked 2 miles before the club meeting and are a burger and fries. I think that soaked up some of that beer. Happy Friday friends!

Bottling day!

First we sanitized everything and made the priming sugar. That's the stuff that carbonates the beer. 

We had to siphon the beer into the bottling bucket. With a second set of hands, the beer didn't spill on the floor. 

Then I attached the bottling wand and started to fill up the bottles. 

The last step was to cap the bottles. 

Finally, we will wait 2 and a half weeks until the next Red Earth Brewers club meeting. I will be sharing this beer and hopefully, entering in the club's contest. 

Beer watch: day 1

The closet smells like beer and the yeast is feasting on all the sugars I've prepared. 

It's more active than the last batch and it's very exciting. If all goes to plan, bottling will be on Sunday. 

In other news, my knee still hurts and it was likely a bad idea to run this morning. I ran at my slowest pace and I stretched a lot before and after. 

Chomps decided not to pose for me but I took the pic anyways. 

I'm still enjoying making the instagrams with the verse in it. It's something I look forward to doing every day. Although, I assume I'll run out of photos. 

In closing, I am considering a new name for the blog. Something to do with beer, because I plan on making that my brewery's name too. Perhaps beer and running would be appropriate. I don't want to sound like the crazy cat lady but incorporating cats or kitties would be cool too. Brainstorming will commence tomorrow. 

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. 

Red Earth Brewers Club Meeting Recap

First I had to run Pack Pint over at Red Coyote. Then I zipped over to the club meeting. 

I got some great pics of the meeting and beer. 

I swooned over the cheese. 

Selfie pics with my friends. 

We were at Capital Distributing and they were sampling this beer. It was good!

I brought one 12 ounce bottle of Sands beer from the Bahamas and I kept the bottle cap. There is a future post on Bahamian beer brewing in my mind. 

On the left is John Ment of Ment apparel and he designed the club's shirts. He designed both of these shirts (I think, for sure the beer is OK is his design.)

Down to business. We voted for new board members. There's a new President, Vice President, members at large and treasurer. 

Check out my free swag from the beer Grandstand Home Brew scholarship that the club won!

Cheers!

These guys are part of new brewery called Vanessa House. They're just getting started but you can check them out on Facebook. 

Lastly from August's club meeting, I got these nuts to try from Healthy Cravings. It's yummy and Picasso cafe serves them at the bar. Thanks Matt for giving me the samples!