Inspired by JM’s successful first homebrew, I gathered my resources for my own first brew. I read and re-read howtobrew.com, gathered and acquired a few household odds and ends (a 1L measuring cup, a stainless steel colander, a 16L canning pot turned brew kettle), and readied myself for either the shame of defeat or the glory of victory. I was going to brew some beer!
As you can see from my first ever Dan’s Homebrewing Supplies receipt, Nadine and I went to Dan’s at around noon on October 22, 2016. My life would never be the same again.
After explaining to the mildly hung-over clerk that I wanted a glass carboy start up kit, he asked me about my brewing experience and beer preferences. I explained that I had been reading a lot about homebrewing, that I had sat in on a couple of brews, and that I wanted to begin with a malt extract brew. He seemed satisfied with that information and handed me a phone book sized tome of beer recipes. Immediately overwhelmed, I thumbed my way through the giant recipe book until I found the malt extract recipes. There were so many types of beer! Everything from saisons to lagers, porters and stouts, and all of the hues of ale: pale, red, brown, and more! I settled on what seemed like a simple Irish Red ale.
This is the recipe, straight from the Dan’s Homebrewing website
IrishRed Ale O.G. 1.055 – 1.058
8.5 lbs Pale Malt Extract
.5 lb Carapils Malt
.35 lb Crystal Malt
.25 lb Wheat Malt
.15 lb Roast Barley Malt
12 AAU –Magnum (0.75 oz) – Boil 1 hr
.9 oz –Cascade/Mt. Hood – Finish
Ale Yeast
A creamy, malty red ale, nicely balanced but not overpowered by a refreshing hop snap.
The clerk accepted my decision with a brief nod of his head and we went to work finding the requisite grains. He weighed the various roasts of barley and the wheat and ran it through their mill, collecting it all together in a clear plastic bag. It looked like some kind of raw, multigrain porridge mix.
I bought hops and yeast as well, opting for the Mt. Hood finishing hops on Nadine’s recommendation. She told me that she seemed to always like beer with Mt. Hood hops in it. In retrospect, we didn’t yet know very much about different hop varieties, but I stand by our decision to choose a slightly less citrus/floral hop in this understated, full-bodied red ale. Dan’s was out of Irish ale yeast, but the clerk recommended an English ale yeast that was fairly subdued. After we went through all of the items in the starter kit, I decided to get a bottle-filler attachment for my siphon hose, but not to get any bottles, bottle caps, or a capper. I had some time before my beer would be ready to bottle, and I was happy to come back again once I had decided what other items I would need.
The next afternoon, I spread my equipment out in my kitchen and living room, estimated how much time and space I would need for brewing, and began the brewing process (as described in a previous post).
- First, I boiled 4L of H2O in a separate pot (not my brew kettle) and set it aside to cool.
- Then I sanitized everything very well. In fact, I misread the instructions on the sanitizing powder and mixed 1 tablespoon into a liter of water, rather than the teaspoon that is recommended. No harm done. Then I soaked everything for twenty minutes. In subsequent brews, I found a five minute soak to be adequate, but again, no harm done. Even though I was using “no-rinse” sanitizer, I rinsed everything with my pre-boiled water. No harm there either, except that I would find myself a bit short of pre-boiled water at the end of the process when I went to top up my primary fermentation bucket.
- Next, I boiled 8L H2O and poured it into the primary fermentation bucket to cool.
- I boiled 1L of H2O in another separate pot and let it cool to 180ºF. Then I steeped the 1.25 lbs of combined, milled grain in this water for thirty to thirty-five minutes, maintaining a temperature between 160-165ºF.
- I filled the brewkettle about halfway with water (approximately 8 L of H2O) and put it on to boil.
- Meanwhile, I filled my sink with hot water and put the plastic tub of malt extract in the water to soften.
- When the water in the brewkettle started boiling, I added the malt extract to it, pouring in what I could, and spooning out the rest with an unnecessarily sanitized spoon (the extract and everything else will get boiled for an hour, killing any harmful bacteria). I then rinsed the plastic tub with hot tap water to get every drop of the sticky, syrupy goodness. I resumed the boil, stirring the extract off of the bottom of the pot to prevent scorching.
- Once the malt extract was dissolved into the boil, I poured the grain tea through my colander into the boiling water and malt extract. This brought the total liquid in my brewkettle up to about 12 L.
- I then sparged the grain in the colander with 1 – 1.5 L cold water. I didn’t realize that I needed to do a hot water sparge (sparge water should be 170-180ºF). The grain was still hot from steeping, and the sparge water came out warm and with a caramel colour, so it likely worked in extracting more of the fermentable sugars from the grains, at least to some degree.
- I then added the .75 oz magnum hops to the rolling boil and looked at the clock to time the 1 hour boil. My notes say that the temperature maxed out at about 214ºF, which is a little bit on the cool side. You want the boil to reach 218-220ºF if possible, at least, that’s my understanding. Most resources simply describe a “rolling boil.” I had also heard many horror stories about sticky, stinky, avoidable boil-overs, so I watched the pot closely for the entire hour. The “hot break” happened quite quickly during the boil. Exactly as described, the hot break is difficult to describe, but I knew it when I saw it. You will too. It really isn’t very exciting, unless you are watching water boil for a few hours, which I was.
- At the 51 minute mark, I added the 0.9 oz of Mt. Hood hops for flavor and aroma.
- As the finishing hops boiled, I filled my kitchen sink with all of my ice and then cold water. At the 60 minute mark of boiling, I removed the brewkettle from the heat and immersed it in my sink. Once the ice was melted and the sink’s water started to grow warm, I ran cold water into my bathtub. I moved the cooling brewkettle from sink to bath, repeatedly, until I got the wort down to 77ºF. 68ºF is an even better temperature to pitch yeast into wort, but after about an hour I grew impatient. 77ºF is a perfectly reasonable temperature to pitch yeast into wort, but you don’t want the wort any warmer than that.
- Before I pitched the yeast, I aggressively poured the wort from my brewkettle into my primary fermentation bucket, sloshing it around a bit as I went. This aerates the wort, which helps the yeast feed, grow, and reproduce. I should have checked the gravity at this time, but I forgot.
- At this point, I noticed that my primary fermentation bucket was a few inches lower than the 23L mark. I had no more pre-boiled water, so I just added a couple liters of cool tap water. This worked fine, but I would rather have used pre-boiled water, just in case.
- Finally, I dumped the yeast onto the surface of the wort, replaced the lid and affixed the airlock, which I filled with Jamieson whisky, one of many sterile liquids that will not allow bacteria into the fermenter.
- 12 hours later (at 4:30am) there was some bubbling in the airlock, a sure sign that the yeast was alive and CO2 was being produced.
- 24 hours after pitching the yeast, the bubbling was nearly constant.
- 72 hours after pitching the yeast, the airlock activity had effectively ceased.
- My notes say that at the 73 hour mark, no airlock activity remained.
- At the 75 hour mark, I racked the beer. If I was to do it over, I would have waited another day or two. As it was, after much spilling, drinking, swearing, and likely not enough sanitizing, the beer had been transferred from the plastic fermentation bucket to the glass carboy, leaving much trub (the sediment left behind by the yeast) in the bottom of the fermentation bucket. I learned that racking the beer (which involves siphoning from one vessel to another) should be done by at least two people, to minimize spillage. The beer tasted juicy and sweet, but not exactly good, as it transferred. In all of the excitement, I forgot to check the gravity again.
Despite the work and time involved, I had a blast brewing my first red ale. Next time, I will tell you all about my first bottling day and more! Until then, go forth and drink beer!
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