Helping Mom With the Brewing

helping mom, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

I'm brewing again because I desparately need a hobby.

A couple of weeks ago I did a quick inventory of my brewing equipment. I still had a couple of plastic bucket fermenters but decided to replace them because they have been used storing all sorts of fun lawn or pool chemicals for the last 3 years. I went online and I found the best of both worlds - a plastic carboy that will hold 6 gallons. I had a 6.5 gallon glass carboy that my husband broke - he denies it but I *know* it was him so I bought a bucket, and I hated it because I couldn't see what was going on during fermentation. See photo - top left for what a carboy is.

So I bought this new plastic carboy -lightweight and unbreakable, and I can peek in at what is going on without having to take the lid off.

I bought a buttload of new stuff just because, including a new hydrometer, 2 freezer thermometers, and a digital cook thermometer. I also bought a new wort chiller because my old one looks like someone sat on it and I'm not into wasting time trying to work the kinks out of copper tubing.

I should remember to order my yeast separately because even though all my supplies arrived 2 days after I ordered it, my big box o' stuff rode around in an UPS delivery truck all day and my *live* yeast pack was decidedly warm.

Still I worried for nothing. This live yeast pack comes with an inner pack of yeast nutrients. You smack the pack, the nutrient pack breaks, and you wait 3 hours and the pack should start to swell with activity. Mine swelled just fine.

My first job was washing everything real well, including scrubbing my old aluminum cook kettle. It took me 2 and a half hours to get that thing presentable. I was also soaking everything in a bleach solution (tubing, racking cane, funnel, stirring spoon) in one of my old fermenting buckets. I then set up a siphon from the old bucket to my new see-through carboy and Brenden decided he was completely fascinated with siphons. He, my kitchen floor, and 6-8 towels were sanitized along with all of my brewing gear (it was 1tbsp clorox to 5 gallons of water. I wasn't afraid of B poisoning himself).

I waited until the evening to actually do the boil. Having Monkey-boy gallavanting around me while I'm trying to boil 5 gallons of sugar water on a propane burner is not my idea of safe brewing. Once el jefe was safely tucked away in his crib I fired her up and got a 5-gallon batch of Irish Red ale a boiling.

I chose Irish Red because it's one of my favorites- I think I have made 1 batch of Irish Red for every 3 batches of beer I've ever brewed (American Cream Ale is my next favorite). I'm very comfortable with making this even if I did get a lot of malted barley grain all over my kitchen when I opened the bag too fast.

Anyway I got hammered while drinking Sam Adams but still managed to get the hops into the wort (the sugar water), the wort boiled, then cooled, then transferred to the carboy without mishap. I pitched the yeast, threw the stopper with the airlock on and put it in my keg freezer at a comfy 68 degrees. Then I stumbled to bed after making sure I at least washed everything enough to get the sugar off.

The next day I peek into the freezer and see a nice head of foam on the wort (that was some perky yeast! Usually it takes about 24 hours to see that much activity), but oddly the airlock isn't burbling - I won't go into detail, but the airlock is designed to let co2 escape during fermentation but not allow other gasses / bugs / critters in. It should bubble with yeast activity like that.

I figure out I forgot a vital part of the airlock when I was assembling everything the night before. I found it, rinsed it off in peach-flavored Vodka (about the only thing that crap is good for) and put it in the airlock. Bubbles ahoy. Now I just hope no bugs or critters got in while this part was missing.

I'm going to bottle this batch - it will probably give me the incentive to get off my butt and clean and sanitize my corny kegs, and get my co2 bottles filled because bottling is a pain in the butt. I was disgruntled to find out my 16 ounce flip-top bottles(think Grolsh bottles) had disappeared because they made bottling just a touch easier.

Next up: I'll probably do a cream ale and keg it, then I think I'll try something more ambitious. I'm thinking an India Pale Ale (lots of hops + a high gravity brew - high gravity means there's a wagonload of malt sugar in the wort therefore lots of alcohol).

Someday I want to move from extract brewing to all-grain brewing. Brenden will definitely have to be older because that takes a full day, from mashing the grains (not what it sounds like) to pitching the yeast.

Next time I brew I'll take photos so you all will know what the hell I'm talking about.