The Homebrew Experiment

On Saturday, May 19th, 2007 I brewed my first beer. And let me correct myself, when I say brew I mean the first stage, not the entire process.

I live in a condominium which runs off of a very large well system. The water has a lot of chlorine, in fact when I shower I often come out smelling of chlorine. One thing I have learned is that a little chlorine is ok but alot is bad news for beer. I purchased 5 gallons of Deer Park water from the grocery store which ended up costing me about $7.50.

For my first time, I was extremely nervous. I didn’t want to make any mistakes, I read and re-read the directions. I placed the crystal malt in a mesh sock in 1.5 gallons of water and brought to a boil. Once boiling, I turned off the heat and allowed to steep for 5 min. Then I added the malt extract, the water crystals (to purify and doctor the water), and the hops. In this case the kit came with about an ounce of pelltized Cascade hops, (cascade is the type).

I was most worried about sterializing the main fermenter because it’s so big and I don’t really have a nice big sink, so I had to use the tub. I cleaned it out, then sterialized it using C-Brite. When I washed it of the C-Brite I couldn’t get the chemical odor away no matter how I brushed and scrubbed. We’ll see if it has an effect on the beer.

I then cooled my wort (the word for beer before fermentation, pronounced wert) for about 15 min then added it to 3.5 gallons of cooled water in the fermenter. I pitched the yeast, took a specfic gravity reading with my hydrometer and then capped the lid, placed the seal, and set it aside.

Then I cleaned for about 30 min. It really wasn’t hard but there was a lot of stuff to sterialize. My fiance was complaining of the smell while cooking the wort so I wanted to make sure I cleaned it all up as much as possible.

To plug beer-wine.com for a second, they boasted of users being able to call during the beer making process to ask questions so I gave it a whirl. I asked two questions.

1. Can I put the thermometer and the hydrometer in the dish washer?
2. Is it ok to remove the lid for future hydrometer readings?

The first answer was NO, the measuring tools will break if you put them in the washing machine. And to the second question I was told it is ok to remove the lid because the beer forms a layer of CO₂ which covers and protects the beer from oxygen. I was impressed, very polite and very nice.

Hopefully, stage 2 and bottling are as easy.