What's Brewing in 2015

With the new year comes new adventure. Maybe it’s that millennial DIY spirit, or maybe it’s the environmentalist love of everything homegrown and handmade, or maybe it’s my St. Louis-born appreciation of good beer—whatever the inspiration, this year’s newest adventure is… home-brewing! Colin and I bought a kit and ingredients, and I attended a class at the local grocery/garden shop. And we have, of course, done our fair share of brewery tours and tastings. I think that qualifies us as well as anyone.

Ready, set, brew!

To be honest, I’m a little nervous. Brewers are always talking about how critically important it is to sanitize everything at the risk of ruining your beer. The class I attended last week began with a former home-brewer/now professional brewer talking about his early failed attempts. He began brewing in college and said it took him about 10 tries to get a beer that he really liked. Since each batch makes approximately 50 beers, that’s 500 beers until he got a good one! So, if our first batch turns out badly, you’re all invited over for beer-battered onion rings and beer-marinated pulled pork, or anything else you can think of that requires a large amount of mediocre beer.

Speaking of which, right now that possibly-mediocre, hopefully-impressive first batch of beer is slowly carbonating in its Ale Pail in Colin’s apartment. It’s an American amber, which is supposedly easy to make and tasty to drink. Nevertheless, Colin and I are wracking up the reasons why this beer may not be as good as we hoped:

1. Apparently neither of us knew how to read our hydrometer, and we added an extra half-gallon or so of water to our wort. I’m not really sure what the prognosis is. Best case: takes longer to reach desired final alcohol content but gets there in the end. Another case: slightly lower alcohol content but still tasty. Worst case: the Ale Pail lid flies off under the added pressure, and we have to scrub beer off Colin’s ceiling. We’re crossing our fingers for either of the first two. (To our credit, the hydrometer included in our kit starts with 1.000, then the next marked line says 10, then 20, etc. So we logically assumed that translated to 1.010, 1.020, etc. Turns out it actually translates to 1.1, 1.2, etc. Why the manufacturers thought it was a good idea to switch between numerical scales, we have no idea. But now we know.)
2. We just can’t get the temperature right. We decided not to brew in Cambridge because I have no control over my heat, and the temperature generally stays around 75. That’s at the very top of the acceptable range for our yeast. Once we got things set up in New Haven, though, we discovered that Colin’s old, drafty apartment just won’t get warmer than 65, even right next to the heating vents—and that is the very lowest point of the acceptable range for our yeast.
3. Our kit was missing the fabric bag intended to keep the grain contained while boiling (like a giant tea bag). We didn’t realize this until the weekend, and then, rather than wait another two weeks until I could come back to New Haven to start brewing, we decided to try using a mesh bag that Colin had lying around the house. Of all the reasons our beer might not turn out, this is the least worrying. Still, we’re going to call the manufacturer to complain and blame it on them if this batch fails. It’s always nice to have a scapegoat, right?

So, okay, we messed up a few things. Still, I’m excited! The process was much simpler than I was afraid, and we will definitely do it again in the future. And, to facilitate that, you should all come over and drink beer (if it’s good) or eat pulled pork and onion rings (if it’s bad) in six weeks.

Two weeks ’til bottling day. Six weeks ’til tasting day. I’ll let you know how it goes.

From water to wort.

Cooling the wort before transferring it to the fermenter.

First batch brewed!