First things first

I've always thought that home brewing beer would be fun. I like the idea that billions of tiny creatures can eat sugar and leave behind some tasty beer.

My first taste of homemade beer was when I was pretty young, maybe 7 or 8 years old. My aunt and her boyfriend made beer and think I might have tried it. I remember being fascinated by the bottle cap machine more then anything though. Next was some home made beer in high school that my friend Greg had. Honestly I can't recall if it was good or not. Besides, at that time craft brew was just getting popular and I had no concept of what good beer really was. I was drinking Micky's Big Mouth and Little King with my friends at parties. Sierra Nevada was just getting big in the late 80's and it wasn't until I was 21 (in '92) that I started drinking "good" beer with any kind of regularity. I personally don't care for Sierra Nevada beer these days, you have to give them credit for helping to spark a revolution in beer. Hurrah for the 90's! It would be quite some time before I would sample another homemade beer. That being a Porter my Uncle made, and more recently, a Jamacian stout (I think) that my cousin Colin made. It was very tasty and pretty strong. That experience in particular, lead me to where I find myself tonite, about to try and make beer.

Over the past few weeks I have been collecting the thing I would need to brew beer. I don't have an adequate kitchen for large pot cooking, so I acquired a turkey fryer burner from my uncle, along with a pot, a glass primary carboy, a racking cane, and Starsan. I picked up a Belgian kit from the local beer supply store, and I got a secondary fermentor (a plastic carboy), some hose for the siphon, as well as some extra ingredients. Finally I went and got a large 20 gallon Sterlite storage bin to use as a cleaning solution bath, for cooling the wort, and eventually for storing my beer making gear. I like minimizing my expense and gear dependence. I had been putting off starting my brew, but finally I activated my yeast pack with the intention of creating a deadline I could not ignore or put off. I had no choice but to start brewing.

It has only been in the last 6 years or so that I have learned to really appreciate beer. It began when I moved back to Santa Rosa and went to lunch with my good friend Jason. He took me to this new place called Russian River Brewing Company. It was a pretty quiet place, and they had close to 20 different beers on tap. All made in house. Working my way down that list of beers is a great analogy for how my appreciation of good beer has developed. Since then I've tried nearly every new beer I see at the local bottle shops and tap rooms. I definitely have a preference for Belgian ales, but I have yet to meet a craft beer that I really didn't like.

Day 1 - How to feed your yeast a tasty treat.

Ok, so all the gear is ready. I've cleaned everything, sanitized everything. I have my sanitizing bath ready for spot use, and the propane tank has enough fuel for a few hours of burn.

I am basically following the instructions that came with the kit, with some minor variations based on things I've read by John Palmer, and some random Youtube videos. The yeast pack has expanded and is ready to go, and I'm starting my initial boil.

First I have to extract the malt from the pack of Brewer's Barley that came with the kit. Its kinda like making tea. Everything goes fine, but I may have steeped it at too high a temperature. It doesn't seem to have burned or been adversely affected so I'm going to keep it.

Ok next I'm bring the water to a boil and adding my malt extracts and belgian sugar. Lots of stirring and a 10 minute battle to ward off overboil. Eventually the mix settles down and I can bring the temp up to get a nice vigorous boil.

At 30 minutes I had my fist set of bittering hops. Stir, stir, all is well.

At 45 Mins I add the second set of bittering hops.

At 50ish minutes I had another packet of hops I choose for hopefully a nice strong hoppy finish as well as some Irish Moss.

At 60 minutes all seems well. I begin to prepare my cooling bath. I have an 18 gallon tub that is filled with water and tilted slightly. I settle my covered pot in the bath and run cold water through for about 20 mins, at 5 min intervals. I manage to get it cool pretty quick.

Now I siphon my wort into my primary fermentor. Once its all in there I aerate it for a while.

Now the final step, I add my critters to the wort.

The cap for my fermentor is a tad to big and doesn't fit. Fortunately the fermentor came with a older cap that fits. I sanitize it and slap it on. However the airlock doesn't want to fit in the hole. I quickly sanitize my scissors and cut part of the top of the opening off making it a bit bigger. The airlock now fits, though quite snugly (probably a good thing).

I move the carboy to its prepared cabinet, which so far has held a pretty constant 68F, just the right temp for this yeast.

Now, we wait...