Brewing

So, our first batch of beer is officially done! YAY! As you can tell through previous posts, it was a long process, but it's so much fun. AND at the end of the process we get to drink beer that WE made. Pretty cool :D 

To summarize our adventure:

First we actually brewed the beer. This was about a 3+ hour process. We had to brew the grains, add the malt extract, then brew the bittering hops, then the aroma hops. That took a few hours. Afterwards, we had to cool the beer (at this stage it's called wort) as fast as we could. The faster you do it, the less chance there is of it getting contaminated. We put it in the sink and throw ice around it and stir it until it cools. Usually takes about 30 minutes. Then all of it goes into the fermenting container. Then we reactivate the yeast and add it to the wort, take a measurement of the alcohol content, put the lid on it and wait for about 2 weeks. The yeast will turn the wort into beer.

After the two weeks is up, we siphon the beer out of bucket and into the bottling bucket. We add a sugar mixture to it, stir, and then bottle! Then you let the bottles sit for about 2-4 weeks to carbonate. Then enjoy! 

Brewing...

 Siphoning it to the bottling bucket

Into the bottles...

  Our first bottle!

First taste!

Obviously, there are a lot of details I left out- but that's the gist! The first we just finished is an Autumn Amber Ale- it's quite delicious. The longer it sits, the better it tastes too. I'm not sure if we let it carbonate for long enough? Anyway, it's yummy and ours! We haven't named it yet- but hopefully we will soon. We are bad at naming things! haha

YAY! Our next one is a Honey Bee Ale (we like ales, what can I say?)