Weizenbeer

I started the next batch about a week and a half ago. This one is a hefeweizen, a light-colored wheat beer made from wheat instead of barley. Here is the mixture I used.

When this picture was taken, I had just cleaned the utensils and keg and was about to start boiling corn starch in water. After that, I took the pot off the heat and added hopped malt extract (thick mixture of malted barley and hops). To that, I added yeast in cold water and left the keg to sit for two weeks while the beer ferments.

The glass of stout was only tangentially involved.

 

Golden Ale

The first batch of homebrewed beer, the golden ale, was finally ready about three weeks ago. What's interesting about it was that there was no "aha" moment where it became beer instead of some combination of yeast, grain, and corn syrup. Instead, it started off as a failure of a beer, no head, very little carbonation - in two words, Ice House.

Thankfully, I only put one bottle in the fridge at a time. A couple of days later, I put took the next bottle out of the fridge, and it was somewhat better. It's been like that - a bit better each day - and now I'm down to the last one from the batch.

I started the next batch, a stout, about a week after I bottled the ale. Stout is more my speed (and my description - ha, beat you to it). More about that later, with less waiting since it has a head start. I just need to finish the last ale so I can put the stout in the bottles.

First Batch, Phase Two

My first batch of homebrewed beer was finally fermented and ready to carbonate today. After I cleaned out the bottles, I drained the keg into the bottles with some extra sugar. While the yeast eats the sugar over the next week or two, CO2 will be trapped in the bottle, carbonating it. Here's to the next step. Right now it tastes like flat beer, which is pretty much what it is.

No Bottling Today

The yeast is still working on the wort. Better to wait until it's clear before bottling it. So that means no home-brewed beer when my in-laws visit next weekend. :-(

Home Brewing

My in-laws got me a beer-making kit from Mr. Beer. I've been reading up on brewing while my first cask ferments. I thought I would start with one of the "easier" ones that came with the kit, a Blonde Ale. The steps are to make "wort," which is the sugary stuff that yeast eats first. Wort is a combination of barley seeds (or wheat, etc.) that has been allowed to sprout partway (this is called malting) mixed with hops, then to add the yeast. The yeast eats the wort and makes alcohol and CO2. During fermenting, the CO2 is released through small holes in the cask.

Soon-to-be Golden Ale fermenting

Then after a week or two (ideally two but I'm on a deadline), I'll transfer the beer into bottles and add sugar. The bottles don't have holes in them, so the CO2 the yeast makes when it eats the sugor will stay in the beer, carbonating it. It'd be better to give the whole process a month or so, but I'm hoping to have the first batch ready when my in-laws visit next weekend, so I'll bottle it tonight.