Batch #5 - Arctic Blast Porter

A big snowstorm was headed to Portland (or as the local news dubbed it, an "Arctic Blast"), so I decided to brew up a nice dark porter. This is my second all-grain batch and first porter.

First, I boiled 6.5 gallons of tap water and let it cool. The guy at the brew shop told me that Portland has very soft water - so I added 2 tsp of Gypsum salt to the water. Also heated up 3.5 gallons of sparge water.

Grain Bill

9 lbs American 2 Row
.5 lbs Caramel 80
.5 lbs Domestic Chocolate Malt 350L
1 lb Domestic Munich Malt 10L
.25 lb British Black Malt 500L

Once my water had cooled to 170, I mixed it into my cooler/mash tun with the grain. I gave it a stir every 15 minutes or so and it maintained 154 degrees for an hour.

Next I drained the wort into the boil pot and started sparging. I did the sparge a little different this time, trying to "sprinkle" the water onto the grains rather than pour it in. Once I had 6 gallons of wort - I started heating it up. After boil and hotbreak, I started adding hops -

Hop Schedule

.5 oz Amarillo 60 min
.25 oz Tettnanger
1/2 tsp Irish Moss

.5 oz Tettnanger 40 min

.5 oz Fuggles 10 min

.5 oz Fuggles knockout

After the boil - I chilled to 70 and poured into the fermenter. The gravity was 1.040 at 70 degrees. Not as I high as I had hoped, but not terrible.

I pitched the yeast (WY1028XL). And let it sit for the next 25 days.

After 14 days, the gravity was 1.022.

At bottling, the gravity had dropped to 1.010.

For bottling, I primed with 2.75 oz of a mixture of cane and corn sugar. The beer tasted amazing at bottling - by far the best one I've made. I can't wait to taste the finished product.

Yeild was 25 22oz bottles, 2 17 oz bottles and 1 12 oz bottle. According to the recipator - ABV is only about 4%. Next time I will try to get my mash tun efficiency up, which will bring up my original gravity and ABV.

Batch #4 - dryhopped and bottled

Last night I bottled the all grain ale. It smelled amazing and was by far the best tasting batch prior to bottling. The final gravity was 1.009.

I didn't update previously - but it was in the primary fermenter for 10 days. Then I transferred to a secondary fermenter and dry hopped with 1.5 oz of cascade hops. Gravity at transfer was about 1.014.

It stayed in the secondary for another 10 days before bottling. I added 1/2 cup of corn sugar at bottling. Yield was 21 22oz bottles and 6 12oz bottles.

Batch #4 - Ale - all-grain

With my new mash/lauter tun in hand, I'm ready to try an all-grain batch. I wasn't planning to buy ingredients when I went to the store, but after learning how easy it would be, I decided to pick up some grain. I really had no idea what I was going to brew and had no recipe. I knew that I needed roughly 2 lbs of grain for every gallon of beer. With that in mind, I sifted through 50 varieties of grain. In the end, here is my grain bill -

4.5 lbs Marris Otter malt
4.5 lbs Gambrinus pale malt
1 lb Extra Special British malt
1 lb Medium Crystal malt (40L)

I got an extra pound because I figured that my extraction rate (i.e., my efficiency in extracting fermentable sugar from the grain when mashing) would be low. You can compensate for low extraction rates by using more grain.

My grain selections were on the pale side (I think), so I decided to go with a pale ale again. I picked up 2oz of Chinook hops, 2oz of Cascade hops, 4 oz of Amarillo hops and liquid yeast (California ale). I also used 10 gallons of bottled spring water.

THE MASH

First step, heat up 6 gallons of water to 160. Then I poured the water into the mash tun and added the 11 lbs of crushed grain. I debated whether to mix the water into the grain or the grain into the water, for unknown reasons, I went with the latter option. I was trying to hit a temperature of 152.

After stirring a few times, the temperature stabilized at 152. I then let it sit for 60 minutes, stirring and monitoring the temp every 15 minutes. I only lost about 1 degree over the hour.

In the meantime, I was heating up the sparge water to 170 (about 3 gallons).

After the 60 minutes, I recirculated a few times and then drained into the brewpot. Then I started pouring in the sparge water at the back end of the cooler. I let that sit for 15 minutes, then drained. Not sure if I did this correctly. My sparge drained real fast (less than 5 min). Afterwards, I read that sparging could take up to an hour. Oh well, I drained until I hit 6.5 gallons in the brewpot.

Next I took a gravity reading - 1.032 at 142 degrees. I haven't done the math yet - but I think that was pretty low. Definitely lower than I wanted.

Next I boiled the wort until it hit the hotbreak (i.e., after the foam subsides). Here is my hopping schedule:

60 min 1.5 oz Chinook (12.6 aau)
30 min .5 oz Chinook
5 min 1 oz Amarillo
knockout 1 oz Amarillo

Also added 1/2 tsp Irish Moss with the first hops.

After the boil - I cooled it to 80 (it took about 20 min). The spec grav was 1.040. How did it get lower? Also, I only got about 4.5 gallons into the fermenter - then, in a panic, I topped off with 1/2 gallon of unsterilized tap water from an unsterilized pitcher. Probably not a good idea.

Mash/Lauter Tun

I finally got around to brewing another batch. Basically, I've been trying to figure out the best way to switch to all grain. I decided on converting a cooler into a mash/lauter tun. I went to the brew shop hoping to get some advice and find some parts.

The basic concept of the mash/lauter tun is to "mash" the grains in hot water for an hour. After mashing the grain in the mash tun, you drain (or lauter) the wort into the brewpot. Commercial breweries do this with a separate mash tun and lauter tun. With a modified cooler, you can do both.

I was prepared to spend about $50 on a cooler and $50 on the modifications. Luckily, the guy at the brewshop showed me an easy way to do the modification for $1.50.

I bought a 58 gallon Coleman rectangular cooler. Then put 3/8" tubing through the drain with a stopcock on the outside - then another length of tubing long enough to get to your kettle. On the inside you take a copper or stainless scouring pad and wrap it around the end of the tube - affixed with a rubberband. This is basically going to keep the grain out of the tube and allow only the wort to drain.

It took about 15 minutes to get the cooler set up. Surprisingly it passed the leak test without a drop. I will probably upgrade this after another batch or two - but for $1.50 - its a cheap way to get started in all grain.

Batch #3 - IPA - update

Its been awhile since the second IPA went into the bottles. Basically, I left it in the primary for a week. Then transferred to the secondary for 2 weeks and dryhopped with 2oz of amarillo. It came out at a final gravity of 1.020 Not quite as low as I wanted - probably should have stayed in the fermenter a bit longer. I bottled with 1/2 cup of sugar.

After a few weeks, I tasted. Its better than Batch #1 - but still has the off flavors.

Of the first three, Batch #2 - the wheat beer - was by far the best.

Next step......all grain.

Batch #3 - Second Try IPA

For my third batch, I'm going to try another India Pale Ale. I'm using the same recipe I did the first time with a few modifications.

Here is the recipe

6.6 lbs Unhopped Light Malt Syrup (Coopers brand)
1 lb Light Dry Malt Powder
1 lb 20L Crystal Malt
1/2 lb 40L Crystal Malt
1/2 lb Dextrin Malt
1/2 lb Victory Malt
4 oz Cascade Hops (6%)
2 oz Centennial Hops (9.5%)
1/2 tsp Irish Moss

Steeping the whole grain

After sanitizing everything I brought 2.5 gallons of tap water to 150 degrees, then I started steeping the cracked grains in a grain bag. After 30 minutes, I removed the bag, added 2.5 gallons of tap water and brought the water up to a rolling boil.

Boiling the wort

Once boiling, I turned off the heat, added one cup of extract syrup, and turned the heat back on. Next I added 2oz of cascade hops to the water. These hops will add bitterness to the beer.

After 15 minutes, I added 1/2 tsp of irish moss to the boil.

After boiling for 30 minutes, I added another 2oz of cascade hops to the boil.

After boiling for 50 minutes, I added 1oz of centennial hops to the boil and put the wort chiller in the kettle.

After 60 minutes, I turned off the heat. Then the last ounce of centennial hops get tossed in the kettle, along with the remaining extract syrup and powder. After waiting ten minutes for the late additions to pasteurize, I turned on the chiller.

The chiller took about 20 minutes to get the wort down to 80 degrees. I then poured the wort back and forth between the fermenter and the boiling pot in order to aerate. Finally, I pitched the yeast.

I almost forgot to take a hydrometer reading and when I did I don't think it was accurate - nevertheless, it came in at a whopping 1.080.

Into the closet for a week.

Batch #1 - IPA - Taste test and brewfest results

Its finally time to taste the IPA. Actually, I've tasted it a few times already - but this is the official test.

Before we get to the taste test - here are the results from the Heart of the Valley Oregon Homebrewer's Competition. Suffice it to say, I didn't win.

There were 3 judges - there comments are listed below:

Aroma - average score 5/12

"high bubblegum, no hop coming through, fruity, blueberry", "bubblegum, sweet, alcoholic", "some phenolics in the nose - like bubblegum"

Appearance - average score 2.33/3

"nice color, great head retention, clear", "great color/clarity" , "slightly cloudy, good head retention, copper color"

Flavor - average score 8/20

"decent bitterness, too much fruit, bubblegum estery, slight finishing hops" , "a synthetic/false flavor in front, artificially sweet central flavor, extremely sour finish" , "hop bitterness present, but very light, lightly sweet malt, some phenolics detected"

Mouthfeel - average score 4/5

"great body, very creamy, nice carb level" , "good body , sour unforgettable finish" , "medium light body, some alcohol warming, slightly astringent"

Overall Impression - average score 4.33/10

"not appropriate for style, lacking hop signature" , "this beer reminds me of a Belgian ale. It doesn't seem to fit in this category making the flavors confusing" , "an ok beer but lacking in the hop character needed for and American IPA. Try increasing your late kettle hop additions to improve"

Final score - 24/50

Well, that was a little humbling. Did I create an IPA or bubblegum ale? Time to put it to the only test that matters - me and Josie.

The beer has a really good color and a nice foamy head. It has a strong aroma - but I'm not sure it smells like hops - the smell is more like .... bubblegum. Its got decent bitterness - but not as much as I would like. Its got a thick and creamy mouthfeel...again, not what I was shooting for, but not too bad. If you can get over the fact that the flavors are abnormal for an IPA...the beer is actually pretty decent.

I'm pretty satisfied with this first batch. It wasn't exactly what I was trying to create, but not bad.



I took a bottle to the brewshop for some advice. They thought that I may have used too much sugar when bottling - leaving excess residual sugar in the bottles - which may have led to the bubblegum taste and thick mouth feel. I'm going to try again in a few weeks.

Batch #2 - American Wheat into the bottles

With the help of Mel, I managed to get the wheat beer bottled. I ended up with a case of 12oz bottles and 10 22oz bottles.

The final gravity measured 1.015. I also took a taste ... it was much better than before - but still a bit too sweet.

Batch #2 - American Wheat - Secondary Fermenter

We transferred the American Wheat from the primary to the secondary fermenter today. There was still a decent head of Krauesen on the top - but it looked like it had fallen down a bit and the bubbling has slowed to once every 10 secs or so.

The transfer went smoothly. I took two specific gravity readings. The first one clearly had too much sediment in it and came in at 1.040. The second one was better and came in at 1.020 - which is probably about right. We also tasted the beer and it was actually pretty good. It definetly resmebled a wheat beer and wasn't undrinkably sweet as it was initially.

I'm thinking another week or two in the secondary and then into the bottles.

Batch #2 - 8 Bells American Wheat

Goodbye Shotgun IPA is in the bottles and its time for batch#2 to get started. We've tasted the IPA a couple of times already and it is amazing. Next taste I will take a picture - its got a great head, color and flavor. My only change next time will be to increase the 60 minute hops in order to increase the bitterness. I actually entered the IPA into the Heart of the Valley Oregon Homebrew Competition last week; I'm really interested to see how it stacks up against other IPAs

On to batch #2 - an american wheat. Yesterday was the Kentucky Derby and sadly the second place filly, Eight Belles, suffered a fatal injury. Presumably, her name was derived from the nautical phrase "Eight Bells" - ironically meaning the end of a sailor's watch - pretty good time for a brew, eh. In honor of Eight Belles and Eight Bells, here is our try at an American Wheat. Its based on a partial mash recipe for a hefeweizen from Bader Brewing, but I'm calling it an American Wheat because I'm going to add some hops at the end, not traditional for a hefeweizen.

8 Bells American Wheat

3.75 lbs Unhopped Coopers Wheat Beer Malt Extract
1 lb Light Dry Malt Powder
1 lb Briess Wheat Dry malt powder
1 lb Briess Faked Wheat
1 oz tettnanger hops (60 min)
.25 oz tettnanger hops (15 min)
White Labs American Hefeweizen Yeast

Making the wort

This time I started heating 5 gallons to start with rather than 3. Also, I used Portland's finest tap water instead of bottled water. Once I hit 150 degrees, I started steeping the flaked wheat in a grain bag. After steeping the wheat for about 30 minutes, I removed the bag and brought the water up to a rolling boil. Once at a boil, I added 2 cups of extract and 1 oz of hops and boiled for 60 minutes.



45 minutes into the boil I added another 1/4 oz of hops and I put the wort chiller into the pot to sanitize. The hop addition at this point is not traditional, but I like hops and it seemed like a late hop addition might make this summer beer more refreshing.



After 60 minutes, I added the rest of the extract and the powders. Once mixed, I started to cool it down. It took almost 20 minutes to get the wort down to 78 degrees. After cooling, I poured it into a 6 gallon carboy, took a specific gravity reading, pitched the yeast and put on the airlock.

Thats it. The specific gravity reading was higher than expected at 1.058. The high gravity probably explains why the beer tasted undrinkably sweet when we tasted it. Not sure how this one is going to turn out. I'm also not sure why the gravity was so high (it was supposed to come in at 1.048).

After a week in the primary, I am going to rack this to a secondary fermenter.

Batch #1 - IPA into the bottles

Our first batch has been dry hopping in the secondary fermenter for a week now and bubbling is down to once every five minutes or slower. It could probably stay in the secondary fermenter for another week - but I'm ready to get this batch into bottles and start a new batch.

First step, clean out the bottles.

Since brewing day, I've been working on cleaning out old bottles. Some of them had been sitting around for months and have never been cleaned, so the bottoms of some of the bottles look like used petri dishes. In other words, they were in need of a thorough cleaning. Here was my cleaning process, which was probably overkill:

1. Rinse the bottles with a carboy jet cleaner attached to a hose.

2. Soak the bottles in a bleach solution. I used two capfuls of Clorox per 5 gallons of water. Then let the soak for a week.

3. Rinse the bottles with a carboy jet cleaner. Scrub with a bottle brush. Then rinse again.

4. On bottling day, I soaked all of the bottles in an iodophor solution for 30 minutes to sanitize.

5. I don't know if this is necessary, but after sanitizing, I placed a sheet of plastic wrap over the tops of all the bottles to insure that nothing got in before bottling.

On to the bottling...

Bottling was pretty simple. First, we boiled 3/4 cup of corn sugar in two cups of water for ten minutes. Next, we siphoned the beer from the secondary fermenter into a sanitized 6.5 gallon plastic bottling bucket. After siphoning in a gallon, we poured in the sugar water and then finished siphoning. The sugar will carbonate the beer in the bottles.

We also took a specific gravity reading and a taste at this point. The specific gravity was 1.017. Oddly, it had gone up since the last reading, but that is probably due to an inaccurate reading last time. We also took a taste at this point. It was amazingly good despite being flat and warm. Good bitterness and a heavy hop aroma. I thought it tasted a bit too alcoholic (almost like a barleywine), but Josie didn't think so.

After siphoning into the bottling bucket, I attached the bottling stick and started filling up bottles. One important note here, if you close the top of the bottling bucket, the beer will flow extremely slow. It took me about a six pack to figure this out.

After the bottles were filled, Josie put the caps on.

Thats it. Now we just wait two weeks and the beer should be carbonated and ready to drink.

Batch #1 - IPA - Secondary Fermenter

Its been one week since fermentation began and its time to transfer the beer into a secondary fermenter. I did a good bit of research on the debatable subject of secondary fermentation and decided to give it a try. Racking the beer from the primary fermenter to a secondary fermenter gets the beer off of the sediment and aids in clearing the beer. The problem is that everytime you expose the beer to oxygen, you risk contamination. Further, some people think that leaving the beer on the sediment (trub) has no negative effect on taste so racking is just a waste of time unless you plan on fermenting for a long period of time (lagers and high gravity beers). One thing people do tend to agree on is that it is best to rask to a secondary fermenter if you plan to dry hop the beer. Since I was planning on dry hopping (and because I was getting bored and impatient just watching the jug of beer sit in the corner) I decided to rack the beer to a secondary.

First things first, I needed a secondary fermenter. I purchased a 6 gallon glass carboy this time instead of another 5 gallon. The reason I bought a 6 gallon is because next time I plan on using the 6 gallon as the primary fermenter and racking to the 5 gallon. With a 6 gallon primary, I won't need a blowoff tube. Apparently using a blowoff tube results in the loss of some hop aroma.

After getting the new carboy out of the box, I immediately proceeded to drop on the driveway. Nice move. It has a small (1/4") crack on the inside near the neck. I will probably replace it before the next batch, but for now I think it will be ok because the crack is airtight and is higher than the beer will sit.

The racking was pretty simple. We sanitized the new carboy, stopper, airlock, hydrometer and siphon. Then we removed the blowoff tube and stopper and took a reading with the hydrometer. The specific gravity was now 1.015. According to the charts I think I am around 7% abv. That sounds about right for an IPA.

Next I sat the fermenter on the table, inserted the auto-siphon, pumped once and the beer started flowing into fermenter #2. We took a quick sample at this point. It was actually really good. Good bitterness and flavor. It was a little yeasty (as expected) and lacked some of the hop aroma I was shooting for, but overall pretty good. The dry hops should add a good bit of aroma.

Once the beer was completely transferred to the second fermenter, I shoved about an ounce of cascade hops into the new fermenter. That's it, racking and dryhopping done. I put the new stopper and airlock in place and put the fermenter back to bed. Its bubbling about once a minute (or slower) now. I'm planning to leave it like this for two weeks before bottling.

One thing I am not certain of is whether I racked at the right time. You are supposed to rack after primary fermentation ends. How do you know when that happens? The general rule (which is what I used) is one week. Another theory is to wait until bubbling gets down to about 5 per minute. That is about what mine was at, but I never timed it. Still another method, and probably the most accurate, is to take daily hydrometer readings. When the readings level off, primary fermentation has ended. This method, however, runs the risk of contaminating the beer every time you take a reading.

I guess that is it for now. I have no pictures of the actual racking procedure because I was cheap and bought batteries for my camera at IKEA. I ran through 10 AA batteries in 10 days and only took about 30 pictures. Bottom line, the camera had no juice on racking day.

Here are some pictures after one day in the secondary fermenter. The hops are covering the top and the beer is noticeably darker than it was in the primary.



Now, wait two weeks .......... In the meantime I'll be cleaning out old beer bottles and getting ready to bottle.

Batch #1 - IPA - Primary Fermentation

The first day of fermentation did not go as planned. I put the fermenter in the basement and waited. After 24 hours, there was no activity. I consulted the books and decided that the problem was that the basement was too cold. The temperature needs to be around 70 degrees, the basement was hovering around 65 degrees. I decided it was time to move the fermenter upstairs. When moving the 5 gallon jar, I undoubtedly stirred things up a bit, not sure if this is a problem or not.

Day 1

After moving it upstairs, the fermenter immediately kicked into action. The first day was just a little bubbling and a small ring of foam at the top.



Day 2

Fermentation picked up on the second day. There was now a large head of foam (technically Krausen I believe) and a steady stream of foam moving through the blowoff tube. The bubbling was very rapid (at least one a second) and the beer started smelling very hoppy!! I was a little concerned at this point that the color of the beer was much darker than any IPA I've seen.



Days 3 through 6

The next few days of fermentation saw a slight increase in activity. By the 6th day, fermentation had slowed to a bubble every few seconds and there was nothing coming through the blowoff tube except gas. One unexpected change was that the beer was getting lighter. It was now really starting to resemble a pale ale.

Day 3


Day 4


Day 5



I think primary fermentation should wind down tomorrow and then I will rack the beer to a secondary fermenter to get it off the trub (the sediment on the bottom).

Batch #1 - India Pale Ale

For our first beer, we've decided to do an India Pale Ale. We recently moved to Oregon, in the heart of hop country, so an over hopped IPA seems like the natural choice. Plus, after consuming gallons of Bridgeport's Fresh Hop IPA last fall, I've set a goal of making an all-grain fresh hopped IPA of my own this fall. Oregon has plenty of fresh hops, so all I need to do is figure out how to use them before the harvest.

While my goal is to eventually brew all-grain, I've decided to go with a partial mash (extract plus steeped grains) recipe for my first batch. I picked up a basic IPA recipe and ingredients at Bader Brewing Supply in Vancouver. I'm going to use the recipe as a basic framework. Here are the ingredients.

Goodbye Shotgun IPA


6.6 lbs Unhopped Light Malt Syrup (Coopers brand)
2 lbs Light Dry Malt Powder
1 lb 20L Crystal Malt
1/2 lb 40L Crystal Malt
1/2 lb Dextrin Malt
1 lb Victory Malt
4 oz Cascade Hops (6%)
2 oz Amarillo Hops (9.5%)
1/2 tsp Irish Moss

Steeping the whole grain

After sanitizing everything I could think of I fired up the stove and started heating up 3 gallons of water (filtered and ozonated). Once I hit 150 degrees, I started steeping the cracked grains in a grain bag.

The steeping grains smelled like a bowl of grape nuts. After steeping the grains for about 30 minutes at 150 deg, I removed the bag and brought the water up to a rolling boil. The water had a deep reddish brown color.

Boiling the wort and hopping

Once the water was boiling, we added one cup of Coopers Unhopped Light Malt Syrup. This stuff has the consistency of thick maple syrup and is incredibly messy.

Time for some hops. To begin, I opened a 2oz package of Cascades and a 2oz pacakge of Amarillos.

I only planned to add 1 oz of each but accidentally threw in all 4oz!! Josie had even asked me beforehand "Are you using all of those?" I think I said "no" at the same time I was dumping them all in the pot. I decided to have another beer and figure out how to remedy this situation.



My concern was not that the beer would be too hoppy, rather I was concerned that I didn't have enough hops left. My understanding is that hops added at the beginning of the boil will contribute to bitterness, while hops added at the end of the boil give beer flavor and aroma.

In order to get the perfect balance of bitterness and flavor, I planned to add 5 oz of hops over the course of 60 minutes in 15 minute intervals. I was going to use the last ounce to dry hop after fermentation.

Josie suggested removing some of the hops from the wort and setting them aside to add later. This seemed like a reasonable solution. About a minute after adding them to the boil, I removed about 2 cups of hops. I have no clue what this is going to do the beer, although I imagine its going to be impossible to replicate.

After boiling for 15 minutes, I added a big scoop of the wet hops and 1/2 tsp of irish moss. The hop aroma coming off the pot at this point was incredible. After another 15 minutes (30 min total) I added another scoop of wet hops to the boil. Right about that time, it started hailing.

At the 45 minute mark, I added the remaining wet hops to the wort and put the wort chiller into the pot. Putting the chiller in at this point sanitizes the copper tubing, but also makes stirring the wort tricky.

With three minutes to go in the one hour boil, I added 1 oz of dry cascade hops. Then I turned off the heat and added the remaining malt syrup and malt powder. This is where I may have screwed up. The malt powder didn't seem to dissolve completely - it was like stirring two pounds of flour into a bowl of maple syrup - not easy. There were big clumps of malt powder everywhere. Next time I think I will boil more water to begin with in order to make stirring easier. The books and recipe say to boil only 3 gallons in the pot (the other 3 gallons go into the fermenter cold) but I think is to aid in cooling the wort. Since I have a wort chiller, I don't need to worry about cooling the wort in the fermenter.

Chilling, pitching and fermenting

Once I got the wort mixed as good as possible, I turned on the hose and started chilling the wort using an immersion wort chiller. It cooled to 75 degrees in about 8 minutes. I poured 3 gallons of cold water into the fermenter (5 gallon glass carboy) and then poured the wort in through a strainer and funnel.

I used a beer thief to take a temperature and specific gravity reading (70 degrees, specific gravity 1.070). Not sure how accurate this reading was though because I didn't wait for the wort to settle first. Assuming it was accurate, the original gravity is pretty high. Based on my research, this is going to come in at around 7.5% abv.

Next I pitched in the yeast (California Ale Yeast - liquid), attached the blow off tube and moved the fermenter to the basement.





Now its time to wait.

Make yer own

A few months ago, Josie (my wife) and I were trying to think of ways to escape our office jobs and do something enjoyable for a living. At one point during these brainstorming sessions, we decided we were going to open a microbrewery.

To kick off our new business, we headed to the local homebrew store and bought some supplies. Basically a bucket, some tubes, a glass carboy and a funnel. Microbreweries brew in 5 gallon batches, right?

Anyhow, after months of procrastinating, its finally time to brew.

First, a disclaimer: I have no clue what I am doing. My sister bought me How to Brew: Everything You Need to Know to Brew Beer Right the First Time by John Palmer for my birthday. A few days earlier I had picked up a copy of The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian. I've read bits and pieces of both books, otherwise my only knowledge of brewing beer is derived solely from repeated viewings of Strange Brew and multiple visits to the Sweetwater Brewery in Atlanta.