Last Saturday night I was finally able to brew a batch of beer! I’ve been looking forward to this for quite a long time. For the last few weeks, I’ve been reading up, researching, and asking loads of questions to prepare myself for this first batch. It also helped that my brewing buddies had brewed a few batches in the past, but it’s been a few years for them.

We went to the local home brew store, Asheville Brewers Supply, and picked up some final pieces of equipment we were lacking. The only things we didn’t purchase were

• Hydrometer (they were out)
• Thermometer
• Capper/Caps
• Bottling Bucket

The brew guy told us we would be alright without the hydrometer and the thermometer for now, and he also said that if we were unsuccessful in at least making wort, we probably didn’t have any business brewing anything in the first place. I took this to mean that brewing really isn’t that difficult.

Dark Ale

We decided to go with a dark ale, using the malt extract Northwestern Dark. Randy wanted to use malted barley, but I felt I should stick to an extract for now.

We also picked up the yeast, two kinds of hops (Brew Gold and Fuggle), and some miscellaneous other stuff. And a Highland Mix Pack to keep us company while we brewed.

Northwestern Dark Malt Extract

Sanitize

We sanitized everything! Any equipment that physically touches the beer needs to be sanitized, to minimize any risk of contamination. The sanitizer I made is a weak mixture of bleach and water, a ratio of about an ounce or two of bleach to about five gallons of water.

Wort

It was time to boil some wort. Following a combination of instructions from the home brew store and The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing, we put two gallons of fresh cold water into our clean, 6½ gallon carboy. We would add the hot wort directly to the carboy, then add more cold water to cool it all down for the yeast.

Malt Extract and Water for the wort

Our wort was rich and dark, and if Rollin hadn’t been the designated stirrer (and doing a great job!), I guarantee that it would’ve boiled out all over the place!

Boiling Dark Wort

Rollin was the designated stirrer

Hopping

When it came time to add hops, we followed the instructions of the home brew store. We dropped in our first round of hops, known as bittering hops, after the wort had boiled for 10 minutes. Fresh hops smell so good!

After boiling for 30 more minutes, we dropped in the other hops, known as finishing hops or aroma hops. Let it cook for about another 10 minutes, then turned it off and drank another beer.

Add hops to boiling wort

Adding wort to the fermentor

After a few minutes of cooling, and opening yet another beer, we added our hot wort into the fermentor. We poured it into a large funnel with a pretty tight filter on it, and most of the now-powdered hops were caught in the filter and out of our beer. Finally after the wort was added, we added in our last two gallons of fresh, cold water.

This actually got the temperature of the beer at nearly room temperature right away. Some brewers recommend using a wort chiller, which is a coil filled with running cold water that is inserted into the wort pot to cool the wort quickly. I’m not sure if it would work any better than our method of adding cold water to the wort.

Add yeast

When the beer was at room temperature, we added our yeast. We were a bit worried that our yeast was bunk since it wasn’t refrigerated. We added our yeast and attached a fermentation lock, which is a valve-seal that allows gas to escape but doesn’t allow anything to enter the beer.

After about fifteen minutes, we noticed a bit of action in the fermentation lock, but nothing very impressive. Worries grew.

We then placed a black trash bag over and around the carboy and put it in a cool corner of the house. In the morning, I woke up and checked on the beer, and the yeast was rocking and rolling! Plenty of CO₂ was escaping, meaning that our yeast was eating! It wasn’t bunk yeast!

I now command the yeast to EAT!

Wait a week or so

This coming Saturday, we’ll bottle our dark ale. Then we’ll have to wait about two weeks until we can pop one open!

Final thoughts and questions

After brewing my first batch, I do have some lingering questions that I’ll address with future batches.

• Is a wort chiller really necessary, and what benefits does it have over simply adding cold water?
• How much more control will I have over flavor if I go with malted barley, rather than malt extract?
• Should the fermentor be kept in the dark? For all yeasts?
• Should I always use liquid yeast? And shouldn’t yeast always be refrigerated?

I may have a few more that come up, but these float around my head when I begin thinking about my next batch, which will be a smoked porter, a recipe from Hops and Vines, another local home brew shop. I’m putting the recipe here, just in case they update their site and remove it.

Our next batch, Hops and Vines’ Smoked Porter 7% ABV

A partial mash recipe based on the beer I brewed for the 2009 Highland Pro-Am Competition that won Best in Show. $42.95 this month only!

Malt Extracts

• 6 lbs. Northwestern Amber Liquid
• 2lb. Northwestern Gold Dry Malt

Steeping grains

• 2 lbs. Smoked malt
• .5 lb. Black malt
• .75lb. Chocolate malt

Hops

• 1oz Fuggle (60)
• 1oz Fuggle (20)
• 1oz Fuggle (10)

Yeast

• White Labs British Ale
• Ferment at 62-70 degrees F

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