So This is it the beginning of it all, the first batch. I have done plenty of reading on this my main source being John Palmer's www.howtobrew.com which gives a step by step guide to brewing and a bunch of the science stuff too. I decided to start out simple by doing an all extract batch of beer, I chose a recipe from HTB and decided to go to the store by the ingredients and go from there. I chose to use his tittabawasse brown ale it used a Pale malt LME (Liquid malt extract), for the base malt the way i understand it is the base malts provide the majority of the fermentable sugars for your beer. It then called for an amber and dark DME (dried malt extract) these are for flavor and color of your beer. It used two different types of hops one for bittering one for aroma, and of course the brewing escential,Yeast.
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| The wort before "hot break" |
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| All of my ingredients |
I started off by cleaning a number of different things and sanitizing some i was getting so spacy im sure i forgot to clean some things. I boiled 3 gal of water for the main liquid of my beer, 3 gal takes along time to boil btw. In that time i took pictures of my products, and started my yeast. I was using a dry yeast so i had to rehydrate it by adding some water and a little sugar for the food. I still dont know if i did this part right we'll find out in a few weeks lol. After the first 3 gal of water were boiled I boiled another 3 gal to make my wort. Added in my extract and started the boil. I was kind of nervous at this point because I had heard the many horror stories of the dreaded boil over before the heat break happens. But as my proteins coagulated and formed the massive foam on top of the wort I soon found out by just simply turning down the heat everything turned out fine. I added my my bittering hops at the 60 min mark then first aroma at 30 and then again at 15. I submerged my brewpot into my snow filled tub quickly cooling it to the appropriate heat.
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| My awesome snow bath |
I then proceeded to pour my wort into the fermenter with the three gallons of water already in place . The pre fermented beer was alot darker than I had imagined it was going to be we'll see what the color turns out like in the end. I added my airlock and it was ready to go.
I was so surprised on how easy everything was even though I was confused most of the time it was going on. But the majority of it all was, fairly easy we'll see if It turns out in a couple weeks after it finishes fermenting and we bottle and let carbonate. but with the simplicity of brewing an all extract batch I would recommend this to anyone who likes good beer and who has ever thought about trying it to just do that . TRY IT.
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| Me adding hops |
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| My friend Bear checking out the temp of ...idk lol |
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