(Update: the brew featured in this post won bronze at the Hogtown Brewers Competition. That’s no small feat, congratulations John.)
What’s better to do on spring break but brew beer? Well, there are a few things, but you’ll never see them on this site. So, it’s brewing beer for now.
I’m not going to go into all of the complexities of the home brew process, but I’ll give a reader’s digest along with the pictures of my neighbor John and company as the process rolls along:
The first step of making beer is in creating a mash, which is like a big batch of tea using special grains such as barley. It's basically a long process of steeping the grains in boiling liquid. I didn't get any pictures of this part of the process except at the tail end.
Then, you add hops. That's right: hops in motion.
You then use a large wrench to open the container of malt extract, as previous attempts using bare hands and one person will have failed miserably.
You then must use all of your brainpower and mathematical logic to try and devise a way to get the exact amount of malt extract needed. Ours involved a digital scale, a pyrex container, and several longhammers. That's a tool. Note that the amount we need will be left in the container.
Uncle Izzy, under John's vigilant supervision, adds the malt extract to the mash. The mash is now called the wort. Hooray for Uncle Izzy.
Uncle Izzy and John battle the wort cooler. Despite its distillative appearance, this device is used to run cold water through the wort in order to cool it to approximately 75ºF...
The cooled wort is transfered to its fermentation container....
...where water is added to dilute the wort from a sickeningly sweet syrup-like mess to something that yeast can work with.
The completed wort is then mixed up with a ballin' tool on the end of an electric drill. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to break out the powertools.
The yeast is pitched into the wort, but only after its approximate sugar content has been measured using a hydrometer. Specifically, the hyrdometer tells us the specific gravity of the wort, but specific gravity doesn't turn into alcohol now, does it? Sugar does. So for intents and purposes, it measures sugar.
And that, my friends, is how one makes beer. Kind of. I mean there’s the bit about waiting. And using an airlock to keep air out and to let CO2 escape at the same time. And cleanlieness. That bit is key.
Let me say this. If you try to make beer based only on the descriptions in this article, you run the risk of making really bad beer. Actually, that’s almost a promise. If you really want to know more about making beer, I reccommend this site.
lol o zachary. <3