My Time In the East

Beer Brewing

About two weeks ago I ordered some beer ingredients from my local homebrew store in Tacoma, WA. (I'm not in Tacoma so I have to have it shipped to me. And no, there aren't any local homebrew supply stores where I'm currently located.) Knowing that it usually takes about 7 days for packages to arrive to my location from the West Coast, I patiently waited to find that little lovely yellow card stock letting (and email) letting me know that I had a package waiting for me. After about a week of waiting and checking, I proceed to the mailroom counter and low and behold I spy a box with my box number clearly marked (and dated, 6 May, the day it arrived in the mailroom). I retreive my package and continue to work the remainder of my busy IT support day.

I quickly change clothes and head to the bowling alley. I bet your wondering why I do that instead of head home and start brewing the beer? Well, the short answer is that I needed to get some bowling practice in for our last series of the bowling league on Friday. We would be bowling the team ranked above us in the standings and we all needed to be on our best.

Practice was completed and I head home. Realizing that it was still quite early, I begin the process of brewing the beer. But, first I had to head to the local market area and buy a rather large wire mesh strainer to catch the grains and hops from the mash cycle and during the boil. I started by sanitizing everything that would be touching the beer (pots, utensils, thermometers, etc). I started by steeping the grains in about 160*F water, strained them through the new strainer and sparged with more water. To this water, I brought it up to a boil and added the liquid malt extract. Once it began boiling again, I added 2 oz of Cascade Hops; 40 minutes into the boil added 1 tsp of Irish Moss (Used as a fining agent); at 45 minutes into the boil added .5oz of Mt Hood Hops and the other .5oz at 55minutes into boil. At 60 mintues I turned off the heat, fished all the hops and scum on the top of the wort. Cooled the wort in temperature and strained the wort through the strainer (to catch any remaining large particulates).



Beer boil a bubling... (The Stuff on top are the whole hops)

In about a week, I'll be racking from Primary Fermentation to Secondary Fermentation (glass). Oh, and the beer is a Pale Ale. The taste of it just of the boil was outstanding, so it should be really good when it is complete.

The night cap was a call from dvn2rckr.

posted by Unknown @ 3:00 PM