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Long ago, when Cath and I got married, Eric got us a homebrewing kit as a wedding present. Within a couple months, we brewed a red ale from the kit he provided, and the results were OK. The beer wasn’t bad, but it had an off taste that was probably a result of bacterial containmation. Don’t worry, it was safe to drink (the alcohol in the beer will kill any bacteria), but it causes some off flavors. We still have a bit of this stuff in our fridge nearly 1.5 years later.

Fast forward to this weekend. I’ve been wanting to brew another batch for a couple months now, and with Cath on call this weekend, it seemed like the perfect time. I called Eric for help, and he brought a couple friends over and we went at it. Early in the day, I stopped by Modern Homebrew Emporium to pick up supplies. The store clerk was super helpful and helped me pick out a recipe and the ingredients. No kit this time. I wanted something strong, and Cath likes Belgians, so I picked a Belgian Dubbel.

The brewing process went OK. First you boil 2 gallons of water along with the malt and hops. This takes about an hour. Then you pour the results into a big pail along with 3 more gallons of cold water and let this cool to 75 degrees. This was the painful part; without the proper equipment (a wort cooler), it takes a long time to get the temperature down. In our case, it took nearly 6 hours. This is bad because the longer the wort stays warm, the more likely it is for bacterial continamination to occur. Again, not a problem in terms of health, but it gives the beer an off flavor.

Anyhow, once the wort cools, you add the yeast, cover it, and wait. At this point you’ve basically added the yeast to a big pail of sugar, so they have plenty to eat and will go nuts producing alcohol and CO2. You let this sit for around 2 weeks, until the yeast have digested all the sugars, then you add a bit more sugar and bottle it. This is called bottle conditioning: You use the natural CO2 produced by the yeast to carbonate the beer in the bottle. You let this sit for 2-4 weeks, and then you should have tasty carbonated beer to drink.

I found that this time, I had a much better understanding of what we were doing and why we were doing everything. Last time, I was just following the directions in the kit. This time, I knew why we performed each step and was able to adjust things where the instructions weren’t clear. I was definitely concerned about how long it took to cool the wort, and I’m thinking about getting a wort cooler if I want to keep doing this. I was also concerned because fermentation didn’t start for about 2 days, which is on the long end of these things. To have the thing sit there for a day without bubbling at all was pretty concerning, but now it’s happily bubbling away.

I’m excited to try the beer when it’s ready in a couple months. Hopefully it will be tasty.