I can faintly recall the last batch of beer I made, but it's been a while. Home brewing is one of those things that thoroughly satisfies my soul. The week was started by making a 3 gallon batch of Mead or Honey Wine.
First thing to do is aquire some pure Tennessee spring water from our friends at Dunmire Hollow. Eighteen gallons was brought home to use in all my brewing. Mead is simple to make and requires only a few ingredients. I started out with about six quarts of locally produced honey. That was added to heated spring water to dissolve it all. That was added to a carboy with more spring water in it along with two cut up oranges and one cut up lemon. After the carboy was filled to the proper amount, champagne yeast was pitched.
It only took an hour or so to take off and start bubbling furiously. The color of the liquid has steadily lightened over the course of a few days. Meads can take a long time to ferment out and they are generally "Green" for 6 months or more. They get better with age and this one is a basic recipe. I'm looking for a light clean taste out of this one.
Having stuff overflowing from our freezer I decided to make a batch of wine to go along with the mead. This was to be blackberry/blueberry wine. After thawing the precious nectar prodcing berries, they were gently massaged to release the wonderous juices stored inside. Wine is also very easy to make and both of these batches were done to get me ready for brewing the double batch of beer.
Using my 5 gallon stainless steel pot, I heated up a few gallons of spring water enough to dissolved 10 pounds of common white sugar. This was added to a fermenting bucket with more spring water, the juice from all the berries and a nylon bag with the berries themselves in. This "Must" is left for 24 hours with a towel covering it before the yeast is pitched.
After the yeast is pitched, the buckets lid is put on, with an airlock in it. From that point on the must is stirred and the berries squished daily until primary fermentation is complete. Then it will be racked into another carboy for long term storage and clarifying.
I say long term storage because I still have a few gallons of the last fruit wine I made. It can sit for a while before I bottle it in gallon jugs for use.
And what all this prior work has led up to is...Home Brew!!!
Friday after work was when the real work started. Wine and mead are very easy. Brewing beer can be as easy or difficult as you want it to be. I prefer to brew partial mashes. That means using grains along with extracts to impart qualities to the brew that 100% extract beers can't achieve.
Grains were put into a pot of spring water, over a single electric heating element. This "Mash" is slowly heated to around 155F. At that time the heat is reduced and it is allowed to steep, like a tea, for 30-45 minutes. While that is steeping, I heated more spring water to 170F. At the end of the steep cycle I pour the mash into a nylon bag inside a food grade bucket. The 170F water is poured over the grains to transform it into a virtual smorgasbord of sugars for the yeast to consume, and turn into alcohol.
That stained liquid is put into the brew pot and heated up over a propane burner. Once the temp of the liquid is up to about 190F I take the pot off the heat and add my liquid malt extract (LME) . Taking it off the heat ensures that you won't burn the malts as you put them in. You want to be sure everything is dissolved before you start up the burner again.
When your wort begins to boil, it is time to put in your first batch of hops and start your 1 hour timer. The first hops are for bittering the brew. This helps balance out the sweetness of the malt and hops also act as a preservative. So get Hoppy. I add my hops straight to the boil, as it imparts more hoppiness to the brew, so be careful this is where you could possibly have the dreaded "Boil Over". Many folks use a muslin hops bag, which will keep your beer cleaner, help the boil over and be able to remove the spent hops when done.
After 30 minutes I add my second batch of hops to the boil and with 12 minutes left I add my last batch of aroma hops.
When the brew time is over, you must cool down the wort before you can add it to the carboy and before the yeast can be pitched. I have a wort chiller which attaches to a faucet and cold water running through it cools it down. Most of the time I just put the whole brew kettle into a sink or tun and use cold water to cool it down. After the pot is cool enough to hold your hand onto for 10 seconds or more it's time to take the sanitized carboy and add cool liquid to it. Enough to come up 3 or 4 inches in the bottom. You never add hot wort to the carboy without cool water in first. When you've put your wort in, bring it up close to the top of the jug allowing headspace for fermentation bubbles.
Alright at this point you have a carboy full of wort. The next step is to cover the top of the carboy, rput your foot on a chair, and lay the carboy on your leg with your hand and a stopper covering the hole. Now shake vigorously for a good minute or two. This oxygenates the wort for the yeast to do their lovely work. After shaking it is time to add the yeast. I used a starter, so it was poured in and given a gentle shake or two to distrtibute the yeast.
Last thing to do is attach a sanitized stopper and airlock to the top and wait for fementation to take off. Waiting can really stink. When I went to the shop to close up last night one of the two carboys was already bubbling, slow but sure. When I went out this morning both batches were going like crazy. One of my favorite thingd is watching the yeast swirling around inside the bottles. Sometimes moving so much it looks as if someone was physically shaking it.
These will sit in the primary fermenter for about two weeks. Then they'll be racked into secondary fermenters for...who knows how long.
Brew On My Friends! There's more to life than just work.
Hopefully this will motivate me to get back to knife work.
