October 21, 2002
We Brewed Some English Brown Ale Today
Today, Jeff, Ryan and I got busy and started brewing some beer. I searched out a homebrew shop here in Laramie and we traveled out there during our lunch break. It was a pretty small shop in the middle of a flea market, but they had everything we needed. We bought the stuff and headed home, pretty excited about what was to come.
Well, we had to wait a few hours so that Jeff and I could finish our classes for the day, but after class, we got started on brewing the beer. It took a while, and it’s going to take longer, but hopefully it will be worth it in the end.
We started off by heating up a couple of gallons of water in a pimp kettle we found at Walmart. After the water was pretty warm, I mixed in the malt extract. Which, you can see a picture of to the left. That stuff we pretty rad, it was pretty much a really thick syrup. The smell it gave off was a nice carmel type smell. After the liquid extract, we had to add in the solid, dry extract. That stuff reminded me of making homemade malts back in the day, as it smells exactly the same.
Next up, was the hops.
Hops adds bitterness to the beer, so we threw some in the boiling water. The smell given off, wasn’t near as good as the malt extract, but it wasn’t anything bad. We didn’t really use very strong hops, so that probably is why the smell wasn’t too harsh.
At this point, we had to let the mixture boil for a bloody long time. About an hour. It was a long wait, but we eventually got there. After the boil, we had to throw it in the fermenter and add the yeast.
The only thing to do now is wait. It has to ferment for around a week, and then we have to bottle it. After bottling, we have to let it settle for at least another week. Ugg, that’s a long time. I’ll post in a few weeks how it tastes, but for now I’m thinking about trying Chris’ interesting recipe for “mead.”
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Mmwwwaaahahahaha.… I mean cool.
Posted by: Chris on October 22, 2002 02:39 AM -
Call me crazy, but it was always my impression that mead was made from honey, not raisins. There is a guy in the anthro dept. that makes it out of honey, it rocks! I’ll get the recipe.
Posted by: Jack on October 22, 2002 06:18 AM -
Hi
Posted by: Mr. Glenn on October 22, 2002 08:49 AM -
You’re absolutely right Jack, real mead, like the vikings drank, was made from honey, yeast and malt. The stuff I made I call mead, but it’s really just fermented stuff. I use rasins cause they have enough sugar to make a lot of alcohol and enough potassium to inhibit bacteria and mold during fermentation. Honey does too. If you use honey add some lemon for acidity. The important reaction is
Sugar + Yeast -> alcohol + CO2
Posted by: Chris on October 22, 2002 10:12 AM -
What up to Mr. Glenn. And I dang sure better get a bottle of that beer, fellas. Lord knows how much alcohol you threw into that thing, so I gotta get me some of that.
Mess with the best, Die like the rest
Posted by: BreakmastaJake on October 23, 2002 01:18 AM -
Well, I looked up some recipes for mead on the net, but they take a really long time to make. We’re talking around 4 months to ferment and then another couple of months to settle. That’s a long, long time compared with 2-3 weeks for your average beer. Of course, mead is much higher alcohol concentration, which is always a good thing. For now, we’re sticking with brewing easy beers.
And I dang sure better get a bottle of that beer, fellas. Lord knows how much alcohol you threw into that thing, so I gotta get me some of that.
What makes you think you better, “Dang sure get a bottle of that?” If you want a bottle Jake, brew your own. And, you don’t just throw alcohol into beer, you create it through fermentation. So, this beer will be your average 5% alcohol by volume. Of course that’s better than your Bud Light or Coors Light at 4.2%.
Posted by: Andy on October 23, 2002 12:08 PM -
Andy, you were right… I got pasted it. But hey I was suppose to see them pics.. they real cool ones… oo well… and yeah sounds like you all are having to much fun makin beer. hope it tastes better then your other crap for ya all
Posted by: Nellie on October 24, 2002 09:44 PM
