The joy of Home Brew

I here by dub this past Sunday…The manliest day of the year.

Why? The combination of two great past times: The Super Bowl and more importantly, Beer Brewing.

I’ve always wanted to brew my own beer. I enjoy a finely crafted beer and have always been curious about what goes into it. My friend and colleague, Adam, has spent a good deal of time brewing his own concoctions. For my first brewing adventure, I figured it would be extremely beneficial to have him show me the ropes. Ben, being a man of many crafts, joined us for the experience.

So, 3 weeks ago, Adam and I had brewed up a batch of what he referred to as a ‘Stoppy’, which I believe is a combination of a Stout and a beer that is ‘hoppy.’ He can correct me in the comments below if I’m off.

Mix in the malt.

Mix in the barley.

Mix in the hops.

It’s a bit more complicated than that. There’s timing, certain temperatures, and an order to everything. Below are the ingredients and the spacing of the different hops. I’ll leave the exact directions to the imagination because I don’t want to spoil any of Adam’s brewing secrets.

Stoppy IPA (American IPA)

Ingredients
5.00 gal Water
8.00 lb Amber Dry Extract
0.75 lb Roasted Barley
2.00 oz Amarillo Gold (60 min) Hops
1.00 oz Cascade (10 min) Hops
1 Pkg Safale Yeast-Ale

To cool off the mixture quickly, we created a closed system that involved pumping cold water through a copper coil placed into the mixture. The water that ran out of the coil was directed back into the water bin it was being pumped from. We used nature’s resources to continually cool the water, hence the mini snowman inside of the water bin.

Straining the mixture into the fermenting container

A few more statistics for the Stoppy IPA (American IPA):

Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.070 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.070 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.020 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.020 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.58 %
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 6.53 %
Bitterness: 61.7 IBU
Calories: 320 cal/pint
Est Color: 26.1 SRM

So this brings us back to Super Bowl Sunday. It was time to bottle. With the two of us working hard, we cleansed and filled just under 50 bottles in 30 minutes.

Sterilizing the bottles

Filling them up

Capping

The finished batch…just two more weeks of bottle fermenting and we’ll be ready to taste.

Simultaneously, we brewed another batch to keep the cycle going. Here are the ingredients and statistics for the second batch we brewed.

Maibock Ale

Ingredients
7.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract
2.50 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter Grain
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt Grain
1.00 oz Pearle (60 min) Hops
0.50 oz Pearle (30 min) Hops
0.50 oz Saaz (5 min) Hops
0.50 oz Pearle (5 min) Hops
0.50 oz Saaz (0 min) Hops
1 Pkgs SafAle English Yeast-Ale
5.00 gal Water

Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.081 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.072 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.021 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.018 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 7.85 %
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 7.06 %
Bitterness: 29.3 IBU
Calories: 328 cal/pint
Est Color: 9.0 SRM

Oddly enough, we spent so much time brewing and bottling that we caught only the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl. Oh well. If you ask either of us, the time was better spent.

Be a friend...share!