Brew Weekend!

Note: My camera and computer are on the fritz, so while I planned for this to be a pretty post with pictures, it's going to have to wait. Hoping to update later in the week.

So my kits from Northern Brewer arrived on Friday, and I was champing at the bit to get started. I ordered an American Wheat Beer, Cream Ale and Irish Stout. I also have a Double IPA kit waiting in the wings.

Initially, I wanted to start with the Irish Stout. It has great reviews over on the Northern Brewer website, and, as I've already documented, it's one of my favorite types of beer. However, that particular brew takes about 6 weeks to be drinkable, while the Ale and Wheat would be ready in 4. I'm traveling east to see the family in 4 weeks for my little brother's wedding, and I kinda wanted to bring a bottle or two to show off, so the stout was out of the running. (The IPA is a 3-month-er, so that one's not even in the running at the moment.)

Lo and behold, I found my decision made for me when I opened the brew kits. 2 of my yeast smack packs were nice and flat, and one was already inflated. It looked like the Cream Ale yeast had gotten knocked around a little in transit, so I had a limited amount of time until the yeast was no longer viable (or so I thought...)

So, Saturday morning I set out to brew a nice Cream Ale. The day started with a trip to Beer and Winemakers for a new airlock (mine had an unfortunate mishap with the garbage disposal) and some more Iodophor. I cannot say enough good things about this shop. If you're a brewer in the SF Bay Area, you've got to give these guys your business. I mentioned my yeast woes to them, and they told me if I had any problems to give them a call and they'd open up (they're closed Sundays and Mondays) to get me a vial of yeast if what I had didn't work out.

So, confident that this brew would be more successful than my last (which is still conditioning in secondary, btw), I headed home and got started.

I learned 2 important lessons with my first brew:
1. Make sure you have plenty of boiled and chilled water.
2. You can never have too much ice.

So my first step was to boil 4 gallons of water. That sat on the counter with a lid covered in plastic wrap (can we say obsessive about sanitation?) until it was cool enough to pour into the carboy.

My next step was cleaning and sanitizing all my equipment. Once the carboy was ready to go, I poured 2.5 gallons of the boiled water into it. The water was still hotter than it needed to be, but not hot enough melt the carboy. The extra water went in the fridge, and the carboy got sealed and stuck in the chest freezer until it was time to add the wort.

Next, I set 2.5 more gallons of water to boil. While the water was heating, I crushed the pound of specialty grains included in my kit, put them into a mesh bag, and steeped them for about 20 minutes. By the time I pulled the grains out, the water was at 170 degrees, and had turned a dark carmel color. By this point, the whole house smelled of cereal.

Once the water came to a full boil, I removed it from the heat, stirred in the 6 lbs of LME, then returned it to boil. The hot break took about 20 minutes, though the foam never completely disappeared. It was only covering about 2 square inches of the wort when I added the hops.

This kit only contained 1 hop addition, so I set the timer for 60 minutes and walked away. I know I'm supposed to watch the pot for boilovers, but I gambled that if nothing happened during the hop addition then I'd probably be fine--and I won. I'm not saying you should leave a pot of boiling wort unattended, but I like to live dangerously.

About 5 minutes before the end of the hour, I started to prepare my ice bath. We have a gloriously large sink, which I filled with cold water and about half of a 20lb bag of ice. As soon as the timer went off, I grabbed the pot and dunked it in. I added the rest of the ice as the original melted off and stirred the wort vigorously. I had the temperature under 100 degrees in less than 10 minutes, and down to 78 in another 15. This was a major improvement over my first attempt. The secret is in the stirring. You have to be careful not to splash any of the unsanitized ice or water into the pot, but as long as you keep the water level a good 2 inches from the lip of the kettle you should be fine.

I poured the wort into the kettle slowly, trying to keep as much sediment as possible out. The one downfall of stirring during the cold break is the patience it takes to wait for everything to settle before you pour. I confess that I wasn't too patient, and my ale is looking pretty cloudy.

After adding all the wort, I was still about a half gallon short. I used the reserve water that I'd stored in the fridge to top off the carboy. I took a sample for the hydrometer, and got a reading of 1.050, which appears to be reasonable for this brew. Finally, I shook the carboy up real nice and got ready to pitch the yeast.

Then, disaster struck. I swear, I have the worst luck with yeast. You'll remember, at the top of this post I mentioned that my yeast pack for this particular brew was already inflated when it arrived. I snipped off the corner, dumped the yeast in the carboy, and then felt the unmistakably intact nutrient pack still inside the pouch. I don't know how the pack inflated without the nutrients being released, but at this point I figured it was curtains for my poor cream ale.

Determined not to panic, I cut open the nutrient pack, poured that into the carboy, and gave the whole thing a good shake. The instructions on the pack said that it was possible to pitch the yeast immediately after popping the nutrient pack, though this method isn't recommended by most brewers I've talked to. I crossed my fingers and hoped that adding the yeast and nutrients separately would somehow magically work.

By the time I went to bed, about 3 hours later, there was no activity in the carboy. I sighed and figured I'd be putting in a call to Beer and Winemakers this morning. But when I woke up, there was a beautiful 2-inch krausen on my beer and it was bubbling away. Now, about 24 hours since pitching the yeast, fermentation is still going strong.

This is very exciting for me.