Conditioning Week 1

A week of conditioning in the books, so I figured it was time to try it out and see how my brew is coming....
the results were as follows...

pre pour, chilled for about 2 hours

The beer taste paired with the alcohol content is there, unfortunately there was little to no head on the beer, aka its not carbonated yet! I bit the bullet and drank an entire flat beer :(

carbonate damn it!

Another week in the dark I suppose. I've moved all the bottles to my fridge and shook them up in an attempt to reactivate the yeast and get it going. I also added a gallon of hot water to help raise the initial temp up and see if that does anything for it, I hope this works! one more week to wait. Also on a side note when I used the carb tabs I used 4 per bottle for a medium carb...well see how that goes.

I also saw some pretty awesome stuff in the NorthernBrewer catalog, and I really want to get a keg system eventually, I saw an awesome picture of a home tap in someone's kitchen.... definitely gonna go in my house!

Bottling Day!

brewing just might teach me how to be patient.

My batch was more than ready to be bottled on Tuesday, but I waited until Thursday to get it done. The overall process wasn't bad at all. I really wish I had a nice little set up so I could make it easier on myself.

Transferring my beer to the bottling bucket!

sanitizing all the bottles was kind of annoying, and there was glue and pieces of paper in the bucket due to the second hand beer bottles I got, I tried my best to get the labels and glue off, but its such a pain in the ass. Honestly I'll take the ugly appearance versus spending money on beer bottles. I'll post up a picture of the bottled product later....now to wait another 2 weeks until I can enjoy it!

sanitize,sanitize,sanitize

Beer model!

My brew collection is in some pretty random boxes...

Bottling?

My batch is most definitely ready to get bottled, but im about 18 bottles short of being able to do so...I need to hustle and get some bottles asap! I need to taste my creation!

Stage 2

Soooo, after that hefty foam cap subsided, its time to put it into the secondary fermenter. I was definitely not thinking that the yeast would do work and die that quickly, but one week down about 3 to go! Next Monday I'll be preparing my brews for bottling and conditioning...and then just 2 more weeks until I can enjoy some homemade beer!

Gravity did all the work for me today...

 Siphoning was really really easy, and I felt I did a pretty reasonable job, Id give you a gravity reading but I really dont know how to ready my hydrometer....it had definitely changed from my initial numbers...again I dont have much to go by since I don't know how to read it at all, but anyway...time to let it sit for another week or two!

Cant help but wonder if its a  meth lab or some homebrew

Brew Day!

so today was brew day. I decided to get an early start since there was a chance of rain, and yeah..it rained.

I decided to go ahead and brew anyway and it was quite a learning experience.

Brew setup

 I had never boiled 2.5 gallons of water, or even figure how long it would take. I go to know my way around the propane cooker, I'm sure my next batch will be boiling muuuch quicker.

 When I finally got it all boiled up, the extract was rather interesting. I have to remember to turn it on its head to let the syrup come out better, and maybe be a little more patient I guess. The hardest part was waiting around for the wort to boil the allotted time.

Sanitation:
I learned that its pretty damn easy to sanitize, but I'm sure I made a few mistakes. In time I'll be able to stream line my whole process and become a machine! I really wish there was a sink down in the basement!

I had a problem reading the hydrometer and I think its a 5 10 or 40..I don't really know what those readings mean at this point, but I'm putting it down just for reference. In the future I need more jugs of water, 3 gallons cooled and I can get 5 gallons warm water from upstairs.

I also need to be careful of yeast. Next time I need to dry the funnel and also make sure NOT to aerate it and make the yeast clump! UGHHH, I hope that doesn't kill my brew and it all comes out alright!

Hopefully the next time I brew I'll have the temp controller, have it set up and ready to go, so I can make this process as on point as possible!

And now we wait...

Phase 1 DONE

So, I now have everything I need to brew, the wort chiller and hose should be here tomorrow. All I am really missing is a temp reg for the mini fridge set up downstairs to keep my fermentation temps even and consistent. I could start without the equipment or I could go ahead and just wait until I get enough money for it, I'm not sure yet, but I know I really want to start ASAP!

First Post, A Look Ahead

got the idea to track progress and thoughts about brewing on here.
Day 1:
look up equipment and set goals
I want to be off and brewing by September and 6 months later have a solid brew worked up
In a year I want to be comfortable brewing and have perfected and replicated a brew, possibly of my own creation
Later on I want to look into how viable selling my stuff can be
Also wanted to keg my own beer and put it in a kegorator