Early Lessons and New Equipment

Brewing my first batch of beer taught me many lessons, some real and some imagined. Still, I have acted to correct each of them.

First, time heals all. Letting my beer sit longer in the bottles turned what I thought of as a sweet, somewhat watery beer into a more balanced (some would say dry) beer with a nutty complexity. So, I have now resigned myself to letting those babies sit until I cannot bear it any longer.

Second, doing a small boil and mixing with water in the primary leaves me feeling anxious. While it turned out a decent beer, I swear this technique made it watery and lacking a full mouthfeel. Thus, I have procured a 30 qt brew kettle to do full boil batches. This will also help me make the switch to all grain, which I plan to do quite soon. I already have my eye on an unclaimed water cooler in the basement of my building to become my mash tun.

Third, cooling off 2.5 or 3 gallons of water in the sink is hard. Even in an ice bath with a little siphoned circulation, it took forever. This may have also affected the mouthfeel, and when I go to full boils, the problem will only get worse. Thus, I have ponied up and gotten a wort chiller.

Well, actually, I went to the hardware store and built one. For about $25 and an hour of my time, I had a serviceable wort chiller. 20 feet of 1/4 inch copper tubing and 20 feet of nylon tubing, some hose clamps, a hose to tube adapter, and a sink adapter, and I was off to the races. We will see how it works with my next batch.

First beer - mild success

Beer turns out to be the perfect Christmas gift. After a few weeks of moderate work, my first beer, Midwest Supplies' Autumn Amber kit, turned out to be a fairly popular success. This beer was a pretty middle of the road amber ale:

6 lbs. of Gold LME
2 oz. Special B
8 oz. Crystal 80L
2 oz. Roasted Barley
1 oz. Hallertau @ 60 min
1 oz. Fuggles @ 1 min
Mutton's dry yeast

After 6 days in the primary and 10 days in the secondary, both at 68 degrees room temp, I bottled with priming sugar and put up. At day 7, I pulled a few bottles to put in the fridge. They definitely tasted young, not that I am sure what that means, and a bit watery. I wrote this off to the fact that I had such a small boil volume (2.5 gallons), and that I had to water that whole thing down. This may have been an incorrect assumption as after two weeks the beers have started to mature nicely. Totally different profile than at week one. Not as much water or fruity character, and much nuttier. I am serving a case of this at my NYE party, so by then it should be even better.

I gave this beer as gift to friends and family, and reactions have been fairly positive. Most of the crowd were occasional beer drinkers, more used to commercial brews. Their reactions were overall pretty good. Most liked that it was dry and not to sweet, although this is almost the opposite of my initial reaction (IPA fan). Also, they seemed to like the "complexity of this". What I was most pleased with was that lined up beside old standby Pilsner Urquell in the fridge, my beers seemed to be getting consumed at a 2:1 rate. Not bad for a first try.