These words are found throughout this book, one of Paul's Christmas gifts. My boss is an avid home brewer, and it's something Paul's always been curious about. After seeing Paul's reaction to the book (pretty enthusiastic, if a little hesitant!) I took the opportunity to set him up with his own home brew items for his birthday last week. With the guidance of my boss, I was well on my way to either delicious homemade beer or a kitchen nightmare. Thankfully, no one was harmed in the making of the beer, although Elle supervised her Daddy and Uncle Paul's antics and occasionally wept... loudly... for their efforts.
This will be a picture-intensive post, in case you couldn't gather - I'm going to try to recount the events as best I can, and hope that Paul (nor my boss) laughs too loudly if I get something wrong. Paul and Jon did it right, and that's what matters... right?
Well, before we do anything you have to look at my flowers.
Okay. Very pretty. Now, here's how it all went down, more or less:
The carboy being sanitized in the guest bath tub. EVERYTHING, as you can imagine, had to be sanitized. Ladies: If you're ever thinking of doing this, be sure you have regular bleach on hand. Paul was pretty miffed that he was going to have to sanitize his manly brewing supplies with "springtime fresh" bleach, but luckily we had some normal ol' clorox so he was spared.
Let's get the party started! My boss said Paul definitely needs a "brewing buddy", and it SHOULDN'T be me. While I got to stir a little bit, and really get in the way trying to get dinner on the table for our guests, Jon filled the role a lot better than I could...
...although, if you know these two, it was still total shenanigans.
Here are four successive pictures of what happened next involving the crystal and chocolate malt extracts. Later, we added hops to the mix. We're using Willamette Hops, as in Willamette, OR, (which was great because we picked up Jon some unbelievably delicious Blue Cheese from that region for his birthday earlier Saturday, at Corrieiri's - but I digress) and in case you need to be reminded of the pronunciation:
Cursing and beer making... the blog has definitely taken a classy turn in 2011. Anyway:
Starts out innocent enough, in muslin bags.
Getting a little color to it...
OK, a lot of color... and starting to get real warm, too...
Time to SQUEEZE all that flavor out. I've already mentioned how classy the blog is in 2011, but I guess this pic gives opportunity to do it again.
Adding the nut brown extract. It had to warm up for a while in warm water in the sink - it was a six pound pouch of oozy gooey stuff that kind of tasted like sorgum. Oh, and the hops tasted like having a wheat stem in your mouth. You think I wasn't going to taste all this first? Don't worry, I was careful not to mess with the sanitizing aspect of things!
But at this point, you really have to stir, stir, stir for an hour with the mix just at boiling to keep it constantly combined. We all took turns eating dinner and then stirring, so we broke the aforementioned "one brew buddy" rule from my boss, but it was for the sanity of all involved on their first time brewing. I managed to bake a couple batches of fresh cookies during all this, too. Oh, it was nightmarish. Never again will I cook and brew at the same time... and I'm looking at you, Dr. Smart, I know you advised me not to and I should have listened!
Then using a big funnel, the mix got from the brew pot to the carboy. I wasn't there for that part, but I did follow Paul (and take video!) (that you may or may not ever see!) moving it to the big closet.
In the closet... with our other junk.
In the closet this morning after he added the fermentation lock and yeast.
In two weeks, we'll be ready to bottle beer (in sanitized bottles, of course). And I must say, it DOES really look like beer, so I have every anticipation of us bottling it (and getting pizza as we do so... wow, just to say it again, I SO didn't listen to my boss and thought I could cook at the same time. Not fun in our tiny kitchen!) After the beer sits for about another two weeks, we can drink it... and give it to the people who all know about it and want to try. Most of the brewing supplies I got here, and it wasn't a terribly costly setup considering. This batch is in a 6 gallon carboy and ought to yield two cases of beer. While this will be a "brown ale", the mind (well, Paul's mind!) boggles at the possibilities - and with sites like this, I think we've inspiration aplenty!
We'll definitely keep you all posted on the first Downey-Gaston brewing adventure!
