Brew brew.
April 25, 2007 – 3:55 amAbout 2 weeks ago I decided that it was time for me to give Ale Brewing a try. Well today my first ale was bottled, 9 days after fermentation began. In another two weeks I should be able to start testing out my concoction.
On the initial brewing day things didn’t go so great. First it took about 45 minutes to filter all the water, as I only have a Pure pitcher filtration system. Then the wort (concentrated, un-fermented beer) boiled over and I added it to the fermenting bucket. Because of the boil over, the hops were mistakenly left out, so the hops had to be boiled in a little water and then added. Another problem due to my hasty addition of boiling wort, was that the mixture needed about 8 hours to cool. The optimal way of adding the wort would have been to cool it down first by setting it’s container in very cold water.
Even after all those problems, visible signs of fermentation started to appear in the airlock around the time I arrived home work that same day.
Today, ~9 days later, we successfully moved it to bottles. There were only a couple smalls spills. My assistants couldn’t have cared less about the whole process. They did become interested when we finally moved it into the bottles, but the last laugh was all mine when then learned it takes about 14 days to become drinkable (a little bottle fermenting, resulting in carbonation).
The bottling process is a bit more tedious than preparing for the fermentation; however, ending with a nearly finished physical product is awesome. Plus, using the capper is tons of fun!