I've wanted to brew my own beer for years. Ever since I met
my first brewer in person, I've thought of brewing myself. That's why after
thinking about it for a long time and being encouraged by friends, a few months
ago I took the plunge and finally started homebrewing. That's a decision I am
very happy that I made.
To start things off I travelled to my local homebrew supply
store. It's a small shop, but has everything you need to brew batches of beer
in all styles and sizes. When I visited the store I asked the owner how he
would recommend that I start brewing. He recommended that I start all-grain
brewing instead of using malt extract, as he found homebrewers who did so were
more engaged and learned more quickly. I decided to follow his advice and chose
an Oatmeal Brown Ale recipe for my first homebrew.
The owner of the store then walked me around the store to
help me collect the ingredients for the recipe. We first collected the grains
that would be needed to produce fermentable sugars for the yeast to consume. We
then put the grains into a mill for grinding, save for the flaked oats that
would be added to the brew. Next we picked the hops and finally the yeast to
complete the recipe.
Now, I live in a small studio apartment in Boston. Part of
my hesitance to begin homebrewing was the amount of space it would take.
However, the store owner informed me that all I would basically need was the
room to store a 5 gallon bucket. After hearing that, I purchased the necessary equipment
including the kettle, siphon,
hydrometer, cleaner, sanitizer, bottle brush and capper, as well as the
fermentation and bottling buckets. I then went home to prepare for my first
brew day.
After cleaning and sanitizing all of my equipment (perhaps
the most important part of brewing), I filled my kettle with water and put in
on my stove to begin heating. I placed a nylon straining bag in the kettle and,
once the water reached the required temperature, added the grains. As the
malted grain released its sugars, the water soon turned into wort. I next took
the bag out of the kettle and began boiling the wort before adding the hops I had
chosen. Once enough time had passed I placed the kettle in a bath of ice water
in order to chill the wort down to the necessary temperature before pouring it
into the fermentation bucket, sealing it, and pitching the yeast. My brew day
was over, but fermentation had just begun.
I had taken a hydrometer reading from some of the wort in
order to obtain the original gravity, which provides a glimpse of the possible
ABV of the final brew. I placed the fermentation bucket in my closet and over
the next few weeks monitored it to ensure the brew was fermenting (usually by
observing the airlock for carbon dioxide release) and to maintain the correct
temperature. Bottling day, when it finally came, was relatively easy. It mainly
entailed filling and capping, besides transferring the beer from one bucket to
another, adding some priming sugar, and cleaning up afterwards. I then let the
bottles sit to condition for another couple of weeks.
I decided to purchase labels for my first homebrew and to
enter it into a local homebrewing competition for fun. Upon tasting the beer I
was glad that it had turned out as I hoped it would. I received positive
feedback from friends and family, who seemed to enjoy it even more than I did.
Overall the experience was very educational and a lot of fun. I just finished
my second homebrew, a honey wheat ale, and I am very much enjoying brewing as a
hobby. I'm not sure where it will lead, but I do know there's nothing quite
like drinking your own beer.
