It's Good!

I must say I am a little surprised. There where many things which could have gone wrong. Things like contamination by germs, overheating the yeast, cooling the wort too slowly, or bottle caps not tight enough. Fortunately, most of them went right.

To recap: It has been almost five weeks since I became a home brewer. I bought 330 dollars worth of equipment, and had a friend come over and help me get through the first batch. We used his brew kettle, which is a fancy description of a big metal pot. The ingredients came from a hobbyist brewer supply place.

The cooking took three hours, most of which was spent cleaning things. You clean before, and then clean up after. We boiled the water first, and added the grain, which steeps for an hour. Once the grain is out, hops go in, along with malt sugar. The mixture is boiled for an hour, and then cooled rapidly, or as rapidly as possible. Cooling quickly helps to prevent the formation of certain chemicals which can make beer taste bad.

When the grain goes into the water, the mixture sells like hot breakfast cereal, like oatmeal or farina. The malt syrup adds a sugarry smell, almost honey-like. When the hops go in, it takes on a pungent tangy smell, which is distinctively the smell of beer. The yeast makes a smell like bread dough, and the wort that is put in the fermenter is a mixture of all these smells.

I put the yeast into the mixture right before it went into a six and a half gallon fermenter, and then let it sit in the closet for eight days. I transferred it to a settling bottle, and let it sit for another week. Finally, I boiled a couple of pints of water and added some of what is called bottling sugar. I believe that bottling sugar is what gets the beer to carbonate, and also acts as a surfactant to make it foam when you pour it.

After two weeks had passed, I put the beer in bottles, and left them in the dining room on the floor. They have been there ever since. Right now, it has been about twenty days in the bottle. I chilled a couple of bottles, and then did a taste test.

The results (drum roll):

The bottle hissed slightly when opened, just like a commercial beer. The steam of carbon dioxide was visible coming out of the top. When poured, it was a wonderful golden color, mostly clear. A head formed on top, also just like a commercial beer. The smell was tangy, lightly hoppy, and sweet. The taste was very pleasant, to the point of being prideworthy.

I compared it with a commercial amber ale, which was darker in color, but not better tasting. Mine was actually better, being more mellow, less bitey, and smoother. As far as alcohol, I drank the first bottle, and the second, and actually got a nice buzz. I didn't do the chemistry to measure alcohol content, but the biology definitely indicated the presence of alcohol.

So there it is, the full brewing cycle of an amber ale. I was very satisifed, and I would definitely do this brew again. I have about four cases before I run out. Meanwhile, I have a brown ale which should be ready this weekend, and a red ale that will be transferred to the secondary on Monday night. The next batch will be started in two weeks, but I haven't yet decided what it will be.

Next time, I will be tasting the brown ale. Until then, cheers!