Not So Famous…

There is a bucket of beer fermenting in my computer room as I type this. I could leave it at that, but I don’t feel the urge to write leaving me, so that must mean there is more to say. Let’s begin where I began on Saturday. (All times are approximate, as I determined the only way to properly brew beer was to be consuming beer at all times during the brewing and cooling process. And while I was not drunk at any time during the day, I had a distinct lack of regard for the time of day.)

1:30pm Saturday – I had planned on beginning the process much earlier than this, but Daniel wasn’t here yet, and he wanted to be a part of it all. No problem, my estimation is that the entire brewing process will take no more than 3-4 hours, which leaves plenty of time for…well…other things. I pour the water in the pot and put the grains in the grain bag for steeping. The instructions say that the grains should steep while the water is brought up to 170º F. (No more than 30 minutes.) So I drop the grain into the water. It immediately begins coloring the warming water, which is a good thing. I grab my brand new probe thermometer, drop the probe into the water, and begin monitoring the temperature.

2pm Saturday – I pull the grains out of the now very brown liquid, which is rather close to 170º F. Daniel determines that it would be very good to eat a nice heaping spoonful of the wet grain. Turns out he’s wrong. Steeped grains are very…well…fibery…and not much else. He told me I could throw them away. I did. Now I turn off the heat and add my malt extract syrup and powder. That went well. Now it must come to a boil, so I put the lid on and wait. (At this point it’s safe to put the lid on, as it’s not going to boil over if it’s not boiling yet, and I’ve got a thermometer to tell me when it gets to the boiling temp.)

2:15pm-2:55pm Saturday – I have achieved a nice boil, and my thermometer reads 215ºF…I think. (More on that later.) I take out the thermometer, add my hops and prepare for the first 40 minutes of the boil. However, I begin to notice that I don’t have the BTU’s on my stovetop to heat the full 6 gallons of wort to a full boil without the lid on. This is not good. Wort has a high surface tension, which means there’s always the threat of a boil-over. The key here is to watch it closely…a difficult proposition if you can’t see it. This time period is marked by me standing near the pot and lifting the lid periodically. (Result: No major boil-overs, but some minor ones that turned out to be exceedingly difficult to clean.)

2:55pm Saturday – I added my clarifier, and continued the boiling process.

3:15pm Saturday – Timer goes off, time to take the wort to the bathtub to cool it QUICKLY. Out comes the thermometer to measure the temperature. I put the pot in the bathtub with lots of ice water, and wait for the cooling. The goal is to cool the wort to 80ºF in a half hour or less. (The fast cooling brings some proteins out of suspension in the beer. It’s called cold break, and if it doesn’t come out of suspension, it could cause off-flavors in the finished product. At the very least, the proteins could come out of suspension when it’s put into the fridge in preparation for consumption.)

4:15pm Saturday – I am beginning to notice some funky things with the cooling wort. First off, my thermometer says the temperature has actually risen from 170ºF to 186ºF since I’ve moved it into the bathtub. It also says it’s still rising. Daniel has determined it’s because I’m using an inferior thermometer. He decides to try his. His thermometer reads 120ºF, which is also not likely. The wort isn’t even steaming, so it’s not even over 100ºF. My wife, genius that she is, gets out the thermometer manual and notes that the probe should never be submerged.

Crap.

So we run to my in-laws’ house to borrow their meat thermometer and determine that the wort is 76ºF. We pour the wort into the fermenter. We note that there’s close to 5.75 gallons of wort instead of 5. No big. We close up the fermenter and call it good for the evening.

11:15am Sunday – I walk into the computer room and notice bubbles coming out of the airlock. This means fermentation has begun. That’s a pretty good lag time, as it means that conditions were right for my yeast to begin fermentation immediately.

1:15pm Sunday – I walk into the computer room and notice yeasty foam in my airlock. This isn’t so good. It means that over-filling the fermenter wasn’t such a good idea. I drain off some of the extra beer from the bottom using the spigot, sanitize my airlock, and refill it with tap water. I do this about 4 times today.

6:30am Monday – There is a LOT of yeasty foam in my airlock. This means 1 of 2 things. Either I’ve still got too much beer in the fermenter, or else I’ve got a bacterial infection going on. I won’t really know for a little while, so I’m just going to keep cleaning the airlock until the yeast calm down, which my research indicates will be a couple days. As long as the airlock isn’t completely plugged, there’s no danger of the fermentor blowing the airlock out of the lid and spraying yeasty beer-goo on my ceiling.
In all, I’d say I’m happy with the way things went. I’ve tasted some of the beer I’ve drained from the fermenter, and it’s pretty darn good, actually. I can’t wait until it’s done. I expect the worst, really. I am hoping that it’s good, but expecting it to taste like fermented butt. Now if I can only find where to get replacement probes for my thermometer, I’ll be good to go.