Today was bottling day for Steve Rudh's and my first batch of home brewed beer. You may have read a previous post about this adventure but if you didn't, we started on St Patrick's Day, about two weeks ago with a kit from Northern Brewer in St. Paul. We both like Irish Red so that is the kit we picked and boiled our wort that night using the basic brewing kit from the store. The folks there were very helpful in getting us started, suggesting some better upgrades to the basic kit and the right yeast to buy and how to transport it without killing it, etc. I called them the next week to get some advice on the next step and they walked me through it over the phone. Really good customer service and that is kind of rare these days, but I digress.
The next morning after brew day our fermenter was bubbling furiously as we had hoped and continued for several days, winding down to almost a stop by this week.
Tonight we cleaned and sanitized all our bottles and transferred the beer into the bottling bucket after testing the specific gravity. The boys at N.B. told me it should be 1.013 and we ended up at 1.010 so I think it is just right. We also tasted the sample from the hygrometer tube and it was very nice, even though at this point it is still "flat". We added the priming sugar and filled 48 bottles with a lovely amber liquid.
Now it is sitting in cases taped shut in case of any explosions and it will develop the carbonation over the next two to four weeks. I can't wait to taste one!
Here's to a good "soothing beverage"; more to come as we taste Steve and Tim's Inaugural Brew.
Tim
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
When you decide to do it from scratch let me know. I've got some recipes to try,and a friend of mine is a master brewer who grows his own barley, and malts his own hopps.
ReplyDelete