Fun Times Had By All: First Homebrew

January 28: Well after my shipping mess up and sending my homebrew product to school, I finally got to brew it. This is my first one so wasn't too sure about how it all would go. I read the book and thought it didn't seem that bad. Liberty Cream Ale here we go!!!

Stank is excited to brew her first beer ever!

I got a liquid yeast so you had to pop the bladder and let it swell! Well they want it to rest in temprature of about 75 degrees. I keep my house at 64 in the winter (I like it cold :)) So I put a towel on top of it and placed it in the sun to see if it would rise since I remember by dad doing that with bread while I was growing up! It worked too!!! (Forgot to get a picture)

I borrowed a pot from a lady I work with and it worked!! I think I will go buy my own. It was a canning pot and took FOREVER for the water to get up to the correct temperature.

Got my pot ready to go

I put my crushed grains in the muslin boiling bag and turned up the heat. It took a long time but finally got to 155 degrees!!!

Starting to steep

Put the malt extract in and stirred it up!!! That is how the color of the beer came to be! The bittering hops were also put in for optimal hop utilization and bittering!! They tell you not to leave your pot unattended since boil overs are messy!!

Getting some color

Ooops...I seemed have to went to the bathroom and left it unattended. Boil over...

Ahhh man- boil over

Wort was cooled! and put in my primary fermenter and topped it off with water.

5 gallons worth

I have good color and did my hydrometer reading. It was 1.040. I tasted it and didn't taste too bad. Not really carbonated yet!! Not really a fan of room temp beer.