Trouble Brewing

I embarked on a new hobby this weekend. I've been getting more and more into craft beer from all over the country and the world. It's pretty amazing the variety of really great beers that are available. Now it's going to get even better for Iowans, as the state legislator finally changed the rules for importing and for local breweries. We should be getting in many of the beers that we used to need to go out of state for.

After attending an event put on by the local home brew club, called the Cedar Rapids Beer Nuts, I decided to learn more about brewing. I've always wanted to try it, but thought that it would be really hard to brew good beer. But they really convinced me that brewing good beer was fairly easy, but brewing fantastic beers takes a little practice.

I did some research and found that in recent years the home brew market for both beer and wine have really matured. There's tons of places to buy supplies, and they offer complete ingredient kits for a huge range of styles.

The other issue was volume. I enjoy beer, but don't drink a ton of it by any means. I was worried I'd have beer coming out my ears and never be able to finish it all. I found out that you can pretty easily scale the batches as much as you want. Some people brew as little as a gallon at a time! Most kits are set up for 5 gallons, which typically yields around 54 12oz bottles.

I decided to start out by halving that. I boiled my first batch of wort (unfermented beer) for an Irish Red this weekend. The cooking process ended up taking about 2 1/2 hours. Then I cooled it down to about 80 degrees and added (called "pitching") the yeast. As of this morning it's really bubbling away. I should be bottling it in 3-4 weeks, then it will need to bottle condition (creates the carbonation) for another 1-2 weeks.

So if you're in our neighborhood around the middle of May stop in and have one on me!

The photos below were taken after nearly 48 hours in the primary fermenter. The foam has started to collapse.

Randy