Chapter 6: Bottling Hef & Nut Brown Ale

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Welcome to another stunning & thrilling chapter in the Homebrewing Adventure!!! This week… we start off with…

 

Bottling the Hefeweizen!!! It seems like just the other week that we were cooking up the wort (because we were) and already to bottling day. If we had a kegging system in place, we’d basically be drinking it now… but alas, we’ll let it age a bit in the two week bottling phase with priming sugar. We bottled pretty late in the evening (more on that later) but during the whole process, the Hef mixture looked a LOT darker than one might expect after drinking the typically light, golden ales bearing that name… but we shall see once the process is complete if that’s the case. Here are some pictures…

 

 

Dizzy drowning a cat... oh wait...

this one is sanitizing bottles

See? That's pretty dark for a Hef, right?

Cleaning the carboy for the next batch...

By the way, magnet on our dishwasher...

I really enjoy my roommates...

Sunday night, we started our new batch… Nut Brown Ale, from a malt extract kit. While cooking this bad boy, there was a scent of chocolate in the air… kind of like smelling a batch of chocolate chip cookies… so yeah, pretty excited about this one too. It’s also another one of the fairly quick turnover brews like the Hefeweizen, where we will be bottling it after two weeks of fermenting… and then two weeks after that, we have brown ale along with our three other brews by that point. Anyway, here are some pictures of the Nut Brown Ale’s preparation…

 

 

Mmm... steeping a hefty sack of chocolately goodness...

Then chill as quickly as possible for fermentation...

Load some cold water in the carboy first...

Then mix in the wort...

Top it off & place it in a cool, dark place...

Don't forget to take a picture with FLASH!!!

BIG NEWS!!! Earlier Saturday, we also went on a bit of a shopping spree for our Homebrewing enterprise. A few weeks ago, my lovely mother asked me what I wanted for Christmas… so being a grown ass man who takes care of himself, I replied “Money’s cool… but you don’t have to get me anything. I’m a grown up.” I’ve chatted with her about the Homebrewing though… and she knows that Dizzy & I really enjoy it… so she gave us some cash for some additional equipment, because she’s the greatest!

 

We went to the Oak Barrel in El Cerrito and thanks to a discount with being new members to the SF Homebrewers Guild… we walked out with:

 

• 10 Gallon Mash-Tun – For brewing all-grain brew recipes, which is the next step in devising our own unique recipes
• Stainless Steel Wort Chiller – To cool the boiling wort as quickly as possible before fermentation to cut down in any possible contamination. Before we were just using the bags of ice in the sink, now… probably both?
• Eight pounds of Wildflower Honey & Yeast - For making Mead & they gave us a recipe for quick mead (a few months as opposed to a year plus)
• Five gallon glass carboy – A second secondary fermentation carboys so that we can have multiple batches fermentation at the same time, since a few of our upcoming recipes requires a longer secondary… we won’t have to wait until it’s done to start on a quicker batch
• Another case of 22 ounce bottles – This may be the top reasoning for considering a kegging system in the next few months. We have a LOT of bottles in the apartment now, which is okay as long as we’re recycling & saving them… but can easily be replaced with a few 5 gallon kegs. One keg = about 2 cases... and this was my living room BEFORE we bottled the Hef... Don't worry though, the boxes on top are empty... roommates just may be moving out so I saved them.

 

• One pound of Bottle Caps – So about 200 or so… again for the bottles
• A few other odds & ends – Cleaner, replacement bubble chambers, etc.

 

We also picked the brains of some of the workers at Oak Barrel & they lent their expertise on a variety of subjects from mash-tunning to mead recipes to some of their favorite beers to their own batch routines and so on… really nice guys. I highly recommend that if you’re looking for any beer, wine or cheese making apparatus, consider the Oak Barrel on San Pablo Drive in El Cerrito. Tell them $teve sent ya… “Who?” “The tall guy with the hot chick who were asking a bunch of questions a few weeks ago… he wore a Dee’s Nuts T-Shirt.” “OH! $TEVE! Yeah… hahaha…”

 

Anyway, that’s pretty much the adventure this week… next week, Pumpkin Ale Tasting… and of course we always have a few other surprises. Have a great day everybody!!!