How long should the wort stay in the fermentor?

      Especially when it's your first few brews, you will get anxious and at times bottling your beer before it is the right time. That simple mistake can ruin your brew, and it is actually an easy fix. Determining when it is the right time should not be a nightmare, all you need is some help from your hydrometer!
   
      Lets start by explaining what a hydrometer is; It's a tool made out of glass, with some mercury or led on the bottom that helps it float when you drop it in your brew that is in a test tube to test gravity, sugar levels, and have a good prediction on alcohol content that you will end up with. It is IMPORTANT to note that there are different types of hydrometers out there, the one you must use is designed for beer and wine.

           Above is my hydrometer, that I purchased from the local Home Brew Shop in Chico, Ca. It came with a set of instructions that are very straight forward. A little online research and a couple of videos and you will be able to take readings in no time! (Soon I will blog about the steps to take a hydrometer reading)

      By now you are asking yourself why is the hydrometer your best friend when it comes to figuring out if it is time to bottle. Different beers and yeast have different time frames as far as fermentation, once you notice that there is almost no activity in the airlock, start taking readings every 24 hours. After about 2 to 3 readings that are all the same you know that there is no more activity going on (at least not that will make a difference in your fermentor). Now you know it is time to bottle, and safe enough where the yeast activity will not be enough to create too much pressure and bust your bottles, or leave some odd tastes in the brew that you do not want.

For info on bottling check out the blog before this!!!

Bottling!

I got to bottle my pale ale last night! Bottling is very exciting, because it is just one step closer to drink your brew! Unfortunately now I am very anxious yet I cannot touch my bottled beer for a few weeks, while it is conditioning.

I made this process easier by following my pre bottling checklist (look at previous blog), but just to be safe I sanitized the bottles again. My brew was in a carboy, bottling out of that can be tricky at first but it is actually very very easy, all you really need is a siphoning tube, with the pressure in the carboy and gravity both being used to my advantage; the process took roughly 30 minutes. My girlfriend helped me cap, which also helped my time. (I am going to make a video soon, because it is the easiest way to show peeps how to bottle)

I had a little problem: 5 gallons of beer and only 30 beer bottles. After bottling as you can imagine, I had some beer left over. It is not easy to dump beer, that I spent a great deal of time making. My fix was to use a 2 liter coke bottle, after some research although not recommended it does the job.... And I am using it as my guide for how carbonation is going. I will let you know how it worked out in a couple of weeks.

Before I forget, you need to mix a teaspoon of corn sugar in about a court of water, boil it while mixing and let it sit to cool down. Add this to your wort and mix well to blend it in. This will be the yeast food while carbonating, therefore it is a very important step!!!

Keep in mind that when it comes to bottling, bottles have to be designed to hold pressure build up. Beer bottles work best, and they are free because you can just take your friends empty bottles, clean them and cap them (caps are cheap). Stay away from mason jars, they vacuum seal but will not handle the pressure produced by the process of natural carbonation. Also stay away from hard alcohol bottles, such as; sky, jack etc... Unless you want a messy little explosion that will waist a LOT of your beer!

CHEERS!

A few pointers prior to bottling.

      You might still have a few more days before you are ready to bottle, but a head start is always helpful.  Go through a few checklist items:

                1. Bottles (unless you will be using a keg), make sure the bottles are ones that are

                    designed to handle pressure build up. Yeast is what will carbonate your beer    

                    during the conditioning process, so empty beer bottles will work best. Do not 

                    use twist offs because that will make capping a pain. Do you have enough bottles???

                2. Sanitize, there are many ways to sanitize your bottles such as boiling them, using

                    substances etc... You have gone too far to ruin your beer!

                3. Corn Sugar, you can purchase this at your local Home Brew Shop. This is needed in order to

                    dissolve and then add to your wort, must be used for conditioning and carbonating  A process 

                    that takes place when you bottle.

                4. Do you have everything you need for bottling? Tubes, spicket, caps, capper (I will post

                    pictures in my next blog).

                5. (Optional) Do you have an extra hand? A friend or significant other to help you? This will make

                    your life easier during bottling!!

      Having a few days to go through this checklist, and other items you might add to the list, will be helpful. Knowing what you need beforehand will eliminate having to make an emergence trip to the store. 

One of my brews from start to where I am at now!

      First is first let's start with some basic vocabulary so we are on the same page for this post:
Wort: In our case it is malt extract and water.
Malt: it's an extract from grains, in my case was in a syrup form that I added to my boiling water.
Hops: a plant, used mainly for flavoring of your beer (gives it the bitterness and the aroma).
   
      Let the fun begin, at this point the work station and all the equipment have been sanitized (as shown on my previous blog), and we are ready to make some beer!!!!

      My ingredients were very simple; Alexander's wheat/barley malt, 2 tea spoons of honey (just because i wanted to sea if it will influence the finished product), hops, a package of dry yeast, and of course water. My ingredients were purchased from the Home Brew Store, here in Chico, California. You can get them online but why not support local business, right?

      Start by boiling a gallon and a half of water, in a clean stainless steal pot (also make sure there are 4 gallons of water in the fridge being chilled). Make sure you have room for the malt and the hops!

      Once your water comes to a boil, add the malt, mix it until it has all been dissolved and bring it to a rolling boil (this will be a 60 minute process from when you add the malt), 20 minutes into the process, add your hops (about a handful) to contribute to the bitterness.

     
      About 5 minutes before you are done with the boil, add more hops for the aroma (I personally only had hops in there for 5 minutes during the whole boil, because I wanted to have a sweeter beer (ale). After your whole 60 minutes are done, pour the wort into your ferminator and add cold water till you reach about 5 gallons total. It helps to put your ferminator at that point in a sink or a tub full of ice water to bring down the temperature (the faster the cooling happens, the better the quality). Once you are between 65 and 78 degrees F, add your yeast to the wart.

      Finally put your airtight lid on the ferminator, with an airlock, to allow co2 to release but no air to come in to avoid contamination. Add water about half way in your airlock.

      From here on leave the ferminator in a dark place (sunlight is you beers enemy), within 24hours you will notice bubbling in the airlock and that is good news, it means fermentation is taking place. leave it alone for about 2 weeks, and then you will be ready to bottle. I will blog about bottling, in a later post and go through the process with you. Hope you enjoyed this post!

Key pre-brew procedure is.....

      Most Important thing in brewing is SANITATION! If you don't sanitize your work area and equipment, you will ruin your brew, no matter how great your beer might have been, bacteria will ruing it. Basically think about it this way, if you don't sanitize you are throwing your money and your brew down the drain. Bacteria is the enemy!

       Now that i emphasized sanitation, I will explain my procedure of keeping everything clean. First thing I did was cleaned my bathtub, and rinsed it well with hot water. Many of you are asking why bath tub, and the answer is because the tub fits EVERYTHING! I then proceeded to fill the tub with extremely hot water, just enough to cover the equipment I have in there:
 

     The airtight lid, siphon tube, rubber grommets, air lock all went in the hot water for about 20 minutes, during those 20 minutes I took the opportunity to clean the kitchen counters and stove where were I will be brewing with bleach water in order to get my work area all sanitized. In the sink I then mixed iodophor and water in order to sanitize the spoon I used to mix,thermometer, and cooking pot, and re sanitize everything from the tub. Better safe than sorry, also wash your hands and rinse them really well. If your ingredients are contaminated, your beer will taste terrible and vinegary.

      The boiling water will take care of anything within the water that might be a containment, but keep in mind there is cold water that has to be added when you are done with your boil, so either boil additional water and chill it in the fridge, or just buy distilled bottled water to ensure cleanliness.

Let the brewing begin!

      Beer is one of the greatest inventions, but for me having microbrewery beer just was not enough. Sure there are many great beers out there, some of which I will discuss later, but for me I always wanted to experiment creating a brew that I can call my own, and pride myself with it.

      After having the idea of making beer brewing in my head for a while, I found out that there is a Home Brew Shop right here in the beautiful Chico, California. I was looking at equipment and asking questions as soon as I got into the shop, another customer saw my want, as well as a confused look in my eyes and left me with a piece of advice that was enough to kick start my hobby; His words were simple: "Just do it, that's the only way to go."  I walked out with a kit and some ingredients, I will start talking about the kit, and then we will get into the actual brewing process!
 
      My kit:
     

          The kit came with the ferminator (the big white bucket in the picture), 2 thermometers, a stick on and a stick (temperatures are crucial in the world of brewing), an airlock (the container looking thing the picture in front of the book), a bottle brush, a tube, a spicket , some bottle caps and a bottle capper. My kit cost me 58 dollars all together, which is a fair price for a starter kit. The pink pack (yeast), the bag with the hops, iodophor for sanitation and corn sugar in the picture were all purchased, they do not come with the kit.
     
As you can see the kit for brewing does not take much space, so even if you are in a studio or a small apartment, you can still brew! My next blog will go into detail about making my first brew, I hope you enjoyed this post, please ask any questions you may have for me, and check up on my blog, since I will be adding and updating often!