Brews and Pubs: Homebrew #1 {kyle} |

About a month ago I began my first ever Homebrewing experiment. It was pretty exciting.

I’ve enjoyed drinking beer for some time now, and its something that I’ve wanted to continue learning about. I’ve done several tastings and brewery tours and gotten a fair amount of information from those, but is there really any better way to learn how beer is made than by making it yourself?

I’m also on a fairly low budget. So, instead of going out and buying lots of fancy equipment for this first go around I was able to find a ready-made kit from Brooklyn Brew Shop for only $19.99. It comes with pretty much everything you need for your first experiment. The few things it didn’t include are things that almost anyone would have in their kitchen to begin with – like a big pot and a strainer.

Now, Brooklyn Brew Shop makes it pretty simple by giving you instructions to follow and videos that you can watch online if you need more help. However, I still made a few rookie mistakes so I want to share some of those with you in hopes that you might not repeat my errors.

One of the first things that I did wrong was not reading all the way through the instructions before I started the process. I read far enough ahead that I thought I would be fine, but there are several steps that you need to be prepared for ahead of time. For example, during one of the final steps during the first portion of the brewing process you are instructed to place your pot of nearly boiling beer into an ice bath so that it will cool down rapidly. Having not read that part, I did not have much ice readily available and it took my beer much longer to cool down than I think it was supposed to.

Put into ice bath to cool down quickly. I did not plan ahead and therefore did not have enough ice.

Another mistake that I made was during the mashing-in process. I misread the instructions and only added half the amount of water that I was supposed to add. Fortunately, I realized my mistake before it was too late and was able to add more water. However, the end result was a fairly light beer and was a little watery – I feel like my misreading may have contributed to this.

Mashing In – aka adding the grain to the water

The only other major mistake that I made was that instead of bottling my beer I put it into growlers. I didn’t have any bottles at the time and I really didn’t think it would make much difference. However, several people {including David over at LocalBeerBlog.com – check him out} mentioned to me that growlers are not always the safest way to go. Apparently, they don’t always stand up to the pressure very well and can explode if they are not kept in consistent, low temperatures. I did keep mine in the cool, dark basement, and didn’t end up having any trouble, but for two weeks I was on edge thinking they might explode and all my precious time and beer would be wasted. Next time I will do bottles and save myself the stress.

Ultimately though I ended up with a pretty decent beer. It’s a nice, light wheat beer with a slight bitterness. I’m going with the simple name Kyle’s Homebrew #1.

Tyler, Eric, and Sarajane all agreed that it definitely tastes like beer. For this first experiment, that’s all I was really hoping for.

See you next time!

kyle.