Primary Fermentation

So here at my house the Brewery, we've I've made some progress.

Primary Fermentation finished today. I racked the beer into the carboy to commence the next phase, ........Secondary Fermentation as it's known (Though little if any fermentation actually takes place at this stage).

For those new to making beer. It all starts with a giant bucket of wort (pronounced 'wert') that is pretty much just beer-speak for a big bucket of yeast food. Live yeast is added ('pitched') into the wort, and they spend the next 3 to 5 days eating up almost all of the sugar, which creates alcohol and carbon dioxide. The gasses bubble off, and the alcohol remains in the liquid .........this new liquid is 'fermented' again and bottled. Voila! Beer!

Here's what it has looked like to date here at my house the bracieRSS Brewery.

Yeast + Ph balancer + 8L of water + beer kit = Wort.

Wort, pre-yeast. This smelled awesome, btw.

Wort, with Yeast 'pitched.'

The initial foam has settled,and the yeast is starting to do it's thing. At this point, it smells dreamy.

Primary fermentation, in full swing. Smells like heaven.

I was warned that it might foam over, this is the extent of that.

Day 5 almost exactly to the hour - I racked it into the carboy.

Crazy the amount of yeast left in the bucket.

So the primary fermentation of my first batch of beer, is done. The wort is now full of booze, and secondary fermentation is now taking place in the carboy.

Onward.

The first brew.

image source: inspirationsandexplorations.com

The word 'homebrew' is a negative. Or so it seems.

Every time I have muttered the words, "So I am making a batch of beer" over the past couple of weeks, I'm provided with a vivid recollection of a horrible, sludgy pint. Foul aftertaste, bitterness, general strangeness, and a clear dislike for home made beer. I'll even go so far as to include most micro brewed beers here as well - it seems that the popular palate for beer these days is a derivative of the mass produced 'Clean crisp, no aftertaste' type of pint. Unfortunately.....

A word about 'home' brew.

In doing my homework in establishing this (ahem) brewery ........I stopped into a local brew supply shop to round out my thoughts. Turns out it used to be a brew supply shop, now they are a wine bottlery (If that's a word). The expertise is still in house, they know their beer making, but I was a little disappointed by the shift in focus .....I might be looking for a new brew shop to rub shoulders with fellow brew masters. Ha!

The innagural brew - Method

So home brewing has changed a lot since I last dabbled in the craft. My Pop chose the simplest method available (At the time), and used to buy big cans of what looked like molasses. He meticulously boiled it up to exact temperatures through a number of critical steps - it was not complicated, but quite involved. There were a bunch of steps and stages, different ingredients and a process to follow. .......and this was the easy way.

Gear. Part II

So after scouring the local classifieds, and turning up nothing, I made a judgment call and just went to a local brewers supply and bought the required remaining bits and parts. I had hoped to cut costs and source used, but for the sake of a couple of dollars it just wasn't worth the time or effort to run all over the city buying up other peoples used gear.

The last of the required gear.

So that about does it, bracieRSS has been established and furnished.

Next step, the first batch.

Bottles!

Shitty Italian soda, apparently.

I am a huge fan of glass bottles, flip top Grolsch style ones to be specific. I shopped around a little, and as suspected they are quite expensive to buy new. Pisser. .......so I hit up the local classifieds.

I found a guy who knew a guy (Great start to a story, I know) who worked in a local grocery store warehouse. They brought in some high end Italian soda that sold for $7 a bottle ............needless to say they didn't sell any of it, and the warehouse was jammed with loads of unsold expired expensive bottles of Italian soda, in beautiful 750ml glass flip top bottles. Bingo.

Gear.

So to get bracieRSS off the ground, I need to acquire the kit needed to make my own beer. Fortunately my pop handed down all of his old gear to me years ago, that has been collecting dust packed up in my basement and garage for years.