First Kilted homebrew session.

[Rygar]

Last night, My college buddy Matt (also a member here now!) came down for a visit to teach me how to make homebrew beer. I've been wanting to, but lacked the equipment and was intimidated by the extra steps and ingredients. In return, I showed him how simple making a mead is. LOL. (I got the better end of the deal on this one!)

Matt, unfortunately, forgot to bring his kilt along with him on this trip down, as well as forgetting his grain for the beer, and a couple of other things he intended to pack. LOL. At least I wore mine, and I offered him one of my other kilts, but he didn't think they would fit well enough.

Amazingly, brewing beer was alot simpler than I thought, and even with the missing ingredient and later that night a waterline break in the nieghborhood rendering the wort chiller useless, we improvised and had a great time!

So, on with the pics...

The first one is of me, adding in the dry malt to the wort.


The next is of Matt, adding in the malt extract.


Here is our boiling wort. It was a beer kit, so no yummy whole hops, just the pellets. And since our grain was missing, we used and extra pound of honey. The SG reading tells us it's going to be a light beer in Alc. content and color, but should be very honey sweet.


Adding in the yeasties to the batch. Matt used one of the smack packs, and it was certainly raring to go when we finally got to that step!


And the two finished products. The mead is in the one gallon glass jug. No pics of that, but it only took a fraction of the time the beer did! LOL. As of right now, the beer is bubbling away VERY happily, and I predict the mead will be doing just as well within the next 24 hours.


In a couple of weeks, Matt plans to make his way back down to this area for a day of bottling beer! What a great night!

[Dirk Skene]

Homebrew is like kilts. Once you start you don't go back

[Matthew J. Greene]

It was a good night! Unfortunately a few hurdles (one was my fault) drug a 3 or 4 hour brew session into a 7 or 8 hour brew session. We adapted, overcame, and made beer anyway.

I'm going to get the ingredients needed to add to the specialty grains (that I forgot at home ). Then we will brew the beer that we were supposed to make in the first place.

As I said several times last night "Good times!".

I will remember the kilt next time (It was four hours away)

[emolas]

Even though it lasted 8 hours it certainly looked like fun. I'd be interested in getting that mead recipe off of you if you don't mind.

[Pour1Malt]

guid threid tae put oan The Pub!

[Frog]

Homebrewing is one of the reasons I'm not spending nearly as much time here as I used to - but, no complaints! At least, not many. I do have a question, tho' - why do you guys/gals post so much when I'm not payin' attention?

Frog

[Matthew J. Greene]

The Mead was approximately 2 lbs of honey dissolved in 1 gallon of water. The water and honey was held at 150 to 170 degrees F for ten minutes or so to pasteurize it. Once the mixture was cool enough Rygar pitched a partial package of rehydrated Nottingham Ale yeast. The whole process took about half an hour to forty minutes.

[Matthew J. Greene]

Rygar's internet has been nonexistent for more than a few days. I will take the liberty of showing the pics from our bottling and subsequent brewing session.

I made the trip down to Rygar’s home on Saturday afternoon. Our plans were to bottle the last batch and possibly brew another batch. I arrived a little later than anticipated. So we decided to bottle that night, and then brew the next day.

I’ll explain in a little bit more detail for those that don’t know how to homebrew (might interest you enough to give it a try). First we sanitized our bottling bucket, siphon starter, bottles, and bottling wand. We then boiled a little over 48 bottle caps to sanitize them. We then boiled 2 cups of water and ¾ cup of corn sugar. The corn sugar is used to “prime” the beer. Corn sugar ferments almost completely with no flavor. We mix this into the bottling bucket full of beer. This gives the remaining yeast something to eat. The CO2 given off carbonates the sealed bottle. This is called “bottle conditioning”. If you have ever had a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, you will know what I mean. They bottle condition their Pale Ale this way. It leaves a light sediment of yeast on the bottom of the bottle.

Well, enough explanation! On with the pics:

This is me siphoning the beer into the bottling bucket


This me filling the first case of bottles


This is Rygar filling the second case of bottles.


This is friend Steve capping some bottles with the bottle capper.

[Matthew J. Greene]

This is a clear (Corona) bottle that we filled. I like to see the beer as it clears and ages. As you can see the beer came out very clear from the fermenter (not usually the case).


Now the beer has to sit in the bottle for at least a week for the yeast to do its work. At the end of the week the yeast should have settled onto the bottom of the bottle. We will open up a bottle to check the carbonation level. If it is lightly carbonated we will age it another week.


Well, on to the next days brew session.

Here I am kilted and holding up a glass of beer. I am in ultra casual kilt mode (waiting on my kilt belt and sporran strap from Cavscout). In front of me is the new burner I purchased for brewing. I must say this burner worked GREAT! (Rygar's toolbox exploded )


Here I am taking the grain bag out of the 170 degree water. I have the funny look on my face because I am yelling “hot”. (Note – these are the grains that I forgot last time)


Here I am adding the malt extract.

[Matthew J. Greene]

Here is a picture of Rygar and I. “The Kilted Brewing Duo”


While there we tried a homebrewed Cream Ale. A friend in Toledo and I made this several weeks ago. It has been in the bottle for two weeks. It turned out great. I will definitely make that recipe again. Here is a picture I took after I arrived back in Toledo. The picture looks like the beer is orange or red. It is actually a darker yellow with an orange hue to it.


Those of you in Great Britain may recognize the Samuel Smith logo on the pint glass.