Beer Making

As you all know, I enjoy making beer now and then. Well, after watching the episode of Good Eats on homebrewing last weekend, I caught the beer making bug once again.

I find most books and other sources of beer making instructions are hard to follow if you are a newbie to the process. I still feel shaky on some parts myself, so what I did for this batch is read all the material on the beer making process from different sources and came up with my own set of "leeeeeeon friendly" instructions.

I'm sure I'll still confuse the hell out of myself and all my readers still, but what's new?

Belgian Gold (variant)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb American crystal 40L
• 5.5 lb (extra) light dry malt extract (original recipe called for regular “light” dry malt extract, but the brew supply store was out.) Hope it tastes ok!
• 2 lb Honey
• 1 tsp Irish moss
• ½ tsp gypsum
• Hops
• 1 oz Styrian Goldings
• ½ oz Kent Goldings
• ½ oz Kent Goldings
• Yeast - White Labs(Belgian Trappist) WLP#500

To make:

The Boil

1. Boil 2 gallons of water for 15 minutes, set aside
2. bring 3 ½ gallons of water to 155 degrees
3. Steep grains at 150 degrees (30 minutes)
4. drain and remove grain bag
5. bring water back to a boil with lid on ½ way
6. turn off heat
7. stir in Malt extract, honey
8. bring back to a boil for 5 minutes
9. add gypsum
10. add in Styrian Goldings
11. boil for 45 minutes
12. add ½ oz Kent Goldings
13. add 1 tsp Irish moss
14. boil for 12 minutes
15. add ½ oz Kent Goldings
16. boil for 3 minutes
17. get sample and measure gravity at 85 degrees then discard

Note: At steps 3-4, grains can be set aside to steep for 30 minutes while steps 5-11 are performed in a separate pot (in that first 2 gallons of water). At 30 minutes the "grain tea" can be re-introduced back into wort (or added into the fermentor at same time as wort?..still neet to get some clarification on this)

The Cold Break

1. Cool wort as quickly as possible (using wort chiller or by placing pot in sink full of ice) to 75-80 degrees
2. add wort to fermentor through strainer
3. add yeast
4. place lid on fermentor
5. place air lock on lid

Wait 7-10 days

After 7 days, measure the time between bubbles on the air lock,

If the bubbles are more than 1 minute apart, it’s time to bottle!

Get sample and measure gravity

Bottling

1. boil ¾ cups of priming sugar with 2 cups of water for 10 minutes
2. add mixture to bottling vessel
3. siphon beer from fermentor to bottling vessel
4. Fill bottles then cap
5. Allow bottles to condition at room temperature for 7-10 days (recipe calls for 1.5 months!!!)

drink