We will be gods! Part 1
More than recently my good friend aphexddb approached me the idea of brewing our own beer. In the past we’d both discussed our love of country and fermented beverages, a mindset we share with our founding fathers and apparently Jimmy Carter, who, despite being referred to as America’s worst former President, signed into law a bill removing the previous federal restrictions on homebrewing. but could we actually pull it off? I mean with a life schedule so crowded that I’m often forced to wake up before the sun just to squeeze in a few measly hours of video game “me time” and aphexddb having nothing but a single room in the loft district how could this possibly work?
Well, yesterday began our first step toward true manliness. We took a little stroll down to St. Louis Wine & Beermaking in Chesterfield, talked up the owner (a man who seemed to enjoy spreading the love of homebrewing) and purchased one of the relatively inexpensive beer kits which I will dissect below. I say relatively cheap because what we had seem online was pretty pricey, but at under $150 we received an entire brewing setup, 48 bottles, and all the ingredients for our first batch. Many of the places we had seen online sold just the brewing setup for $150 – not including shipping! We also received “The Complete Joy of Home Brewing” by Charlie Papazian who is apparently one of the founders of the homebrewing scene.
Here’s a shot of everything I hauled in:
After reading through the instructions that came with the kit and recalling some of my previous research I realized that the copper tubing wasn’t going to be of much use in this first brew. We were originally going to use it to make a wort chiller but since this is an extract brew it’s not necessary to make the wort with all five gallons, so we will use chilled spring water to accomplish the wort chilling. When we begin doing full grain brews this will be handy so I think I’m going to hang onto to it.
This kit uses a plastic 6.5 gallon primary fermenter:
It’s fantastically labeled “Ale Pail” although I’m pretty sure you can brew whatever you darn well please in it.
The secondary fermenter is a 5 gallon glass carboy:
Also included are:
Caps
Capper:
Racking Cane:
About 5 feet of tubing:
A really cool bottling tool:
Here it is in action:
An air lock and stopper:
You fill this puppy with some sort of sterile liquid to keep germs out. No band-aid beer here!
A very nice thermometer:
A bag of sanitizer:
And finally, the item with the most potential for intoxication, the ingredients for the first brew:
Stay tuned for the breakdown of this item in the next post!
Update: Part two is now out.
May 20th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
I totally relish brewing beer at home! It has been such a challenging hobby. My family has been encouraging, but most especially while its time to try my latest venture. I was startled to learn that it is actually the rich lager brews that I prefer. Just wanted to say thanks for the info you’ve provided along the way, its been helpful.