Brew Day!

We're running out of home brew, thus it was time to visit our local brew shop. So, our (meaning mine, Kevin chose the type of beer last time) beer of choice this time is a Belgian Saison, which the guy at BrewMeister says is different from anything he had ever tasted before. The description is this: "This has a creamy white, dense head" and is lightly hazy and golden. "There is floral and spice aroma mingled with delicate fruitiness that leads you to the light, refreshing soft malt and hop flavor". Sounds good, right?
I thought since very few people knew how the process of beer brewing works I would post a little "how-to" thing.
Let's start by introducing all of the players: the grains, the extracts/malts, the saphir hops, and the Irish moss. The bottling sugar is also in the picture, but that guy is in Act II.

And let us not forget the star of our show.... the YEAST! (Clapping, cheers, etc)

Now, first we load all the grains into the old man sock and tie it into a knot. Then that boils for about 30 minutes. Here's the sock.

Then we add more water, and dump in the bucket of extracts (the sugars and stuff). It's pretty goopy stuff. You'd think it would taste good, but it doesn't. We tried the first time we brewed.

So, with the sugars added we let it boil, then add the Saphir hops, and boil 45 minutes. Then we add the Irish moss and let that boil an additional 15 minutes. Meanwhile, we have to sanitize EVERYTHING we use, which is what is happening in the picture on the right.

Then we have to cold break the wort to below 100 degrees in a sink of icy water. Did I mention the concoction is called a "wort"? Sick, right? Wort becomes beer, though, just remember that!

And then we dump the beer into the fermenter while straining all the goop (which is the hops and moss and any stuff that snuck out of the old man sock). Moving the spoon around to allow the good stuff to go through is normally my job, but Kev is much more photogenic. Oh, and on the right is the goop. Yucky looking stuff.

And after we fill the rest of the primary fermenter (the glass thing) with some filtered water to make 5.5 gallons we pitch the yeast! Yay!

And finally, the finished product, ready to go in our closet for fermentation. After fermentation ceases we will rack it into our secondary fermentor. And then.... bottling and aging!

Thanks for joining us for this little brewing "how-to"! If you thought this was exciting, wait until we start trying our own recipes! Stop by our place in a month or so for a delicious bottle of Belgian Saison!

Oh, and behold my nice clean kitchen after brewing. Yikes!