Our beer brewing adventure

Back in April Jacob and I took a beer brewing class.  Then a week later we went on a vacation to Bend and visited a bunch of breweries (check out this post to see the breweries we went to). 

We came home ready to brew beer!  Unfortunately, we had to wait a bit because the initial investment of equipment is a bit.  We saved up and finally went out to get our beer making equipment.

Then the brewing began!

First some cleaning of the pot.  A canning pot borrowed from my mom.

Filled it up with 2 gallons and heated to 150 degrees.

A look at some of the different malts used in this recipe.

The bulk grains.

We used both syrup malt…

… and powdered malt.

Once the water was heated up we added the grains in to steep.

I mainly worked on sanitizing… and taking picture.  

The carboy (big plastic container the beer ferments in) had iodine in it.  That’s where the lovely color came from.

Marked at 5 1/2 gallons – which is where it needs to be once the beer is ready to begin fermenting.

The animals didn’t understand why decided to brew beer on the hottest day we’re had so far.

Rough life.

Once the grains were done steeping, they were removed from the pot.

No body guessed it, but the mystery grains were spent grains!

Once the carboy was sanitized, we used the auto syphon to transfer the sanitizing liquid to a big bucket.

Then we sanitized even more equipment.

Back to the beer making.  Grains have been removed.

Corn sugar added in.

Then brought up to a boil.

**I think we added more malts in between here.**

Irish moss for flavor.

Then the amazing citra hops. 

These smell SO good! 

First ounce of hops into the pot.

More malt added.

After the powder malt we added the syrup malt once taken off the heat.

Then the straining began once it cooled down enough.

The full carboy of the beer concentrate we cooked + water to bring it up to 5 1/2 gallons.

And here it is after 4-5 days.  The yeast is working and foam is being made. 

Next week we’ll be bottling then a week later beer will be ready!

Have you ever brewed beer before? Any tips to share?  We’re all ears!

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