Home Brew Day 1

Roxanne's parents gave me a home beer brewing kit for Christmas and I finally had the time to start cooking up my first batch tonight. I have always wanted to try this but have never really gotten around to it, mostly because I figured it had to be pretty hard to get it right. However, the instructions, as well as many friends, claim that it is easy, so I'm ready to try it.

First I purified some water and added all of the malt, sugars and hops in the kit:



Next I let it boil and cool until the foaming stopped and did a final boil as per the instructions:







The next step definitely gave me the most trouble and frustration. It was time to marry up the wort with the rest of the purified water in the fermentation container. The problem was that the opening of the fermenter is only about an inch and a half wide. Even with a funnel, I couldn't pour the wort fast enough to keep from spilling some down the side of the pot. Thankfully Roxanne helped me slowly scoop the wort out and then funnel it into the fermenter. In the end, I feel like I must have lost a couple of cups of the wort, but I adjusted the total volume of purified water to account for the loss. Hopefully it won't adversely affect my first batch.

Once in the fermenter, I added the yeast and capped the top for the process that will take place over the next few days:







It's really out of my hands now for the next week. I will only be able to watch the fermentation happen over the next few days. I won't have another job to do until next week when it is time to bottle it and start the aging process. But if all goes well, I'll have about five gallons of a nice Continental Light Ale just in time for Mardi Gras.