Guinness Gravity Bar in Dublin

In an effort to continue getting my video editing projects shared, today I present the view from the top of Dublin, Ireland as seen from the Gravity Bar at the Guinness Storehouse on March 24, 2009. Although it was a dreary day, the view was very majestic, especially that of the green Wicklow Mountains to the east of the city.



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Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It's not green, but it sure is Irish! This is a glass of my third batch of home brew: a nice Irish red ale on this March 17.

Another Home Brew

I will finally be sampling my first batch of home brew this weekend as a bit of a Mardi Gras treat. The Continental Light Ale has been aging for nearly three weeks and it should be ready to drink. In the spirit of discovery, I started brewing my second batch tonight and chose to make a Nut Brown Ale. The process was mostly the same although the first step called for steeping the grains in the hot water for thirty minutes prior to adding the malts, sugar and hops. It was a lot like brewing a large pot of tea. The grains were placed in a cheese cloth sack so that they wouldn't escape into the water and after thirty minutes, were removed from the pot and discarded. The resultant mixture was a dark brown liquid that smelled wonderful before anything else was added. As the name implies, this should be a darker, more flavorful beer. I'm looking forward to seeing how this one smells once the fermentation begins in a day or so.

Home Brew Bottling

I bottled my beer today and it looked, smelled and tasted great. I only tried a small taste because it is not aged yet and it really won't have it's full flavor for another three weeks. I added some additional sugars before bottling so that a little fermentation will take place in the sealed bottles so that it will have the necessary carbonation content when it is ready for drinking.



My completed beer filled twenty-seven 22-oz. bottles for a total of about four gallons of beer. The rest of the volume from the fermenter was sludge from the solid ingredients that precipitated to the bottom during the fermentation and settling phase. I'll be storing the bottles in a dark closet for the next three weeks. Just before Mardi Gras, Roxanne and I will open a few to taste it and come up with a good name. So if you're around for Mardi Gras, you might just get to sample our first home brew.

Home Brew Days 5, 6 & 7

The beer finished fermenting three days ago and has been settling since then. All that's left now is to start the bottling process in the morning!





I stopped by the beer store today to get some empty bottles and some pointers for this and future batches. By this time tomorrow, my first batch of beer will be in the aging part of the process.

Home Brew Day 4

Things are progressing on schedule as far as I can tell. This evening, it appears that fermentation has stopped as the foam has almost completely subsided and the air escaping from the airlock is almost imperceptible.







The other noticeable change is again in the color. More sediment has settled onto the bottom of the ferementer and the color of the brew has gotten lighter. According to the instructions, the brew will continue to settle for the next three to four days and then it will be ready to be bottled and aged!

Home Brew Days 2 & 3

As I mentioned on my first day of my home brewing project, fermenting began within a few hours of finishing the preparations for my beer. On the morning of the second day, fermentation was going strong. The yeast was creating a lot of gas bubbles and foam in the fermenter and bubbles were escaping from the airlock every one to two seconds.







The appearance hasn't changed too much today, although I have noticed more sediment at the bottom of the fermenter and that the beer is taking on a slightly lighter color. The tell-tale sign that things are going well though is that there is a definite beer smell being released from the airlock as the fermentation gases are released. According to the instructions, fermentation should be wrapping up in the next day or two and then after the beer settles, it will be ready for bottling!

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.