Homebrewer's Journey

Late Friday, I had my friend and fellow homebrewer Kevin look over all my equipment one last time before I pick out a pre-made kit to brew from. One last trip to the homebrew store, and we ended up purchasing “Chico IPA”, which if I were to guess, will end up being a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone, with something distinguishing about it that makes it an IPA rather than a traditional pale ale. We got to work Saturday in the early afternoon with very limited interruption.

Kevin guided me through everything, showing me his tricks and tips he’s picked up along the way. He found clever compensations for small stuff I was missing (like unused pantyhose in place of cheesecloth). We followed the instructions closely, took notes on what we had to compensate for, and in the late evening we got the wort in the carboy, threw in the yeast, and got the fermenting young beer inside the warm house.

All the measurements followed the recipe just about perfectly, and the fermenting gravity is right where it should be. Next weekend we’ll move the beer to a second carboy, adding in the final hops addition, where it’ll work it’s magic for one more week, and we should be ready-to-bottle on the 22nd of this month!

One big snag was chilling the wort: Kevin had forgotten his wort chiller, and I did not have one. We found an ice bath, while suggested as the best solution for those without a wort chiller, takes much, much longer. Time to add it to my shopping list! You might notice from the pictures that my equipment is fairly advanced for a first-time brew… I was lucky to receive the equipment from my Dad, who homebrewed before me, leaving me a (mostly) complete kit included hundreds of bottles.

Check back more this week for details on each part of the process, more photos, and insights on preparing to homebrew. Follow along as my first batch of beer goes from grain to glass. If you are just getting started and want to join this journey with me, or are advanced and want to leave advice, please follow along on the Homebrewer’s Journey.

Well, thanks to some motivation and the urge to get this blog rolling, I’ll be brewing my first batch tomorrow, with the helping hands of a homebrewing friend with quite the experience under his belt!

The sudden confidence came from rereading Joy of Homebrewing’s section on your first batch: for such a lengthy book, this section is just pages long and seems rather brief, which put me in the mindset that the first batch is going to turn out great, and there is little worry involved the first time around. I also found confidence in Palmer’s How to Brew, which has detailed pictures, and also a rather brief section on making the first batch, again confirming extract brewing is an easier plunge than anticipated.

The recipe has not been decided, but we’re pretty sure all the equipment is set — we’re doing a double-check tonight. Then, if all goes right, we’ll be brewin’ Saturday afternoon with a heap of pictures to attach to this blog along the way!

In the coming days after, I’m going to discuss some of the books I have, some advice from others, and what previous passion I’ve had for craft beer that has led me to try my own hand at things. I’ll be taking notes Saturday regarding advice learned on the way about the first batch. Then, hopefully in about a month, I’ll be able to toast my first batch of homebrew!

If you are just getting into beermaking, please join me on this journey: companions along the way will be great to share advice from. If you have homebrewed before, and are willing to share advice and insights, please follow this blog! I am certainly open to the experiences from everyone! I hope after a few batches and a lot of learning to turn this blog from another beginner’s guide, to an intermediate’s tip log, to eventually and expert’s page to teach others. Consider these early posts the lessons we all learn along the way. Cheers!

My New Year’s Resolution is quite the antithesis of losing weight, or becoming more social, or to quit drinking. No, I will forgo all three of those typical resolutions in trade of something that promises to make me fatter, hinder my social life, and most certainly make me wind up more drunk more often: I’m going to start homebrewing.

My Father gave me his homebrewing setup after he moved to a smaller residence, and I have been sitting on what’s practically a complete setup without the will to begin (at least complete enough to make my first malt extract). This past Christmas I received extra materials for homebrewing, from literature, to a thermometer, to just plain ol’ cash to get me started: so in 2011, I’m ready to start brewing my own.

I began this blog as a resource for other beginners and novices to work alongside me, and as a place for intermediates and experts to consult me along the way. As time goes on, and my recipes and brewing methods get more advanced, I hope to turn this blog around, with me being the expert, and I myself giving advice to the new brewers ahead of me.

Established 2011, Rev’s Brewing will expand rapidly from making beer from malt extract, to choosing my own grains, and then eventually growing my own hops garden, making every ingredient my own for a beer to truly toast an ever-moving blog.

So come join me. Click the follow button on this page. I promise to keep the spam to a minimum, and the resources to a maximum. I should be brewing by the end of the month, and hopefully can raise a glass of my own creation to toast to all who helped by February. Thank you for stopping by, and look for updates on what will be my first malt extract brew shortly (I’m certainly still open to suggestions)! Until then, Cheers!