First Batch of Homebrew Beer Bottled!
And in other news, me and the little woman just bottled our first batch of homebrew beer, a red ale. We bottled about 4.4 gallons of it. Right now, little yeast cells are turning malt sugar into more alcohol and carbonation! It is very exciting.
The process of making beer is very . . . organic. I know that sounds silly, but dealing with the malt extracts, the grains, the malt sugar, the yeast and the rest of it gives me a very strong feeling of life in beer. I've heard people call beer "liquid bread" before and I knew that beer does actually have a fair bit of nutritional content. But until I dealt with the sticky mess of it I didn't get how much that was true.
Anyway, next time I make beer I hope it's more light out -- we've got a drizzle here in Santa Cruz right now -- so I can take a picture of the glass fermentation jug after the beer is out of it, including the top which was encrusted with dried foam and the bottom which was full of a thick, viscious slime that, processed in less civilized lands, is the raw material for Vegemite and Marmite. It's pretty gross stuff, but it's pure protein -- little dead yeast cells, mostly. Imagine that for a while. ;)
Still, the beer is in the bottles and in a couple of weeks, tops, me and the little lady will be cracking open our homebrew for the first time! More to come.
The process of making beer is very . . . organic. I know that sounds silly, but dealing with the malt extracts, the grains, the malt sugar, the yeast and the rest of it gives me a very strong feeling of life in beer. I've heard people call beer "liquid bread" before and I knew that beer does actually have a fair bit of nutritional content. But until I dealt with the sticky mess of it I didn't get how much that was true.
Anyway, next time I make beer I hope it's more light out -- we've got a drizzle here in Santa Cruz right now -- so I can take a picture of the glass fermentation jug after the beer is out of it, including the top which was encrusted with dried foam and the bottom which was full of a thick, viscious slime that, processed in less civilized lands, is the raw material for Vegemite and Marmite. It's pretty gross stuff, but it's pure protein -- little dead yeast cells, mostly. Imagine that for a while. ;)
Still, the beer is in the bottles and in a couple of weeks, tops, me and the little lady will be cracking open our homebrew for the first time! More to come.
Labels: beer
1 Comments:
Man, it's disturbing how much we have in common.
When I lived in England I used to make my own beer. I've used kits and I've tried the whole process from scratch.
My greatest suceesses were when I kept it simple. I found bottling to be a pain in the arse and brewed in a large, sphericle, plastic keg which lived in the kitchen. Beer on tap. More beer than I could keep up with, frankly and a lot of it ended up watering the garden when it had become tired. I would often make brews to coincide with a party or a barbeque.
mmmm. beer!
Now in France I cure my own hams, and I'm raising pigeons to eat. When I kill the next batch in about 3 weeks I'll blog it (nothing too gory - just the before and after)
I'm certainly not a hippie, or greenie, but I get a big kick out of eating stuff I've made myself. Do some research on cheese - it's suprisingly simple.
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