Something’s Brewing

Something’s brewing in our house. It’s Jeff’s beer – all 40 pints of it.

Jeff’s been wanting to brew his own beer for a long time. My present to him 2 birthdays ago was How to Brew, and a promise to go with him to the Homebrew Headquarters in Richardson and get him a starter kit.

1.5 years later, we finally made it to the Homebrew store. And yesterday, Jeff hunkered down and started his first batch. The process actually seemed pretty easy. I’ll explain it, in Esther terms:

1.Sanitize a giant pot with bleach.
2. Dissolve yeast in warm water. Put more water in giant pot, and heat that up to a certain temperature. Add can of beer mix + malt sugar to the water in pot, and let it boil for 15-30 minutes.
3. Once the contents of the pot have reached the correct temperature, submerge the whole thing in an ice bath and cool to another specified temperature.
4. Pour contents of the pot into a 5-gallon sanitized container, then add the yeast.
5. Cap the bucket and then put the little stopper in the lid.
6. Give the whole thing a good shake.

Next step: wait 2 weeks for the beer to ferment, then we can bottle! Stay tuned for that post.
Has anyone else made beer before? We’d love to hear tips if you have any!