First Brew

This week we brewed our first batch of beer. It was an extract and steeped grain recipe adapted from John Palmers “How to Brew” . The Beer is a porter, one of my favorites. Extract brewing is a relatively easy process and other than a very short minor boil over it went off without a hitch. Unfortunately the plastic fermenting bucket my friend Kurt bought from our local homebrew store wouldn’t seal and I had to transfer the whole thing to my carboy, originally planned as a secondary fermenter, provider a small opportunity for contamination of the wort. I have high hopes however, as all of our equipment, and even our hands, was sanitized with star san beforehand. We brewed in the evening, and by 3AM (I just had to go check, I was so excited) it was bubbling away happily with a good Krausen forming on top. It will be a few weeks before I’m able to taste and see how we did (but in time for christmas celebrations) and when we do I’ll post some more pictures.