Saturday afternoon was just that afternoon. The weather was fantastic and PERFECT for brewing outdoors. Since my usual brew buddies weren't joining me, I had to find some equipment, but after scanning Craigslist and taking a quick jaunt to the 'burbs I was home with a nearly new turkey fryer and brand new propane tank.
At this point, my new "brew buddy" showed up and we started brainstorming about the type of beer we intended to produce. As we flipped through The Homebrewer's Companion, we found a dry-hopped pale ale called "Tits Up in the Mud Pale Ale". The name is a reference to being such an awesome beer that you feel as if you are a pig lying upside-down in the mud, soaking up the "awesome".
With our recipe book in hand, we headed to My Old Kentucky Homebrew -- the greatest homebrew shop this side of the Watterson Expressway -- to pick up our last few pieces of equipment and all of the materials for our batch of home brewed beer.
Amazingly, the store had everything we needed. The owner working behind the counter was very friendly and seemed to walk through our recipe in his head to ensure that we really were buying everything we needed. He talked us out of buying one ingredient, gypsum, which is used to harden the water. Apparently Kentucky water not only tastes great, but it's already plenty hard for beer-making purposes.
After buying everything we needed, we headed back home and started laying everything out on my back patio. Our recipe uses malt extract, so for beginners like ourselves, it saves us a lot of headaches. We ran through the recipe instructions, holding the temperature steady for a while, then boiling like crazy. The aroma enticed several neighbors to stop by, each commenting on its smell and how it seemed almost like beer.
We finally finished the boil. We then cooled it as rapidly as possible by using a wort chiller (really just a coil of copper tubing connected to a garden hose) and placed it into the primary fermenter. After cooling a little more, we "pitched" the yeast. By evening the next day, it was starting to look a lot more like beer with lots of bubbles rising from the liquid! This morning the air lock on the fermenter was going crazy, indicating that the yeast were heartily munching away while creating a waste product that we love to drink.
Primary fermentation should be complete this weekend. At that point, we'll transfer the newly formed beer to the secondary fermenter and toss in some dry hops. Once the beer takes on its tasty dry hop flavor, we will bottle it. Then after sitting a little while to carbonate, then it's time to enjoy it! We can hardly wait for our new batch of dry hopped pale ale to be complete!
