Me Make Beer

Now that I'm retired, I figure I have both the time and desire to brew and drink lots of beer.

I've always been intrigued with the beer brewing process, but never had the time or expertise to pull it off myself. I've had some pretty shitty homebrews, and I didn't want to be the guy that makes his friends drink his shitty beer. My sister's boyfriend started homebrewing, as did one of my coworkers, and their beer was delicious. I got inspired.

A couple of wonderful folks gave me money for my birthday to put towards some brewing equipment. I bought everything I needed, but still had no idea what I was doing. Fortunately, my co-worker let me tag along while he brewed a batch so I could learn the ropes. It seemed pretty simple.

I was originally planning to wait until this weekend to brew my first batch, but I got impatient last night and decided it was time. The sooner I start, the sooner I'm drinking, right? Right.

The first thing I did was kill all my yeast by accidentally dumping it into boiling water. Fuck.

Fortunately, I read somewhere that one should always have a spare packet of yeast on-hand. Finally, following instructions pays off!

I boiled my wort and was super anal about monitoring the time and temperature to be sure I did everything right. It was actually kind of stressful, because clearly I am a big lame-o.

I then cooled the wort using my new wort chiller. Sweet, huh? Yes, that copper coil thing is one of the sweetest brewing accessories on the market.

So, now it's (hopefully) fermenting in my basement. I'm not really used to hobbies where I have to wait 4 weeks to see results, so this is a new experience for me.

The best thing about brewing is that all of the equipment I needed cost as much as one set of pedals for my track bike.

I was planning to set up a keg system so I wouldn't have to deal with bottles, but thought that may be getting a bit ahead of myself. Maybe we should see how this first batch turns out first.