Last night we decided it was time to brew another batch of our in-famous Headless Horstmann beer. Tim had ordered a vanilla hefeweizen kit, which will be our last kit. We think we're ready to start make our own recipes after this. The first thing we had to do was sterilize all the equipment to make sure it was bacteria free. Then the fun begins.
Tim putting the grain bag into the pot of water.
We had to make sure we only kept the grain bag in the hot water until it got to between 165-175*F or the grains would release too much tannins, which would make it have a more bitter taste. We constantly checked the temp and moved the grain bag so it didn't burn on the bottom.
After the water boiled with grain, we took it off the stove and added the malt extract and hops. We had to keep stirring to dissolve it before we could put it back on the stove... or it would burn and taste bitter.
After the water-grain-malt-hops (now called wort) came to a rolling boil, we had to wait 45 minutes... BUT you have to be very careful to make sure it doesn't burn or boil over. We've done that before and it makes a HUGE sticky, impossible to clean mess.
waiting for it to boil...
Our helpers. Dont' worry, they didnt' get any hair in the brew :)
We hooked the heat-transfer coil up to the sink, ready to rapidly cool the wort down. You have to make sure it's cooled down to 80*F. The heat-transfer coil does this quickly to keep bacteria from forming in the wort.
Pouring the cooled wort into the primary fermenter
Adding the yeast to the wort... they'll eat the sugars from the malt extract and hops, and the bi-product will be alcohol (okay yes, I'm a science teacher- I think this is cool)
Capping off the fermenter and pouring vodka into the air lock. The vodka keeps it sterile- no bacteria- and you can see the fermentation occur because of the oxygen bubbles that come through the vodka. And you can see, we only use the best, most premium products :)
We'll keep this in the bucket until the bubbles stop coming out of the air lock, and then we'll transfer to the glass carboy. Probably Monday or Tuesday next week.
I directed Jeff to your blog. =-) He's been brewing for awhile now. I started out helping too...well just during the bottling process. He now does it all in the garage and I'm pretty much out of the picture...except for the time one of his batches blew up in the basement...had to help clean that up. Should have made a blow off tube for that one but it was too late! LOL!
ReplyDeleteLove the picture of your little helpers! =-) When will the beer be ready? The vanilla sounds good!
The vanilla is GREAT! It was my favorite that we've made so far, so Tim got it again for me, although hopefully I won't be able to drink it... It should be ready mid-August, I think. We haven't had any blow up, but we've burned a few and had some boil-overs. I think this batch will be our best so far!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment! I really appreciate your support, and I'll be following your journey and praying for you as well! Good luck!! (((HUGS)))
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