Bike & Brewery Tour August 10th

Last spring we purchased a get together through our girls' preschool silent auction fundraiser. The date was set for August 10th. Then around May I signed up for a triathlon... which was to take place August 11th... yeah not great planning on my part, lol. The plan was to participate in the bike and brewery tour anyway and just take it easy on my legs and alcohol consumption, lol. 

Well the day arrived and it was rainy and yucky. There was talk of postponing the whole thing all together but future dates weren't looking good for all so it happened anyway. I didn't want to ride in the rain and get my bike all gunky the day before my race so our solution was for me to drive from brewery to brewery following along as Kyle rode with the rest of the crowd. The bike rack was already on the car so if Kyle needed a lift we were prepared. 

Here's the group on the way to the first brewery, they went through Loring Park. They were mostly dry, it sprinkled lightly on them. They left from Cedar Lake Beach which is right near our house. 

Here we are at the first stop Pryes Brewing Company

It was actually quite nice because I arrived in the car way ahead of them so I spent that quiet time in the car studying for my Group Fitness Instruction Certification test (which I passed by the way! Just took it last Friday).

Next we went to Dangerous Man Brewery, had some food at the food truck. This brewery was quite small and POPULAR! I couldn't believe how crowded these brewery's were in the middle of a Saturday. They must not have kids, lol. Cuz all of us had to find sitters to do this.

Next and final stop was Indeed Brew Co. While there it started raining pretty good. Pouring actually. At this point Kyle decided to hitch his bike up to the car and catch a ride with me on the way back, while the others rode home to relieve their babysitters. It down poured on us on the way back so I bed the bikers were soaked. So glad I decided to sit this one out and keep my bike clean and dry for the next morning's race.

Bottling our Beer

Well three weeks have passed since we brewed our first batch of beer. We had planned on bottling last weekend, but that didn't end up happening.

First, we've been collecting bottles for quite some time. And already cleaned and peeled labels off one batch. But it was time to do the rest of the ones we've accumulated (this was Saturday before I went to work).

This was a pain. But we found it easiest, once they've soaked for a bit, if Kyle used a putty knife to scrap off the labels, then after dropping them back in the water, I went over them with a little scrub brush to get any remainder pieces of paper and/or glue.

Then of course I had fun taking pictures of them while they dried.

We had also began to purchase bigger bottles with the EZTops, just for the purpose of bottling. I mean why purchase empty bottles, when you could just buy them full of beer then re-use them :-)

Remember the beginning of the Laverne & Shirley show, yeah I felt like I was working in a bottle factory :-P

Alright once all our bottles were cleaned and ready it was time to SANITIZE! In case you weren't aware, there is a LOT of sanitizing in the beer brewing process. Gotta keep all that bacteria out, heaven for bid the tiniest bit ruin 5 gallons of beer and basically weeks of work. (okay more like hours spread out over weeks, lol).

Next comes the VIP... the bucket of fermenting beer. Well it stopped fermenting a while ago, but it hasn't been disturbed in 3 weeks. Ewww look at that sludge.

But aaaah look at that copper beer under all that sludge, lol.

First step, getting a hydrometer reading. And testing the alcohol %. It looked right on target so were were good to go. Although it's not like we were going to do anything else, we were already determined to bottle today!

Okay a little back story about now. So way back when, last summer when we purchased the 'Starter brew kit' from Beer and Wine Hobby with a Groupon (oh and if you haven't signed up for Groupon yet, you GOTTA check it out. Here use my referral code if you sign up! http://www.groupon.com/r/uu778896 ) we got a 'few' of the starting supplies we needed, but of course there was much more to help this process go smoother. SO we've made many trips down the road to the wonderful world of Midwest Supplies. Point of this story.... Friday Kyle went by to get an autosiphon, thief, & some rinse-free sanitizer. We had already purchased: a thermometer, 5 gal steel pot, ingredient kit, & strainer a few weeks ago for the brew process. Well Saturday during our bottle preparation, we sat down and watched this DVD that was given to us by midwest last summer. It was a step-by-step guide to brewing. Of course we didn't watch it BEFORE we brewed, because well we had friends there that guided us :-) We did learn some other little tid-bits in the video and learned about bottling. So a list was made for a few more items that needed to get picked up from Midwest before this event actually took place. So SUNDAY we made another trip to pick up a bottling tube (mini-thief), another bucket (I'll get into that story in a second), and some extra caps - although our kit came with some caps and a capper, we wanted to have back up in-case we messed some up. And it was fun to get a fun color of cap. We also wanted to pick up a bottle tree, which helps with the drying process, but they were out of the size we needed, luckily the cashier suggested using the dishwasher, which you can actually run a cycle (without soap) and that will sanitize them, but we just sanitized them ourselves and used the racks to dry them.

Okay so, why did we get a 2nd bucket you ask?? Well during the video we learned that you can either 1) place your hops directly in the boiling beer like we did or 2) place the hops in a nylon bag, much like we did the grains. Either way is fine, either way works, it's basically personal preference. Well after learning this, Kyle is dead set on using the nylon bag next time, because (hopefully) this helps avoid all the sludge that comes into play. Ya you saw it in our earlier post. Well we knew there was some unwanted sludge in the fermenting bucket and the yeast creates extra sludge during fermentation. Sometimes they recommend fermenting twice and then transferring to a 'bottling bucket' but we didn't need to ferment twice. We DID however have our beer in a bottling bucket (basically means it's just a bucket with a spigot at the bottom). In order to bottle and create that carbonation, you have to add sugar, then seal the bottles. Then while they sit for a few weeks they begin to carbonate. We did test the beer, and it was good! Just flat. Often times people will transfer from a fermenting bucket to a bottling bucket and add the sugar mid transfer (so the sugar can get good and mixed up) well we didn't want to buy a second bottling bucket since we already had one. And it would be good to have a non-spigot-ed bucket for fermenting next time (peace of mind, I was paranoid the spigot was going to leak during fermentation, luckily it didn't). So we purchased a bucket with the plan to siphon the beer into the new-sanitized-bucket, clean/sanitize the bottling bucket, and siphon back into the bottling bucket while adding the sugar. Yes this was an annoying process, as the siphoning took FOREVER! But we did get rid of the sludge. Let's just hope we didn't add enough oxygen to the beer for it to be bad. Surely it won't.

Okay I think I got out what I wanted to, I felt like I got lost a few times in the midst of that back story, lol. So here we are siphoning (with our NEW auto siphon) the beer from the bucket it was fermenting in (our bottling bucket) you can see all that yeasty sludge! And boy was there a TON on the bottom!

Waiting and waiting....

side note: Yes we were both wearing beer shirts during this process :-D and no we weren't drinking any beer :-( it's Sunday, they don't sell beer in Minnesota on Sunday, something we'll never get used to. Unfortunately Kyle picked up beer for us to have during the bottling process on Friday while I was at work, but the way work was Friday night we ended up drinking them that night, lol. Oh well, pretty soon we'll have PLENTY to drink, haha.

Then we moved onto the second siphon, it helps when you put more gravity in to play :-)

Oh and we added the sugar water in at this point. I didn't get any pictures of that, oops. But look at this beautiful copper, sludge free ale!

Alright! It's time to bottle!

We got the bucket moved over to it's 'bottling spot', attached the hose to the spigot.

and attached our bottler (mini-thief I like to call it) to the other end of the hose

So you may be asking, what IS a thief or bottler thingy? Well here's a picture of the end:

It has this little thing on the bottom and when you hit it on the bottom of the bottle it starts the flow and starts to fill up the bottle. Then as soon as you lift it up, that little thing at the end closes off the opening and stops the flow. Making bottling a MUCH cleaner process. The thief is bigger (and is what we used to take the hydrometer reading), it kinda works the same way, although I don't think you have to hit the bottom. You stick it in the bucket and it fills up in the thief as much as you stick in and then when you lift it up some is trapped in the tube. I think the bottom acts on gravity or pressure as you pull it out or something. Oh maybe the little thing floats in the thief which makes it let the liquid in until you bring it out it closes the opening off.... I dunno exactly, if you have more questions there's always good, :-P They call it the thief because it 'steals' some of the beer, you can just reach this in and take out a sample.

Okay so we were all set. Kyle started filling and I began capping.

After a short while... all the beer was gone and in their designated bottles!

The EZ Cap bottles were just that EASY!!!

We picked the orange caps because we figured that matched the name of the beer the best "Copper Ale". AND we decided to write on the tops to label it's contents. I started out with a clean print type CA (for copper ale, duh!)

Then after only a few I began to get more creative, lol.

So as you can see we ended up with 38 little bottles (12 oz or 16 oz... I don't remember) and 5 bigger bottles, 1 liter or more.

"Batch Number 1"

Last summer we purchased a home brew started kit through Groupon.

We said it was going to be our winter hobby... but like everything else this winter (cross-country skiing being another ::tear::) the time has passed us by and we just haven't been able to get everything done that we've wanted to. BUT we finally set a time to brew some beer.

We went over to the local Midwest Brewing Supply store and picked out an ingredient box. They have MANY MANY different types of beer kits, making it easy - with everything you need right there. We decided to first try out a 'Copper Ale'.

An old friend of mine, Brandi - my first co-counselor at Camp Barnabas, now lives in Minneapolis. It so happens that her and her husband are beer brewing connoisseurs and offered to be of GREAT help and guide us along our first batch. So they came over for lunch and helped us learn about the exciting hobby of beer brewing. And boy are we grateful, as they taught us a lot of things the directions wouldn't have. And of course everyone was patient as I documented every-step-of-the-way :-D

Oh and the title of this blog actually comes from a few weekends ago when Kyle, Brandi, her husband, Sam, and I went to a local brewery to try their first growlers they were selling to the public. They had some mix up with late hops or something and were calling the beer 'Batch number one'. Hopefully there aren't any errors in our beer.

It was a multi-hour process... but not completely hands on for 5 hours. A lot of prepare-mix... wait, mix-dump-mix... wait. So we played a few games in between.

First step.... getting 5 gallons of water to boil.

Once the water was hot, we took the grains (malted barley) that came in our kit. Oh the guy helping us out at Midwest Supplies, crushed the grains for us in the store. Actually he showed us how to so we can do it ourselves next time. Using their machine beats breaking them up with a beer bottle at home! So we dumped the grains in this sock like thing to make sort of a tea bag, to steep in the pot.

Then we set the timer and let the steeping begin. I can't remember exactly how long this was, but once the timer went off we came back to check the temperature and take the grains out.

Ahhhh look at this, now it has it's color. yum, yum.

Next was time to add the powered malt extract and whisk that in, being careful there are no clumps.

I got the picture, then jumped in to help Kyle - we traded off pouring ever-so-slowly and whisking.

After the powered malt was mixed in, it was time to add the Barley malt Extract Syrup. Boy was this stuff thick!

MMMmmmmm look at that color

The stage we were at here is called the Wort Stage, which means teh beer before the yeast (the non-alcohol beer). The grains turn into sugar, then when we add the yeast (the last step), the yeast will eat the sugar, thus making alcohol.

So we had to bring the water back to a boil.

As you can see there's some foam that collected on the top, we scooped that out (which had some graining pieces in it) and removed that from the batch. Then it was time to add the hops. Sam instructed us to be careful when adding the hops, as he has caused the pot to boil over in the past. So we lowered the heat to avoid a boil over and carefully added the hops. Which look a bit like hamster food :-P

There are two hops in this recipe (sometimes 3), and after adding the first batch, we let the water boil for about an hour (45 minutes). The first addition of hops is called the bittering hops. Then 45 minutes later we added the second group of hops, which is called the flavoring hops. (if there were a third batch of hops, that would be called the aroma hops)

Now you can see that green slug that is forming on the top from the hops. The beer is starting to smell really good at this point (really good in my opinion). And you can also tell there's quite a bit of liquid that has boiled out. But that's okay because we'll be adding cold water here in a bit to make of the lost amount.

Next came the COOLING part. Now this is suppose to be done in a rather timely manner. Our friends brought over their copper coils (real name=wort chiller) this is a handy device that you hook up to cold water, (sterilize it, stay tuned) gets dropped in the beer and cold water is ran through the chiller to help it cool. We did not purchase one because they are rather expensive and Brandi said they'd bring their's over.... problem was we didn't have a faucet that has threads on it to hook the hose up to. But we learned that in winter, we have the next best thing SNOW! So we filled the sink with cold water.

And added snow to the water to get it nice and cold (we only had the lid on the beer when we put the snow in to keep the snow out of the beer)

Now comes a VERY important part. Since we will no longer be heating up the beer (since boiling water sanitizes) it's VERY important to make sure no foreign bacteria gets in the beer... because it could effect the yeast and worst case scenario ruin the beer "OH NO". See brewing beer is much like a science experiment... we have to pay special attention to all that goes in. So we got our buck of sanitizing liquid ready and sanitized everything that was going to be going into the beer. Which is also why we didn't want ANY of the snow to fall into the beer. There could have been some crazy bacteria in that snow.

Wow our floors are ugly.

Once we got the beer cooled to about 70 degrees (I think that is what he said) we poured it in it's fermenting bucket.

Yes this is the same bucket we had the sanitizer in. Because well we needed to sanitize the bucket as well. We emptied out the sanitizer, put a little off to the side in case any last minute sanitizing needed to be done. Then we tested the temperature again.

We also poured in the cold water to bring our batch back up to the 5 gallon mark. You might ask why we didn't sanitize this water... well Sam said they usually don't, they just use tap water and it seems to work just fine. So that's what we did too :-)

Next we measured the potential gravity with our hydrometer. And some other details I don't remember. (we weren't even drinking during this... that's just how BAD my memory is, heehee. Luckily Kyle's memory is GREAT so he makes up for where I lack)

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Then we moved the beer to it's storing location, which happens to be in our spare bedroom. Now that the bucket was where it was to be for the next few weeks, it was time to add the yeast.

The yeast is the star player of this ordeal.

Since we just had a Copper Ale, which isn't as 'temper-mental' as the staff member of Midwest Supplies told us, it wasn't as important to have a pricey type of yeast, so we just used what the kit came with. (many times you can upgrade your yeast). Awww look at that yeast!

Then we put the lid on

and got the air lock ready to put in the little hole you see on the top of the lid. We just filled the airlock with water up to the max fill line.

Pushed the airlock into the hole... and NOW we wait a few weeks.

There was a little complication with putting the airlock in, but I didn't feel it was important to document it. All is well now :-)

And that completes our ' How we Brew Beer ' blogging special, lol. Stay tuned for part 2 - the BOTTLING!