This is the Way we Brew our Beer

This past Saturday, Jeff and I traveled to Cary to see our good friend Daniel. That day Daniel was educated on the fine practice of home brewing. To give you a bit of a background info, Daniel and his lovely wife Courtney, who have been married for almost a year now (Congrats!), received a home brewing kit from us as a wedding present. This should be an indicator of the kind of crazy people we are :-P So now that Jeff and I live within the area, we can now officially teach Daniel how to brew his own beer.

A basic amber ale was prepared with a touch of apple. With pride, Daniel has named the beer, get ready for this, Filthy Whore Ale. Why am I not surprised?

A reminder kiddos, when it comes to home brewing it’s just like canning, sanitize, sanitize, sanitize. Now say it again SANITIZE! Anything that will touch the beer needs to be cleaned with either bleach or preferably iodine.

First take a big pot and fill it to the top with water. Then wait until forever for some boiling action to occur. Next, take your grain and put it in the filtering sack. The next step is very similar to watching tea seep. Place the grain sack in the slowly boiling water. Daniel and Jeff created a little device to make fishing out the bag easier. Let this go on for about 45 minutes or so. The water should be at about 155 degrees. 

Afterwards, place the malt under hot water, remove the label and open the can. Remove the grain sack. Slowly pour the malt in the brew and stir continuously. 

 Bring back to a rolling boil then add the hops. 

Then add the wart chiller to the pot. This is a special piece of equipment Jeff has purchased over the years. The wart chiller helps to cool the beer before it’s placed in the fermenter. If you don’t have a chiller, placing 2 bags of ice in the fermenter before pouring the beer will do just fine. But none the less I have to explain how this next part was done. We continued the rest of this in the laundry room. Hook up one of the spouts of the wart chiller to the cold spigot. The other end will empty in the washer (yes it had no clothes). This took about 20 minutes or until cool to the touch. 

 Finally place your brew in the fermenter. Put the led on tightly. Attach the airlock. Wait for a week and a half until bottling. Patience, the hardest part of the whole thing. 

 So that is the basics of brewing beer. It’s not very hard it’s just the patience.Ugh patience.

Now that I have done my brief tutorial, I need to introduce you to my buddy Daniel. We met at Western when I was a freshman and he was a sophomore. We had a class together in which Daniel brought up the best topic for our argumentative speech, “Why the Drinking age should be changed to 18.” Why yes, do go on. From then on we became the best of friends. We hung out a lot after class, watching movies, taking long drives and he even took me to see Nine Inch Nails live in Greenville. For the longest time people thought we were dating, but no we have always had a plutonic relationship. When Daniel texted me to let me know that his lovely lady, Courtney had excepted his proposal to marriage, I couldn’t stop jumping up and down! I was so happy for him. 

Now Daniel will be part of our wedding day too! Jeff get prepared for one hell of a bachelor party!

I also got the chance to try out a new recipe from the Tupelo Honey Café cookbook. Very simple, pork tenderloin marinated with root beer and molasses. Marinate for one hour and then sear. 

That’s what I call a simple meal.