Batch #1 – Canadian Red Ale

I started my first batch of beer tonight.  After a few hiccups along the way (trying to figure out why I had a can of Light Malt Extract (UCM) instead of corn syrup…turns out that it’s supposedly a better substitute) I finally buckled down and started my first batch along with my trusty partner in life, Vero.

I was very worried about the sanitization process so I made sure everything was squeaky clean.  I then added the malt extract mixture of ‘Canadian Red Ale’ along with the light malt extract and let that boil for 45 minutes, stirring a few times during the process.  Vero was gagging over the smell whereas I thought it was quite a nice smell!

Afterward the tricky part was trying to lift this 20L pot with boiling contents and insert into the 6.5 gallon carboy.  What a task!  Some of it ended up splashing up and I’m glad it didn’t go in either of our faces!  But in the end, it was now in the carboy, safe and sound.

However, I had to wait and let it cool until it reached anywhere between 60 – 75 degrees.  And the thermometer I had definitely wasn’t long enough to insert into the carboy so I had to tip it each time I needed to get a temperature reading.  Note: Buy a longer thermometer for next time!  This process took 1.5 hours as it just wasn’t losing its heat.  I got smarter along the way and placed it outside for awhile to cool down.

Finally the temperature seemed to be about right and I inserted the hydrometer and the reading wasn’t bang on what it needed to be, but I’m not sure how to adjust that.  I’ll have to ask my compatriots in brew-making what I should be doing.

Either way, the temperature was right to add the yeast in and I did so, popped on a fermentation lock and hauled the carboy downstairs in a nice dark place.

I’m really hoping that I didn’t mess up something along the way.  I have had many people in the past few weeks tell me how they tried to make beer and nothing really came of it.  However, I do know a few other people who had no problems so I hope I fall into that category.

I personally wish to create a dunkel beer but I heard that will take some time…so for the time being I will be content with my ‘Canadian Red Ale’…at least 60 bottles worth!

Update: Batch #1 was bottled nine days later.  I had noticed that the fermentation had subsided so I figured it was ready to go.  However, I had not taken a hydrometer reading for 2-3 days prior to see if it had remained the same.  If something is bad with the batch, this may be one reason.

As in the email I wrote Troy, the bottling process was a total disaster last night.  TOTAL disaster.  I mean, in the end, I managed to get it all bottled, but a pain in the ass.

First off, I boiled the caps like the book asked for but then I realized that it was probably meaning metal caps and not plastic ones so all the rubber underlays shrivelled up.  I didn’t think this would be a big deal until I started capping the beer and it wasn’t sealing!  Good thing I had picked up 2 dozen new ones from Defalco’s that day.

Then there was the siphon.  It took me awhile to figure out that as long as your hose is ABOVE your carboy of beer, it won’t come out the end.  Much beer was sprayed, spilled and generally applied to my general working area.  It doesn’t help that I was down in the storage room which has a sink, but also a bunch of crap all around that got sprayed with beer…my vinyl records, the floor, random boxes, the floor again…argh!  What a pain in the ass.  At one point I got beer in my slipper and a good splash on my jeans which made me proceed to bottle the rest of it in my underwear!

As for sanitizing my bottles, I mixed 2oz of bleach to 5 gallons of water. I did attempt to sanitize the night before but then I realized that this would be a bad idea so I sanitized them once again right before bottling.  I had originally put them on some sort of rack that would have the bottles dry out upside down.  To go ahead with my sanitization, I simply took this bottle washer device, put it in the sanitized water, attached my bottle, gave it a few squirts and voila, it’s done.  However, I’m not sure if that cleaned it up enough so this also might explain if my batch comes out bad.

Carbonation…I boiled 3/4 cup of dextrose in a pint of water then I added it to a pail.  THEN I took the fermented carboy of beer -> siphoned it to the pail of dextrose -> then I siphoned the pail of beer/dextrose to bottles.  In the book I was reading they said this was a safter method than putting sugar into each bottle as it would be a more uniform amount of dextrose (as it had all mixed together) instead of filling each bottle individually.  I realize now that I didn’t stir the mixture of dextrose and beer.  Here’s to hoping I get some carbonation out of it!

I’m also a little worried about the bottling itself.  I used some 2L litre pop bottles, some 500ml plastic beer bottles and some glass jugs that I had some Beau’s Bogwater in.  The glass jugs don’t seem to have any carbonation in them, but they were also the first ones I filled up.  Perhaps the dextrose wasn’t mixed into the beer completely, therefore my first siphons didn’t have much dextrose to produce carbonation?  It doesn’t look like they have fizz, but they also don’t have a nice rubber seal under the cap like the plastic ones do.  Maybe I can’t get away with using those big jugs when homebrewing and they can only be used with professional breweries.

The 2L pop bottles and the 500ml beer bottles SEEM to have some fizz in them so I’m happy about that.

In the end, I ended up with:

3 x 2L glass jugs, 12 500ml beer bottles, 3 x 2L pop bottles = 18L of beer or 52 beer.  A little off the mark from the 60-65 bottles that it claims on the package, but I equate this to not filling it up as much as I could have (I couldn’t figure out where the 5 gallon mark was on the carboy…must mark it for the next time!), as well as about a dozen beer spilled on the floor during the bottling process!

All in all, I was quite confident on the initial fermentation, but with the bottling, there were a lot of variable in play that made me wonder if it will come out alright.  I definitely need a second person to help me out in the future.

Update #2 – Friday evening, Feb 18, Mike and I cracked open a 2L bottle of Canadian Red Ale which had been sitting in the snow for a few hours to chill.  This was an amazing night to try out the beer as it was +11 during the day and we had the BBQ out.  Vero and Andreane were quite scared of what would happen…would we die from the beer?  When I cracked the bottle, there was no ‘pop’.  So, it was quite lacking on the fizz front.  We did pour a little into each glass and took a swig…not bad!  Not bad at all!  I was quite excited.  It definitely needed a little carbonation and we made the mistake of adding tonic water thinking it would have the same effect as club soda.  Not so and we had a little extra sugar to deal with now.  The next pint of beer was sans tonic water so it tasted a whole lot better.  All in all, I think it was a success in terms of taste but a failure in terms of carbonation.

The next night we had picked up a jug of beer (stored in a Beau’s Beer jug) and brought it back to Mike’s for his brother, myself and Mike to have.  To our surprise, we opened the jug and a nice ‘pop’ erupted and you could see a little foam starting at the top.  GREAT SUCCESS MY FRIENDS!  We poured the beer in anticipation and it was glorious.  I was disappointed we didn’t bring another jug along for the ride, but this would have to do.  It was a really good taste…some people mentioned a little caramel taste to it and I thought it was closer to a Dunkel (which is why I’m making beer in the first place).  I even had to phone Dad to tell him the good news as everyone around me were doubtful that the beer would amount to anything good.

So my only question at this point is the carbonation and I’m wondering if the 2L pop bottles had anything to do with it.  If you remember, I did not stir up the corn starch with the wort.  So in theory, the starch would be at the bottom and only the last bottles being filled would have the most carbonation.  But I had filled the Beau’s jugs first, the 2L bottles second and the individual bottles third.  So the Beaus had enough carbonation, why didn’t the 2L?  I’ll have to keep my eye on that.

iplaying: Bad Medicine – Bon Jovi (New Jersey)