First Batches

Here's what I remember from my first batches:

Brew #1: American Wheat Kit (dried malt extract)
I made my first batch on my kitchen stove. It took forever to get the water boiling. In general, the beer turned out good for being my first batch. I learned, though, that it's best to mix the beer into the sugar water before bottling (instead of the sugar water into the beer). I did the latter in this first batch, and some bottles were over carbonated and others turned out flat. Bottled in 2 cases of used Grolsch swingtop bottles.

Brew #2: American Wheat Kit (DME)
I learned a lot from this batch... With my new turkey fryer set (outdoor gas range & large aluminum pot), I was ready to give the wheat ale another shot. I tried getting a little fancy and bought some dried orange peel and coriander, and fermented the beer with these new ingredients in my "ale pail". What I should have done, though, was strain out the orange peel after it steeped in the beer for a few minutes after the boil. All of the orange peel floating around in the fermenter wound up clogging the siphon that I used to transfer the beer to the carboy (from primary to secondary). Without a good, sanitary means of removing the orange peel, I was forced to dump the batch...

Brew #3: Belgian Tripel Kit (mini mash + DME)
This was my first time to use crushed grains. The recipe called for steeping them in a grain bag for about 20 min., and then adding dried malt extract. Finally, candy sugar was added to provide additional "food" for the yeast. (The sugar creates a beer that has both a higher amount of alcohol, and more sweetness.) I'm still not quite sure what happened with this batch. The fermentation seemed to stop very early-- it was like the yeast stopped working. I added more sugar prior to bottle conditioning, and sealed the beer in my old Grolsch swingtop bottles. A combination of a poor seal in the swingtop cap, and the yeast "not working", led to the beer turning out way too sweet, under-carbonated in some cases, and flat in others.

Brew #4: American Wheat Kit (DME)
Back to the basics... My buddy Scott and I brewed this batch on a Saturday afternoon when the wife was out of town for a bachelorette party. We drank a few beers while brewing, and talked about the steps in the process & results of prior batches. (This was Scott's first time to homebrew.) Things were going well until I realized I'd forgotten to add the bittering hops immediately after stirring in the extract into the boiling water. (the recipe calls for bittering hops to be in for the whole 60 min. of the boil) I called the home brewing store, and they said I should just add them asap. This apparently wouldn't ruin the batch-- it would just be significantly less bitter. We tried the batch several weeks later, and the brew store was right. There was hardly any bitterness. The beer wasn't in line w/ its intended style, but actually tasted great.

Brew #5: American Wheat Kit (DME)
My wife (fiancee at the time) and I decided to brew a batch for the guests coming to town for our wedding in 10/2008. By this time, I finally had the wheat kit thing down, and decided to give the orange peel & coriander another shot. Everything went off w/o a hitch, and I bottled the beer about 1 month before the wedding. I used myownlabels.com to create custom labels with a picture taken near our house. The beer was a definite success.