Finally, I'm a Home Brewer!

My brother-in-law loaned me his propane burner this afternoon to boil my first batch of beer. He had planned on staying for the proceedings, but lost patience after half an hour and headed back home.

I really wanted a 6 1/2 gallon carboy for my primary fermentation vessel, so I took a short drive to Mountain Homebrew to pick one up. Also got a brush for cleaning the carboy, a bottle washer (that somehow doesn't fit my kitchen sink, even with the adapter), some DME for bottling time, and some one step cleaner/sanitizer.

My wife was on a rampage when I got home. Something about other chores that I should be doing instead of spending money and making beer. I ignored her tirade, for obvious reasons.

No boil-over! Full Steam ahead.

I had no disasters in brewing the "More Beer" LIght Ale mash extract kit that came with the brew equipment set. I'm lovin' the heavy duty brew pot. The eight gallon kettle meant I got to do a full boil starting with six gallons of water. For a little extra character, I put the grains into the toaster oven for a few minutes to get them just a little more brown. Started the bittering hops early in the mash steep per a tip from John Palmer's book, "How To Brew".

The wort chiller worked perfectly after a wee bit of spraying water from a loose clamp. It brought the temperature down to sixty degrees in about fifteen minutes. A heavy-duty drain spout on the kettle made the transfer to my new carboy a snap. The only thing a little off was what seems to be a high original gravity reading of 1.51instead of the estimated 1.038 to 42. Should have measured for the five gallon mark on the carboy. My guess is more water boiled off than is the norm.

Would love to get a side mounted thermometer for the kettle's second threaded fitting.

Now begins primary fermentation. Hopefully the yeast are happy. I primed them in 4 oz of warm water, and they seemed to be alive and active. The unfermented beer tasted mildly sweet, but also quite bitter from the relatively small amount of hops. Decided to use a fermentation lock on the 6 1/2 gallon carboy instead of a blow-off hose. The guy at the shop said he gets good results without the hose.

I'm already thinking the recipe could take a bit of dry hopping to really boost the floral notes in the aroma.