Stoner's World

I’ve started my first brew. I’ve got the crushed crystal, chocolate malt and black patent grains steeping. The cans of liquid malt are in a pan of hot water (warming it will make it pour easier.) Once all the malt and bittering hops are in, it’s a 45 minute boil, then finishing hops for another 10 minutes. After that, I toss in the aroma hops for 5 after I remove it from the heat. From there, it’ll get chilled, poured into the carboy and I’ll toss the yeast, plug it up with an airlock and let the magic happen. This recipe is for an American style nut brown ale.

Edit: I’ve entered the boil. From here, it’s a 45 minute wait (with the occasional check-in to make sure things aren’t boiling over.)

Lessons learned #1: conduct boil where there’s no wind. The wind is blowing enough to dissipate the heat, which is causing the boil to go from a strong simmer to a rolling boil. The variation is killing me. Next time, get a wind block, check the weather or do it some place with 4 walls and a ceiling.

Edit: just added the finishing hops. 10 more minutes of boil, then a 5 minutes rest after adding the aroma hops.

Edit: the brew is done. It’s sitting in the carboy, wrapped in a blanket, fermenting. Now we play the waiting game.

My autosiphon, tubing and bottle brush arrived on Thursday. My father-in-law brought the propane burner Saturday. I had everything necessary to begin brewing my first homebrew…except good weather. We worked all day Saturday (when the weather was prefect) so I couldn’t fire up the brew pot. On Sunday, the clouds rolled in and it sprinkled all day, which meant I couldn’t boil wort.

It wasn’t a total loss. On Saturday, the family piled into the Blazer and we headed over the Strasburg to the antique dealers. I picked up two nice decanters. I scrubbed them out using the bottle brush and plenty of hot water+soap. I filled one with my homemade amaretto and saw exactly how much sediment was in it. Turns out, not too much. Next time, I’ll double-up the cheese cloth to filter out more of the lemon zest. I’ll also use some brown sugar to give it a darker amber hue (plus the touch of molasses should be nice.)

I’ve been toying with the idea of making moonshine to serve as the alcoholic base for future liquor-making endevors. I need to research the legality of that. Quite frankly, I’m happy using vodka as the base for amaretto but I feel it would be more fun to do it all – distill my own alcohol then turn it into something more, like a Southern Comfort or a Drambuie-style liquor.

Over the past weekend, I went on a hunt for beer-making supplies. In Winchester, I found Murphy Beverage Company. They have beer and wine and equipment for making said beer and wine. It’s a small store with a corresponding small selection of…everything. But, they do carry hops, malts and yeast and since it’s the only store in the area like it, its all good. I bought a funnel with a built-in screen, a bottle capper and a carboy brush.

I still lacked a very, very key piece of equipment – a brew pot. What I wanted was a 6 or 7 gallon stainless steel pot. Catalogs, like Cabela’s, list such a device at approximately $120-$150, not including shipping. I went to every place I could think of that might carry such pots, Gander Mountain, Sears, JC Penny, Lowe’s, Home Depot, etc. The closest I could find was a 5 gallon aluminum pot, which is both too small and the wrong metal.

Finally, I broke my long-standing resolution to never again set foot in a Wal-mart. Let me tell you, I hate Wal-mart. With a passion. Every store I’ve been in is always the same: 8 billion people, employees who don’t know where anything is and 2 cashiers. And they’re always like that, no matter the hour of the day.

I went in because my wife needed to return something, shampoo or some such, I don’t know. I was grumbling with a storm cloud over my head at the prospect of walking those aisles. I meandered around and found myself in the kitchen section. I looked up and was blinded by a bright light shining off..what, I couldn’t tell (I was blinded, duh.)  I shuffled over and reached out a hand to grasp…a handle of a metallic object. I pulled it off the shelf with trepidation. The weight forced me to hug it close to me. When my vision returned I looked at what I was holding. It was a large cylinder made of metal. As I rotated it in my hands, the label came into view (well, the English text of the label, that is.) A 22 quart, stainless steel cooking pot! A quick, mental calculation – 4 quarts in a gallon, 22 divided by 4 equals 5 remainder 2 or 5.5 gallons. Disbelief shone on my face like a fog light searching out lost ships. I was large enough*, the right metal, and the price…an unbelievable $49.99.

I trembled as I made my way to the registers. Something wasn’t right with the scene before me. The nearest 3 registers had only 1 person each, not the line to the back of the store I was accustomed to. I nearly fainted but was able to steady myself by leaning on the elderly lady carrying two 50 pound sacks of water softener salt. I slid into the register aisle closest to me. As my pot inched closer to the magical laser thingy that scans the bar code, I kept looking around, expecting someone to tackle me, declaring that I was in the special “elderly persons faced with hip replacement surgery” line and forced to carry my item to the back of the store to wait in line for a cashier with bad acne and no teeth. With trembling fingers, I swiped my credit card through the card do-hickey, fearful that I would wake up in my bed – all this a cruel dream. When the cashier handed me the receipt, I realized it was real…I wasn’t dreaming. I had purchased an item at Wal-mart without waiting an eternity in line behind a down-trodden mother carrying a baby with an ear-splitting wail. The cashier was courteous, polite and looked to have at least a high school education. I danced my way to the car, jubilant at finding my brew pot!

Oh happy day!

* I was hoping for a 6-7 gallon pot but a 5.5 will do nicely. I plan to freeze 1 gallon of water and brew using 4 gallons. When the boil is complete, I can put the 1 gallon ice block in to a) cool the wort and b) bring the volume closer to 5 gallons.