Down to the rabbit hole

I got married in June 2019, and one of the gifts that I received was a package from Brouw Broeders. It’s a plastic bucket and contained enough grains and yeast to brew 5 liter IPA. I loved the fact that it seemed so simple. It’s really only 6 steps.

Mashing

The first step is mashing, here you wil keep a pot on the stove around the 68 degrees celsius for a hour. Sounds easier than done to be honest. You will need to monitor the temperature the whole time. If it goes to high you need to turn off the stove, if it’s to low turn it back on.

This is especially hard because there is a small delay.

Sparge

Next, you need to transfer the liquid from 1 pot to another. Filtering out all the grains. Then you need to use some additional “sparge” water and gently pour it over the grains. Sparing the grains so that we have a around 6 liters in total.

Boil

Now we need to boil the wort and add the hops. In this receipt I used Chinook. The hops added in the beginning of the boil will add bitterness and the hops added at the end add aromas to the beer.

Cooling

After we boiled the wort we need to cool it down. I used a sink with cold water and ice cubes for this process. It’s important to bring the temperature back around the 20 degrees.

Fermenting

When the wort was cooled down enough I transferred the wort into the bucket. Then I pitched the yeast into the bucket. If the wort is still to hot the yeast will die. Then I placed the bucket in a place where it could rest and ferment for 14 days.

Bottling

When the fermenting phase was completed I added 5 gram of sugar to my bottles and filled them with beer. Then I sealed them off with a crown cap and let them condition for a month.

Tasting

Now the only thing left was to taste it!

I really enjoyed the process and liked the end result. Quickly I realized that I could use this process in a combination with my other passion. So I used it in my first AWS Meetup talk.

This might be the beginning of a new hobby…