St. Patrick's About a Stout!

So a couple weekends ago I went with Nick Lennemann to his parents cabin in Minnesota. During this weekend we consumed quite a bit of beers. Good beers too. None of that water down piss. (ok, some watered down piss).

The best beer of the weekend though, was Nick's very own Homebrew: "St. Nick's There Can Be Only One Scottish Ale". It tasted as good as it sounds (and thats a Highlander reference for those of you keeping score at home). I was surprised to find out it was his first attempt at beer making.

I decided that I wanted to make my own beer, so on the drive back he gave me tips. That is how I have come to this:

That is the label for my first brew, a stout. I went to the Midwest Supplies website, and ordered what Ineeded. They were delivered in just 4 days and I had what I needed to brew 5 gallons of stout.

What I got was this:
(The contents of which is explained here.)

After a few days, I was ready to start brewing. This is my step by step diary:

9/12/2009
8:30pm
-Sanitize 1 gallon of water and put into freezer in santized tupperwear dishes using Easy Clean No-Rinse Cleanser .
-Sanitize 5 gallon wert kettle, a bowl to use to keep supplies clean, spoon and thermometer using Easy Clean.
-Add 4 gallons water to Wert Kettle and place on heat. Bring to boil.
9:10pm
-Water is boiling.
9:14pm
-Pour grains on to cutting board and roll with rolling pin to "open them up".
-Place grains into sifting sock (much like a pantyhose) and set in the bowling water (like a tea bag in a cup.)
9:45pm

-Remove grains from kettle, squeezing the sock to help it drain.
9:47pm
-Crank the heat and let it boil.
10:00pm
-place the Malt Extract into a warm bath so that it becomes less syrupy and more liquid.
10:14pm
-At a rolling boil.
-Take the kettle off the burner.
-Add gypsum and malt extract (BE SURE TO REMOVE THE RING OFF THE TOP OF THE MALT EXTRACT JUG... OTHERWISE IT FALLS INTO YOUR WERT... NOT THAT THIS HAPPENED TO ME OR ANYTHING...IMJUSTSAYING!!!) Drench the bottle and be sure to get all the extract out of the jug. (AGAIN, REMOVE THE RING FROM THE TOP FIRST.)
- Stir well.
10:25pm
-Put wert back on the burner and bring to boil.
10:47pm
-Once boiling add bittering hops by placing them into the same sifting sock.

11:45pm
-Remove bittering hops and add aroma hops to the sifting sock.
-Place sock into wert and move up and down for 2 minutes.
9/13/2009
12:02am
- When it looks like this, it's ready.
- Remove wert from burner and place in an icebath in the kitchen sink. (I used 20lbs. of ice.) Add in the 1 gallon of frozen water.
- Coming off the burner, the temperature of the wart was 140 degrees F.
- Place lid on top.
12:17am
-Remove lid, Stir. Temperature was 130 degrees F.
12:21am
-Remove lid, Stir. Temperature was 102 degrees F.
12:33am
-Remove lid, Stir. Temperature was 86 degrees F.
12:40am
-Remove lid, Stir. Temperature was 80 degrees F. Perfect!
- Now that it is 80 degrees F, take wert out of ice bath and pour it into 5 gallon bucket for primary fermentaion. (use the bucket without the hole in the side).
- Place santized glass jar into the wert, scooping out enough for a Hydrometer reading. The reading was 1.046.
12:45am
- Add more sanitized water filling the bucket to the 5 gal. mark.
- Prepare the yeast by pouring the packet into 90 degree F water, let set for 10 minutes.
12:50am
- Begin whisking the wert with a clean sterilized whisk. That puts oxygen into the wert. Do this until it gets a nice foam on top.
12:55am
- Add in the yeast.
1:00am
- Place lid on top and put the airlock on the hole (filling it with half with water first.)
- Put into closet with thermometer on the side.
5:00pm
- I realized the temp was at 79 degrees F, a little to high for my liking, so I moved the bucket from the closet to right in front of our air conditioner placing a fan on it.
- For the next 3 days, it never got above 72 or below 69.
9/17/2009
8:26pm
- Opened the primary fermentation bucket, and noticed the foam from the fermentation had gone down. Leaving a dark ring about an inch thick above the beer.
- Took a small sanitized glass, and scooped out some. Tasted it. IT WAS GREAT! Stacie and I both had a taste, and were satisfied. No contamients!
9:05pm
- Prep the glass carboy by sanitizing it in the bath tub. (The heat and steam made the fire alarm go off. Awesome).
- Sanitize the auto siphon.
9:17pm
- Begin siphoning the beer from the primary fermentation bucket to the glass carboy.

- Once it starts to get low, tilt the bucket so as not to get the sediments at the bottom in the Carboy.

9:25pm
- Cork the carboy and add the airlock, filling it half with water again.
- I placed the glass carboy into the closet because the temperature does not bug me as much now in the secondary fermentation.

9/22/2009
7:59pm
-Began to steralize the bucket with spout, cyphoning tube, and hose.
8:10pm
- Took hydrometer reading: 1.114
8:15pm
- Cyphoned beer from carboy to bucket with spout.
8:22pm
- Began to bottle.
9:15pm
- Bottling was finished: 52 12oz bottles and 1 16oz bottle.

9:22pm
- Placed into closet in 2 boxes to let set for 2 weeks.


10/4/2009
10:30pm

-Opened first bottle of St. Patrick's About a Stout and drank. It was Great! Began labeling a few bottles for friends and family. SUCCESS!

That is all for my Stout (except drinking!). I am currently making:
"St. Patrick's Tastie Hastie Hefeweizen"