This article was originally posted on Sept. 30, 2011 on my homebrew website, Fat Grey Tom’s Cider. It has been re-posted here with the same time stamp.
After having successfully brewed our first beer, a “basic dark” and both wanting to move on to a greater challenge and something with a more complex flavor, we decided to brew a stout.
And brew a stout we did!
“If we’re bottling when the sun’s setting, meaning its beaming directly at the beer, isn’t that bad?” Bryce asked.
“Yes it is,” I replied.
And so, we used what we had to protect our bottling from harmful sunlight.
From the front:
From the front
From behind:
Yes, we did protect the beer with pizza boxes.
We weren’t, apparently, all there:
After I had filled the first bottle, I realized that we hadn’t yet put the priming sugar in the beer. So, we put the sugar in, stirred it up and filled the rest of the bottles and drank the first, flat bottle of stout.
And, it was good! And tasty! And so now, we wait. We wait to crack open the first brew.
Crossing our fingers.
Hurrah.
Here’s the recipe, from our local home brew store:
Ingredients:
6 lbs. Amber Malt Extract
1 lb. Roasted Barley
1 lb. Amber Dry Malt Extract (DME)
1 lb. Flaked Barley
2 oz. Goldings, Willamette or Fuggles Hops (We used Fuggles.)Directions:
Bring water to a boil, add malt extract, roasted barley, DME, flaked barley and hops. Stir until extract is completely dissolved. Boil for 1 hour.
Strain wort into fermenter. Bring water up to 5 gallons.
Aerate and pitch yeast.
Let beer ferment, between 60 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit, for two weeks/when fermentation is complete.
Bottle, cap, let sit for two weeks. Enjoy.
As soon as we open, I’ll write about it. Until then, we’re still trying to figure out a name and a bottle design.
This stout: