In Brewing Beer Part 1 I wrote about ordering a brewing kit and getting the solution ready to ferment.  The beer sat in the primary fermenting bucket for a little under a week.  Once there was no more gas bubbling out of the airlock, we knew that no more fermenting was going on.  That meant it was ready to transfer to a carboy for secondary fermentation.  We opened up the fermenting bucket and were rewarded with this:

The fermenting bucket after about 6 days

It smelled like beer!  Next we had to siphon the solution into the carboy for secondary fermentation.  We bought the carboys from our local brewing store, Jay’s Brewing.  Rather than buying glass carboys we bought plastic better bottles.  We figured the plastic would be lighter, and there’s less glass that I can break.

5 gallon Better Bottle plastic carboy, image from jaysbrewing.com

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A Wishful Wednesday realized!  As we wrote in this post, we wanted  to brew beer.  Shortly thereafter, there was a Groupon for a beginning brewing kit from Midwest Supplies.  We scooped that up, and ordered our brewing kit with the oatmeat stout recipe kit.  If you order a kit, open it right away!  There’s yeast included, which should be refrigerated. I missed that, but fortunately our yeast was still just fine.

Then we got to brewing!  The beginning brewing kit came with a helpful DVD that led me through the brewing process.  Additionally, the recipe kit came with great instructions tailored to this specific recipe.  I was impressed by how good of a job Midwest Supplies did.

The grains steeping in the pot

The first step was to steep the grains with water in a 5 gallon stainless steel pot.  After a set amount of time, I took out the grains and took the pot off the heat.

The grains after removed from the pot

Then I added the jug of malt extract, some hops, and brought the solution to a boil.

Here I’m warming the malt extract in hot water so that it’ll pour more easily

The instructions warned about a boilover, and for good reason!  I definitely had a boilover as soon as the mixture started boiling.  It did make a mess, but it wasn’t terrible to cleanup.  It was bad enough that I made sure it didn’t happen again!  The mixture then boiled for about an hour.  I stayed close by and stirred it frequently to make sure it didn’t boil over again.

The solution on its way to boiling

I also took this time to sterilize the fermenting bucket.  Since we’re creating a solution full of sugar, it’s an environment where bacteria would have a field day.  It’s very important that everything is sterile so that the yeast we introduce is the only thing eating the sugar and causing the fermentation.  The kit came with a no-rinse sterilizing solution which worked great.

Then it was time to cool the solution, transfer it to the fermenting bucket, and add the yeast.  To cool the solution I filled the sink with ice water, put the pot in it, and then added ice to the pot itself.  I found that these methods cooled the solution very quickly, which according to the instructions is very important.  While it was cooling down, I put the yeast in warm water to get it started.  Then I transferred the solution to the fermenting bucket, stirred it like crazy to get oxygen in the solution like the instructions said, added water just above the 5 gallon mark, and added the yeast.

Adding water and stirring to add oxygen

George sealed up the bucket with the lid, I filled the airlock with water and put it in the hole on the lid, and George carried the heavy bucket away to be stored for a week.  Fair warning: the full bucket of 5+ gallons of “beer” weighs a lot!

Here’s the fermentation bucket, full of soon to be beer. The airlock is in the top.

Next post I’ll discuss transferring the beer to a carboy for its secondary fermentation.  Here is the Part 2 post to read on!