The All American Pale Ale

Off to a visit to Jesse’s house for a beer brewing bash we went. On the menu: American Pale Ale

So I literally knew nothing about brewing beer other than there’s hops, hot water, sugar, a grain (wheat, barley, etc.), yeast, and fermentating… That was the extent of my knowledge. Even after Jesse’s lesson, I still can’t remember half of all that he said (I cheated and took some of this info from the internet. sshhh). Apparently, there’s tons of different ways to brew beer. We took the ‘hot water/grains-in-cooler’ approach. All the precisely measured grains were added to our cooler… (not pictured: 5lbs of wheat, I do believe)

This “mashing” (soaking the grains in hot water to allow the enzymes to convert the starches into sugars) process took a little over an hour for all the starches to convert. *OFF TO THE ICE CREAM SHOP*

After that, we had to “lauter” or separate the grains from the sweet liquid. Our cooler was modified for this purpose, so all that had to be done was turn the nifty little spigot and out the liquid drained. Additionally, hot water can be added to the sugary grains so that more of the sugars still caught in the mixture can be drained out. However, I don’t remember Jesse doing this, so I believe this is an option. If you want more sugar in your beer, do this!

The next step involved boiling the “wort” (sugary liquid), then adding a specific amount of hops (I believe to your own preference). Also, the earlier the hops are added, the more bitter your beer will become. If the hops are added later in the boiling process, there becomes a larger emphasis on flavor and aroma, rather than bitterness. This could also be the time to add (if you wanted to), citrus peel, extract flavors, etc. to get that nice extra POW, PIZAZZ, or SHABAM to your beer. (Personally, I like PIZAZZ, but whatever. It’s your beer.)

Ok. So then you have to cool the beer and transfer the wort to another container for fermentation. Initially in this stage, oxygen should be in the container with the wort, but sealed so that no more can come in. Jesse had an oxygen regulator attached to his already made batch of beer for this purpose. No more oxygen can come into the container, but other gases can. The yeast in the beer initially needs the oxygen for aerobic respiration, but then converts to anaerobic respiration later on, thus kick-starting the fermentation process. This takes around two weeks. Then you just bottle it all up and let it sit another one-and-a-half to two weeks. (I know. It seems like a long wait-time, but it is so worth it. Hang in there.)