Making Beer: The Finale

Here is the closet my batch will sit in this week for the primary fermentation stage. It just needs to sit at room temperature out of any direct sunlight.

It is also important to keep it well sealed from the outside air for two reasons, contamination and oxidation. This bucket is food grade plastic. It makes an air tight seal with a rubber gasket under the rim. The plastic device that you see sticking out of the top is the air lock. The fermentation process produces a lot of CO2 that has to escape. The air lock is how you let it escape without letting air in. It's a simple concept. There is water within the tube. The CO2 rises up and bubbles through the water. No way for the outside air to push back through.

That's it for now. I'll try to check back in when this is moved to the secondary fermenter. In case you are wondering my process takes about 2.5 weeks before it is ready to drink.
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Making Beer: The Third Stage

I was only going to do three stages but I didn't want to leave this picture out. This is the vial of my millions of minions that will work very hard over the next week to help make my beer. You probably already know that yeast is a living thing. Well, now that the wort is cooled and the whole batch is a decent temperature I will "pitch" the yeast. That is what simply pouring the yeast in is called. Pitching sounds cooler than pouring I guess. Over the next few days the yeast will begin to feed on the malt sugars that are in my brew. They will multiply and form a critical mass in the whole batch. The whole thing will bubble and froth. A pretty cool process. The byproduct of the yeast consuming the sugars is alcohol. And there you have it.
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Making Beer: The Second Stage

OK, the brew is done. Now I have a little less than 2 gallons of concentrated malt/hop brew call the "wort." I know, nice name right? That needs to be cooled as quickly as possible so you see it here in a bath of ice water. Once it reaches about room temperature I will pour it through a straining cloth into the bucket that you see in this picture. I will add some cold water until the mixture reaches 5 gallons. That's right, 5 gallons of beer. YUM! This bucket serves as the primary fermenter meaning that my concoction will sit sealed in this container for about a week to generate most of the alcohol. More on that later. Stay tuned.
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