Making The Leap

Making The Leap

Like most college aged guys (and girls, for that matter), I used to think, “Man, I should really brew my own beer!” For the longest time, that’s as far as it went. A friend of mine brewed a couple batches, and the beer was great, but he never really talked to much about the set up or process, so home brewing was still shrouded in mystery.

Why am I telling you this? We were a comedy of errors for a large section of the brewing process and we still made beer! It wasn’t the best Pale Ale I’ve ever had, but it was definitely the most satisfying. Beer is actually fairly forgiving if you’re not going for perfection. Accidentally add hops early? Added too much malt extract? You’ll still have beer.

The one exception to this concept is sanitation. If you’re going to be obsessive about anything, make it sanitation. Everything that comes into contact with your beer at any phase should be clean (washed, free of any visible particles), and anything that comes into contact with your wort after you take it off the stove has to be sanitized (using OneStep, StarSan, bleach water, etc.). Other than that, while you should try to follow the instructions, if you mess up, in the words of the immortal (at least so far) Charlie Papazian, “Relax, don’t worry and have a home brew!”

All images come from our first time brewing. The full gallery is available here.