Beer Making

That's right! Ian and I are trying out a new hobby. This is something Ian has talked about doing for a while. So for his birthday this year I got him a beer brewing kit. This was a couple of weeks ago and we finally got the time and motivation to go for it today. Let me confess to major laziness here. I didn't read any of the literature. I was only the assistant and Ian is the real beer hero.

For our first batch we used a copy cat kit. A local brewery put together all the ingredients necessary to start a batch.

There was some dry malt extract, yeast, hops and such. We followed a set of instructions and combined these in a big pot.

The instruction were not well written so there was a fair amount of guessing. The mixture boiled for and hour and a half. I learned a steaming pot will boil off a lot of water in a 90 minutes.


All the windows on the ground floor were steamed up. I have mixed feeling about the smell of brewing beer. I thought maybe it wasn't so bad. That is until I left the house for grocery shopping. Walking back into the house was awful. Brewing in the summer seem like a good idea. We could just open all the windows. I suspect this smell will hang around for a while.

After the boiling we cooled it down, checked the specific gravity (SCIENCE!!) and added yeast. The mixture went into a 6 gallon bucket (not so science fancy) to ferment for 7 days. After the week we will move it to a secondary fermenter. Then another few weeks and bottling. Maybe we'll have home made beer for Christmas.

One big part of brewing is cleanliness (according to my coworker) and Ian was very diligent.


There was a bottle of iodine that came with the kit. And we rinsed the primary fermenter with it. I hope it was enough and we don't have rogue yeast breeding in our bucket. They will ruin the flavor and maybe other things. I have no idea; I didn't read about the process at all.

I enjoyed it overall but there is a feeling that someone else did all the work for us. I feel distanced from what I suspect is a complex process. This will be a little different next time because it is likely we will choose our mix of dried malt extract, yeast, ect. And we can add random spices and such. But I can't help but to compare this to making jam. There I start with real fruit in my hand and move though the whole process. With beer someone else is handling all real ingredients. We just have bags of powder. So, while our first batch is still cooling I am dreaming big beer dreams. I hear that growing hops is easy and now have secret plans to plant some in the back. Do you see how this turns into me scheming for a richer, more challenging beer experience? How does one even malt barley? First we'll have to see if batch 001 is drinkable.

In other news I have a new favorite sport!

A while ago Nathan, the coolest little brother ever, told me not to make Saturday night plans. He said he had a surprise: roller derby! Somehow he got hooked up with the Walla Walla team and is training to be a referee. So he got us on the list for the Richland bout. Yeah, we were on a list. We got to sit with the enthusiasts and they were awesome. I met Purl (her roller derby name) and have a huge woman crush. She is one of the founding players and a knitter. She had all the rules down, and important detail since the game play is very complex, and so so much enthusiasm. There were a couple of times we I found myself on my feet shouting and screaming without realizing I was out of my seat. Do you know what I mean? I was completely carried away. The action is non stop and the crowd is really into it. I have two pieces of fan bling, one for each bout I've been to. I want an excuse to talk about derby with strangers and see the shirt as a way to start that conversation. And I love my team. Watch out world, super fan in the making.