Brew 1.1 - Red Ale (5-17-10)

It's now been two days since I poured the Wort into the fermenter. The air lock is bubbling along at a steady bubble every five to eight seconds, and the bubbles escaping smell terrific! SO tempting to just tear it open and try some. Don't worry, I wont. It does make me really want a beer though, and right now unfortunately I'm out.

I didn't mention in the previous post that I sampled the wort before the yeast was introduced. Actually, before the three gallons of cold water too. It was something of a fruity tea with a slight bitter after taste. I tell you what, it was good. :)

The fermenter is down in my basement, where the temp reading as of 2:00pm today was 64°F according to the thermometer, a good temp for an ale, so I'm told.

Something I did not do that I maybe should have was pour the wort through a strainer to remove the hops as I poured into the fermenter. I'm not sure what this might do other than make it a little hoppy, and if that's all it does, I'm OK with that. I like a good hoppy beer. I'm not worried about it ruining the beer, not by a long shot, but I was curious to taste it exactly how the kit was meant to be made as a sort of baseline, or controlled run so that I could gauge future brews as I start to experiment. Such is life.

Jeff and I had originally planned on using growlers instead of bottles, that way we'd only need to fill 10 vessels, but I decided for my half, I may use one or two, but I'd like to be able to have maybe just one beer from time to time, and cracking a growler for just one makes the left over contents go flat easily.

We shall see though.