Beermaking with a Brew Kit - Part 1

This may come as a shock to you, but I don't particularly like beer. I've never been a huge fan of beer and if I ever do drink it, it's usually hard cider or a light beer. However, a couple of years ago I had my first taste of home brewed beer and boy was it good! I tasted my friend Leo's brew and, although he makes darker ales, his beer is fabulous.

Then, a few months ago my father-in-law sent us some of his homemade Blaha brew. He has been making his own beer for years and years and he is always coming up with new flavors and recipes. Recently he sent us some of his sage beer and mead beer. His beer is quite tasty and refreshing that we can't get enough of it.

So, I decided to give beer making a try. Since we live in a small apartment I decided to buy the Mr. Beer Premium Kit. The kit comes with a plastic keg, tap, all of the ingredients, sterilizing powder and six 20 ounce plastic bottles. The only equipment I need to provide is a mixing spoon, a plate, can-opener, a measuring cup and a 3-quart pot. The key to great homemade beer is cleanliness. You want all of your equipment to be sterilized because this creates a clean environment to your ingredients and giving you less of a chance to mess up your beer.

What I like about the Mr. Beer Premium Kit is that the steps are easy to follow and the entire process took about 40 minutes. The bad thing is that now we have to wait. Fermentation takes a minimun of 7 days, after that we have to bottle the beer and condition it for another 7 days...so come back in a couple of weeks to check on part 2 of my beermaking progress!

Adding the beer mix (malt) to the hot water and corn sugar mixture.

Mix the malt and hot water until dissolved.

Then add it into the keg which is filled with 4 quarts of cold water...

Finally, we add more cold water to reach 8.5 quarts and add the yeast. Tightly put on the lid and we have to let it ferment for 7 days in a dark, cool place.

to be continued...