I have been a huge fan of beer, well before I was of the ''legal'' drinking age. And living in Colorado for a good part of my life, I was always around really great beer culture. Towns like Ft. Collins, where the community is in love with their breweries, and the breweries are in love with the town.
Moving to Portland OR and being in the Northwest really cemented my love for great beers. I have had so many great beers from all over the US. In general, I think the Pacific NW, and west coast does it the best!!!
--Though there are plenty of beers that sit high atop of the beer list that are near and far from the west coast......
So onto brewing.... In the back of my mind, I knew a day would come when it was my time to give home brewing a shot, I just needed to go for it!!! And I did!!!!
I recently acquired a brewing set up, and a kit for my first batch of beer. For my first batch I did a malt extract recipe. The recipe was to mimic the great Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. From Northern Brewer I brewed the Sierra Madre Pale Ale. (with a small twist, I dry hopped in the secondary fermentor, with 1.5oz of cascade and centennial hops)
My first batch was pretty easy, steep my grains, boil my wort, add malt extract, and hops at specific intervals during the boil. I ran onto no problems, though my gravity was 1.050 instead of an estimated 1.052. Pretty darn close!!!!
I let it ferment into the primary fermenter carboy(glass jug/bottle) for almost three weeks, until I moved it into the secondary fermenter carboy for another week and a half where I did some additional hopping.
Then came bottling day!!! I wasn't sure how the beer would be so far, because when I did the transfer to secondary, the beer seem under flavoured and watery to my taste.
But on bottling day I was excited to smell and taste the deliciousness that my beer had become!! It still needed some carbonation and a little chilling, but that will be in about two weeks after it conditions in the bottle.
I will write a blog post with the tasting results!!!
The same day I bottled my first batch, I brewed my second!! and maybe got a little over my head.......I did the Mash....I did the Mini-Mash....i did the mash.....it was a home brew smash!!
