Brewin' Time!

Back in December, aka LAST YEAR, we made a family investment in some brewing equipment.  When Ryan first arrived, he learned that the beer purchased on base had an odd flavor to it, a bit of a "whang," for those of you in the "Hollywood Knights" know.  It was just off.  Ryan's theory was that when beer was chilled during the shipment to Okinawa, but that on occasion it sat on the hot docks during the summer before being placed in a chilled place for sale.  In other words, it got skunked.  Like a good scientist, he conducted a taste experiment on a few different types of beer and got similar results across all types.  

Just when he was getting ready to lament a poor selection of beers while in Japan, he learned that some people take up beer brewing while out here for the very same reason he experienced.  He had the good fortune to have a couple knowledgeable brewers in the battalion, took notes, got recommendations, and we talked a long time about brewing our own.  Thanks to a former labmate and my dad, I'd had the pleasure of participating in the concoction of beer a couple of times before and enjoyed the process, so I was on-board.  The only thing now was to acquire equipment.

Getting the gear is easy these days.  There are plenty of kits you can purchase for the first-time brewer, and then plenty of other gadgets you can get to really become a geek burgeoning brewer.  We found one, received it in December, and it sat in our lovely house for a good long time.  Until today!

Our first brew is an Irish Red Ale, which we've already dubbed "Flamin' Red Kouchi," in honor of our brewing location, i.e. our house.  We recently purchased a dry-erase board for an evening of pictionary, and thankfully brewing beer gave us another use:

All went well, except for the "cold break" portion of the beer.  For those of you who have not made your own, this is when you try to cool down the boiled wort (beer-in-the-making) as quickly as possible for clarity.  Our strategy was to brew a condensed portion, say 3 gallons, and then add a very chilled 2 gallons for the cold break to get it down to 70-degrees Fahrenheit.  It took the better part of an hour, which was not what we'd hoped.  However, the Irish Red Ale is supposed to be a very forgiving brew in terms of mistakes on the part of the beginning brewer, which is partly why we purchased it and selected it as our first.

The next day, our wort was fermenting nicely, as captured by this still from a video I took:

Next step: transferring from the ale pail to the glass carboy!