Another Homebrew Shipment!

After returning from New York, one of my first orders of business was to get an order in for more homebrew supplies. We had run out of my last coffee stout just before we headed west across the pond- so it was time to buy some ingredients and get the batch down.

Just as I did with my first order, I picked one kit with grains and hops and two canned kits. The shelf life of ground grains and leaf hops (even vacuum-sealed as they were) is much more limited than the canned kits.

Again as before, my first kit was Brupaks Irish Extra Stout. I really liked how it turned out last time, and stout kits have a bit more room for error because they have such a bold taste. The hard-to-describe beer-kit-with-English-ale-yeast taste seems to be masked by the malty and roasty taste of the dark grains.

The canned kits I selected were Cooper's IPA and a Cooper's Pilsener. It should be noted that the Pilsener lager isn't really a lager with lager yeast, but a light ale designed to have a clean, light, lager-ish taste. I've heard good things about the Cooper's Pilsener, but haven't yet tried it.

I also restocked on Champagne yeast for ciders and bought a hydrometer sample tube, which I promptly broke. Homebrew West also threw in two small tubs of cleanser/sanitizer, which seems to work well. Thanks!

Homebrew Shipment

The day the shipment arrived, I got to work on the stout kit. 

I steeped the roasted grains wrapped in muslin to extract the dark, chocolatey flavor.

Steeping Grains

After steeping, I took some of the steeping water and mixed in some of the provided liquid malt extract and brought it to a boil. Once boiling, I added most of the provided dry leaf hops.

Dried Leaf Hops

Boiling Hops

After 50 minutes, I added more of the remaining hops for flavor, and after 5 more minutes, I added the rest of the hops for aroma. After an even hour, I was ready to strain out the hops and get this beer ready for fermentation.

I added the rest of the liquid malt extract to the fermenting bucket with the steeping water and the (strained) hops boiling water. I topped it off to 25L- just a bit more than called for in the recipe, but I like to stretch these kits a bit- and pitched the provided yeast.

Fermenting Stout

After a week to ten days, it will be ready for bottling and I'll have fresh homemade beer in the house once again. Pipeline ciders and apple-cranberry mixes are great, but nothing really beats a nice homemade beer.