Homemade Beer!

          My fiance is a beer-lover to say the least. He tries a new beer any chance he gets, & seeks out every micro-brewery he can find when we go on vacation. On our Colorado road trip back in 2009 I am pretty sure we went to ~7 microbreweries  - & he tried each beer they had at each one. lol I indulged & tried a few as well, but the higher alcohol content + the higher altitude put me on my butt after just one. :-P
         This Christmas I had wanted to buy him a home-made beer kit so he could brew his own beer. After searching & searching I came across the perfect one at William Sonoma while shopping for my Dad's Christmas gift, Brooklyn BrewShop. Unfortunately, Henry was with me at the time so I had to buy it while he was there. Let me explain - living in Cleburne we have to drive 30-60 minutes to reach a decent mall - more of about 60 to get to a William Sonoma. Now multiple places have beer kits, but William Sonoma had a beer-kit with a GLASS fermenting jar - that is the biggest difference. However, Henry was not allowed to use the beer-kit until Christmas day. :-)
          We finally got a free weekend to get the process started - while I up-cycled an old kitchen light frame, Henry started on his home brew. :-) I took some photos along the way. It will be 4 weeks until we can actually try the beer to see if it was a fail or success. :-) 

Making the "mash" 

Straining the hops - putting the brew into the fermentor

Adding yeast to the brew

The set-up for fermentation - blow-off tube in sanitized water so the jar won't blow-up as the yeast ferments, & to prevent contamination from entering the tube into the brew, therefore killing the yeast - that would be no good!

         Now the fun of waiting 3 days before the next step!