Home Brewing – First Brew

Just before last Christmas, there was a homebrew kit on www.groupon.com from our local homebrew store Bet Mar Liquid Hobby shop.  In college I had some roommates who dabbled in home brewing and have since continued.  So I decided to ask my brother to pick it up for my Birthday gift.

The first brew I did was an Amber kit.  I unfortunately lost the directions since then, but I’m sure you can find it on the Bet Mar website.  The beer came out tasting very good, but I definitely did not do the beer making process properly.  I’ve tried to keep notes as I brew, but I’ve not a done a great job.  I can tell you I cleaned the pot I just bought (4 Gallon about $55 from Wal-mart) with Everclear.  I don’t know if this was a good idea, but I do know you aren’t supposed to clean with normal agents (soap). 

The hardest part was reading the Hydrometer, I should have paid more attention in Chemistry Class at Clemson – I’m sure my professor will concur.  I also don’t think I added the Sugars properly from my notes, but they are almost a year old.  Anyways everyone really liked the Amber Ale.

The other hard part was getting enough of the right type of bottles, I had 12 that were screw caps and broke about 4 of them and then gave up.  Rookie mistake, I probably left about ¾ of a gallon at the bottom.  I tried to put it in an old Orange Crush plastic bottle to see how it turned out.  Not well.  Apparently it is doable, but I didn’t do any research beforehand.