Catching up...

My first post will be catching up on my journal. I have written these things, but have not published them and I would like to put them all in one post so I can update more accurately and frequently.

2/10/08
My first batch so far has been a success. Being new to the homebrew scene I edid not pay attention to ingredients, or quntities of them as it was a prepackaged ingredient kit. All I know is that there was malt extract, a bittering hops, an aroma hops and a pitching yeast. Of which kinds, I'm uncertain.

I had two of my best friends assisting me as I really had no idea what I was doing and I had the ability to learn how to brew from two guys who had alrady made plenty of mistakes and have learned from them and adapted accordingly.

I soon learned that brewing is and will remain my favorite hobby. What better time to shoot the shit with your best friends than awaiting the 45 minute mark to add more hops to the boil, all while enjoying a few top quality pints with your mates.

It didn't take long for me to realize I was hooked on brewing my own beer. Being able to taste your beer throughout every step of the way is most definitely appealing, especially for someone as impatient as I am. If it weren't for the abilityu to steal a quick staste between brewing and trasnferring, or secondary and bottling, I wouldn't be able to contain myself and would be far too excited to wait for the finished prodcut to give it the time it needs. I write thias there is only a week left to before I can taste the final product and I am practically crawling out of my skin.

2/14/08
So as I enter my brew journal a day after writing about how excited I am to taste teh fifrst batch, my partner in brewing and I caved last night and gave it a shot. The ale it self has a nice flavor but still lacks body. A couple more weeks in the bottle and it should be great.

On another note we trasnferred batch number two into the secondary fermenter last night. This is a honey amber ale that was concocted from a northwestern amber malt. (full ingredients here). Our first grav reading clocked in at 1.064 and we took another reading last night to see that we have dropped to 1.022, which gives us a current potential alochol of almost four percent. When all is said and done, I expect to be looking at a seven percent abv. beer. Tasting the beer out of the hydrometer tube gave me something to really look forward to. We are going to have something amazing with this batch. It already seems to have a bit of carbonation on its own, without adding any of the dextrose. teh beer in the making has a faint hint of sweetness, and a mild hoppy aroma. A beer tasting this good half way through the process, leaves a lot ot be expected from the final product.