The making of a homebrew
 

Check out The making of a homebrew part 2 here

Part-1
Day-1

Tonight I started another batch of brew. This one is a sweet stout. I grabbed my camera a little late in the process so excuse me for that. My pictures will start with the wort boiling. I didn't get the pics of the ingrediants but here's the list:

Grains:
0.5 lbs. Dingemans Debitter Black
0.5 lbs. Beeston's Chocolate

Fermentables:
6 lbs. Munich Malt Syrup
1 lbs. Lactose

Boil Additions:
1 oz. Target (60 min)

Yeast:
Wyeast #1028 London Ale Yeast.
Flocculation: medium
Apparent attenuation: 73-77%
Optimum temperature: 60-72.


I guess I do this in a narrative. The first thing to note is everyone has their own style of brewing. Mine isn't necessarily the best but it works for me.

The most important part of brewing is cleanliness and sanitation. I clean and sanitize myself, my work area and everything that is to come in contact with the ingrediants.
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Here's the ingrediants boiling, at this point it's called wort (pronounced wert).
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After 60mins of a rolling boil the wort needs to come off the stove and into the ice bath.
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The wort is then strained into a food grade bucket which is the primary fermentator... btw, if you have a pregnant wife, get her to help...the views are better :D
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Add another 4 gallons of spring water (boiled for sanitation then brought back down to room temp) to bring the wort to a full 5 gallons at about 70 degrees.
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Take a sample to measure the gravity
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Pitch the yeast. Once the yeast hits the wort, it's officially beer.
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Aerate the beer to make sure the yeast have a good chance to feed and produce alcohol.
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Put the lid on, add the water lock
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Slide 'er in a nice dark closet and let her ferment in the primary for a week.
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Now that the beer is safe from contamination, measure the Original Gravity of the wort (from the sample we took earlier) In this case, 1.045 O.G.
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or about 5 1/2% potential alcohol. We'll do another measurement in a few weeks, after she's done fermenting and figure out for sure what's she'll be. I'll pitch yeast again tomorrow to give her the extra kick to make sure I get the most outta her. I should have made a starter but I didn't have time for that so instead I got two packs of wyeast to compemsate.
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After I write down my numbers, I'm not afraid to taste my creation. It gives me good indication of what I'm in for.
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Stay tuned, I'll update this thread as the process continues.

awesome! I cant wait for the next segment

The Wyeast 1028 should leave you with about a 4 - 4¼% abv Beer, because the lactose is just not going to ferment. That looks like a really tasty one, though. I made a milk stout with cherries last summer that turned out pretty well. Should have used pie cherries instead of eating cherries, though.