HOMEbrewing Adventures

Hiya!
I hope everyone had a good and relaxing weekend. Mine was really, really quiet. The boy was up in Austin on a boys trip and I stayed home and ODed on my newest obsession.. Breaking Bad. I know I'm super late to this train. Hey I'm here now. LOL. Also been preparing for Pia's party this coming weekend. Pretty stoked on that but also super nervous.. only one little girls mom confirmed that she was coming. I hope I don't put all this work into a party and no one comes. That would be a total bummer for sure.
Today I thought I would show y'all some snapshots of some homebrewing we did a couple of weeks ago. I was waiting until I got pictures from the bottling so that it could be one entire post. I also have a video on Instagram if any of you are interested in the bottling process.
So the brewing itself doesn't even start until you get everything cleaned and completely disinfected. Which is the biggest pain in the butt ever!

After all the disinfecting and cleaning for a bit we turned on the propane to get the water a boiling. Bob was a little apprehensive about the propane, kept saying he felt like everything would explode as soon as he turned it on. Needless to say, we were all fine. Nothing caught fire. We're all alive. The beer got brewed!

After the water reaches a good boiling temperature you steep the grains to make the wort (beer). It's pretty much like making tea. You have to hold the grain bag to make sure that it doesn't burn and let the grains out into the wort. You do this for around 30-45 minutes. You don't want to leave it too long because, just like tea, it gets bitter. This is done to release sugars and enhance the flavor. The malt + the grains release the sugars that get fermented, which turns into the beer!

These three pictures on the top are the addition of the malt into the wort. It has the consistency of like porridge when you add it into the boiling water. Pretty icky looking. I hope you're not entirely lost.. it's a straightforward but also complex process of measuring and timing. It's actually super interesting to read about. I'm just barely scratching the surface with my explanation of the whole brewing process. I didn't get to take pictures of the hops that got added to the wort. They were added twice actually.. on brewing day and later on when the primary fermentation was over. 

So here comes the lame part of me documenting this.. I fell asleep not too long after brewing when the wort was being cooled. Bob brews way too late! I will hopefully change this and document it at another date. 

I didn't get pictures of the wort being cooled or it being put into the fermenter, which is just a plastic carboy. The yeast gets added to the wort when it goes into the carboy and it sits for typically around a week to a week and a half to ferment. Then it gets transferred to another carboy so that the yeast sediment can be separated and a secondary addition of hopping can occur. Ok, so now that your mind is spinning around that... bottling day!

The picture above shows the carboy it went into for the secondary hopping. We had just uncapped it. As with brewing day, bottling day requires tons of cleaning and disinfecting as well. As soon as we have enough saved up we will be kegging. Bottling is a paiiinnnnn. 

These show the siphoning of the beer into the bottles and then all of them capped and ready to sit for a little while longer to ferment. I guess I didn't even tell you all what kind of beer this was! A double Ipa! So super hoppy.

I hope y'all enjoyed my brief explanation of the brewing process. Hoping I didn't bore you to death!

Do any of you brew?

With All My Love,

Pati

Austin Adventures (512) Brewing Co.

Hi Guys! Eep.. it's been too long since I had a chance to sit down and blog. Hope you had a wonderful holiday! With tons of family and food.

I miss you all! Between going out of town and Christmas festivities it's been insane over here.

Don't fret. I'm back. With so many stories to tell.

Austttiinnnnnnn, Texas how I love thee. I will live in thee soon. Now to
retell (part of) the adventures that we went on this weekend.

The one and only thing we had planned for the whole weekend was a brewery tour at (512) brewing co.

Not going to lie.. this was all for that amazing man of mine.

It's cool. We give, We get.

Plus, I ended up having the best time ever.

These taps were rad. rad. rad.
What came out of them.. even better.
I'm not a fancy beer drinker like Bob but I have been sampling his beers for quite a while.
This past weekend I got pints of my own.. and GASP, waddaya know? I kinda liked it.
I can't lie. He might be reading this.

That's what I was drinking all afternoon. Tripel. Delicious. 

Unfortunately this brewery rarely bottles. The owner kind of likes the environment and doesn't want waste. Yeah, what a concept, right? 

Another reason to love them! Also a reason to come to Austin and sample some of their stuff out.

Some of the random people waiting around for the tour. Being inside a brewery is always a treat.

This is just his casual face. NO biggie.

Warning: There's no pictures of me. Boo! I need to get better at being in front of the camera on these adventures as well.

Will totally do better next time. Promise.

These next couple of pictures show the fermentation tanks which is where the beer, which is called wort while undergoing fermentation, is kept. 

The giant metal things.. for anyone who is lost.

This is where they mix the grain, hops, and whatever else will be going into the beer.

Above you can see some of the many, many kegs laying around the place.

Before they can get into those kegs though, the beer needs to be made.. and needs to ferment.

They attach hoses to the tanks so that some of the gases from the fermenting process have ample room to escape the tanks. If they weren't there..it would be a HUGE mess.

Buckets of water are filled so they can see how aggressively it is fermenting at a certain period of time.

These two buckets were bubbling like crazy!

Barrels where some of the beer goes for secondary fermentation. Most of these, if not all, are whiskey barrels. Pretty cool stuff.

After the tour we got to just hang out and enjoy some good brews and make some new friends.

Two dudes from the brewery. Facing us (Hugh) Back to us (Phil).

They were super cool, chill dudes who just love beer.

My hand made an appearance!

When everyone leaves.. boys sit and laugh about beer..

Phil giving, and trying, a shot of barrel aged whiskey. Can't remember what it's called but this is the whiskey remnants that are extracted from the barrels they receive. They apparently have loads..

Hope you enjoyed the brewery tour. We sure did!

Murals coming tomorrow!

With all my love,

Pati