The transfer to a secondary fermenter was very simple.  I moved the first fermenter to the area and then let it settle a few hours before transferring to the secondary.  It is nice to move it away from the sediment and such.  It is still somewhat cloudy and does have some debris floating still, perhaps I will use a clarifier.  I am thinking of potential ways to strain debris before bottling.  So the OG was 1.057 and the FG is 1.012 putting it about 5.9%, I am very excited to try this one.

On a side note, the first batch I brewed is delicious.  I am glad I sampled along the way but I am equally as glad that I have so much now that it has more fully developed.  I don't think I will bother tasting any other batches before 2 or 3 weeks in the bottle.

"He was a wise man who invented beer". Plato

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” 
― Benjamin Franklin

And so the first batch mellows nicely and while it is not as clear as I would like it is delicious.  Perhaps not my favorite but still very tasty.  I am looking forward to the next batch and fighting urges to sample to soon.

And then just some quotes to ponder while we drink:

“You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of football team, or some nuclear weapons, but in the very least you need a beer.”

― Frank Zappa

“Beer is made by men, wine by God.”

― Martin Luther

“The best beer is where priests go to drink. For a quart of Ale is a dish for a king.”

— William Shakespeare

“Whoever drinks beer, he is quick to sleep; whoever sleeps long, does not sin; whoever does not sin, enters Heaven! Thus, let us drink beer!”

― Martin Luther

“Only a pint at breakfast-time, and a pint and a half at eleven o’clock, and a quart or so at dinner. And then no more till the afternoon; and half a gallon at supper-time. No one can object to that.” 

— Richard Doddridge Blackmore

Third times the charm?

My personal favorite beer is Negra Modelo.

So of course that is what I want to be able to make for my third attempt.  Like the first batch this one was built as a partial mash, or mini-mash.
The grains used were:
1 3/4 lbs  German Pilsner Malt
1 lb Vienna Malt
6 oz Crystal 60L Malt
4 oz Caravienne Malt
3 oz Chocolate Malt
I steeped these for 45 minutes at 155-160 degrees, placed the bag in the strainer to drip out and then poured about a gallon of 165 degree water slowly through the bag, let it drip out and then discarded the grains.
I added 5 lbs Extra Pale Extract and a 14 oz Dry Sugar Alcohol Boost (55% maltose & 45% glucose), once it came to a boil.  Returning to a boil I then added 1 oz Hersbrucker Pellet Hops and 1/2 oz Tettnang Pellet Hops and 45 minutes later another 1/2 oz Tettnang Pellet Hops for the final 15 minutes.  At the 45 minute mark I also added a yeast fuel capsule.  15 minutes later (total of 60 since adding the first hops) was the rapid cool down and then the transfer to primary fermenter (with rudimentary splashing to add oxygen) and added water to make 5 gallons (actually went to about 5 1/4 gallons).  The OG at this point is 1.057 (which depending on FG should put it between 5.5% and 6.25% alcohol).

Everything I read spoke of the greatness of pitching liquid yeast so I did.  I sorta guessed here because I wasn't sure which was best.  I used a South German Lager WLP838
which I found out today produces a slight sulfur smell.  (My wife and kids were not happy with the new aromas I brought to the house, haha)
Fermenting kicked off around 24 hours and is going well.  I plan to do a secondary fermentation on this batch, so I will post again about that later.

Cracking a bottle open

I have sampled a few bottles this week and again last night (This weekend makes 2 weeks in the bottle).  Unfortunately I am not bragging about the beer perfection I found on my first trip out.  The beer is bitter and a touch yeasty.  The beer didn't carry to much of a head and had the "green" taste the experienced folks talk about.  I am hopeful time will mellow it out more and make it not only more palatable but a delicious success.

I have not blogged much on my second batch, I did it a week after my first and it has now been bottled for a week.  The second batch was a full grain batch and while it presented some beginner challenges, I think it went well.  Both batches yielded beer with approximately 4.3% alcohol.  I have not cracked one of those yet and based on the first batch will let it sit for longer.

Bottling Day

So Jan 25th was bottling day.  It is easy to set it and forget it with the wort fermentation and now waiting for the bottles to set up, but when its out and I'm "playing" with it, it seems like forever till i can taste it.  I have been collecting some used bottles and have one box of new plastic screw tops that I will be using.  I run all the bottles through the dishwasher with out detergent and at a high heat.  When the finish I rinse them out with a sanitizer before filling.

Next step is to boil the priming sugar in 2 cups of water and then let it cool so I want to do this before I start with the rest.  Easy to boil, remember to cover it while it cools (you can make a mini ice bath if needed, that's what I did).
My brother in law said that bottling could be messy so I started the process in the tub.

Here is the fermented wort and my bottling bucket.  Oh yeah, don't forget to sanitize everything.  My bottling bucket has been fully sanitized.  I kept the wort in the fermenting bucket because I started another batch in the glass carboy.  (Bottling for that will be this weekend, I may post about it also, but I forgot to take pictures).

This is the wort unveiled!!!  YAY!!! It smells like beer.  Yes I did try it and yes it was kinda good.  If I was served it in a bottle I would not be happy but as my non-carbonated wort to beer creation, I was as please as Dr. Frankenstein.  You can see a slight ring of trub around the top of the wort (trub is the sentiment left behind from the yeast, most of it will be at the bottom of the fermenter by now). 

Getting ready to transfer the wort using my handy auto-siphon.  The auto-siphon has a knob at the bottom so it wont sit on the bottom in the trub, but I held mine up any way.  Slowly siphon the wort from the fermenter into the bottling bucket.

Here is the transfer.  At this time I checked my priming sugar mix and then added it into the bottling bucket also.  The bottling process went pretty well and I must say the screw top bottles were much easier to cap as I went.  A piece was broken on my regular bottle capper which made that task seem crazy difficult until I rigged it up.  I washed my fermenting bucket and flipped it upside down on the counter, then I placed a square cutting board on top (to give it more flat stability).  I then placed the bottling bucket on top of that to give me a good gravity feed.  I filled in a large metal bowl so any drippings would be captured and placed bottles on a towel after filling to catch drips.  Filling was easy, a little time consuming but pretty easy.  Sorry forgot to take more pictures.  I will try to capture some of the bottling process this weekend on batch number 2.

Beer concern

So my beer has not shown signs of fermenting as of yet.  (No bubbling)  I am not sure how much specific temperature regulation affects it, but that doesn't seem to be a major concern any talks about unless your doing a Lager.  The guy at the supply store suggested I try to increase the temperature (I had it around 60 degrees) to between 65 and 70.  He also recommended adding more yeast and suggested K97 German ale yeast.  I added the additional yeast last night and moved the wort to a slightly warmer location.  Now we continue to wait.

Beer again

So I wont go through the whole process but Ill at least explain the progression of pictures as I go.

This first step is to boil water (most anybody can do that).  Once you reach 150-165 degrees cut the heat and add a mesh bag that contains the crushed grains (in this case 1 lb. Vienna and 8 oz. Caramel) and steep them for 20 minutes, remove them and then return steeped water to a boil (now called wort, pronounced wert).  That is the stage pictured above.  Once boiling add Dried Malt Extract, Liquid Malt Extract, and corn sugar and return to boil (My kit had 3.3 lb. Munich LME, 1 lb. Amber DME, and 1 lb. Corn Sugar).  Return it to a boil and then add the Hops (which is actually the flower of the hop plant, part of the hemp family --- hop and hemp, I guess that makes sense).  The first hops are boiled for 60 minutes and are designed to add bitterness offsetting the sweetness from the grains.  After 55 minutes a second hops is added for a more aromatic brew.  That is the stage captured below.

You can see the green foam, this kit used hop pellets (which are processed hops compressed into pea sized tablets and are more commonly used in brewing then whole hops or hop leaves).  The next step is the most challenging, after 60 minutes you need to reduce the temperature from a boil to 60 degrees as quickly as possible.

I made an ice bath by filling the sink with cubes and cold water, with this I was able to reduce the temperature to about 80 degrees within 5-10 minutes, 60 degrees however was over an hour away.  I can see the value of having a wort cooler here.  At this point I transferred the wort to the fermenting bucket and added clean water to raise the volume back to 5 gallons.

Pitch the yeast on top and seal with cover and airlock (the airlock allows gasses to escape but prevents any bacteria from entering).

Find a place to stash it and wait.  Fermentation should be evident by bubbling through the airlock in about 48 hours.  This should ferment for about 2 weeks with a third week to allow for settling.  So in about 3 weeks we will look to be bottling.

I did check the OG- Original Gravity and it was 1.044 while the range given was 1.045-1.049, I don't know what that will effect at this point.