Beer Making

Todd & I finally bottled the Holiday Ale we started making early January so I thought I'd share the beer making process from start to finish.

The ingredients: Malt extract, crushed grains, bittering hops, flavoring hops, spice pack, priming sugar, yeast, and of course, Todd's beer journal
First step is boiling 2.5 gallons of distilled water & putting the crushed grains in the grain bag & putting it in the water
After we're done with the grain bag, we add the cans of malt extract & the hops

This is what the wort (it's not beer yet) looks like after adding the extract & bittering hops
This is what the wort looks like after adding the flavoring hops & spice pack (cinnamon, orange peel, and ginger)
The wort has been at a boil this whole time so now it must cool back down to room temperature; after we add the remaining 2.5 gallons of distilled water and yeast, the wort is siphoned from the brew pot to the fermenter

The wort remains in the fermenter for 4-6 days while we wait for the specific gravity to reach a certain range
After the wort reaches its specific gravity, it is transferred to the carboy for 2 weeks (this is a 2 stage fermentation process)

After the 2 weeks, we filter out the sediment & add the priming sugar for carbonation; we also steam the bottles & boil the beer caps and then it's time to bottle it
I like to bottle the beer so Todd caps the bottles

Our Holiday Ale!