To my surprise, the fermentation lock is bubbling. Not a strong roaring bubbling, but a slow, measured, every-couple-seconds-I’ll-spit-out-a-bubble sort of bubbling.

Now I don’t know what to do with it.  I’m very curious what would happen if i bottle it, so I may mix my priming sugar with it and bottle at least 3-4  bottles to see what I get.

I’m out of town for the week, but will be posting/drinking from Knoxville, Tenn., so I’d have to wait until I got back before I did anything serious with it.

My roommate considered that I should call it “Zombie brew” if it survives this. I whole heartedly agree.

Basically, after my happier post last night, I proceeded to take the advice of two of the three instruction books I had for the beer brewing and did not chill the wort before pouring it into the fermentor (plastic bucket)  filled with cold water. Some poeple suggest chiling the wort to 70 degrees before mixing with the rest of the water, but I didn’t want to wait, thinking the cold water would insta-cool the wort.

Turns out, it doesn’t.

And I spent the next 4 hours waiting for the wort-water mix to cool to a tempature at which yeast can survive (below 75 degrees, according to Charlie Papazian). Once that tempature was achieved, I poured the yeast into my cool wort mixture and went to bed, fitting on the fermentation lock and lid.

Tonight, it still has no visible signs of fermentation. There are some slight bubblings, but nothing too big. Many of them are tiny and probably just from the air interacting with the water.

Please start bubbling soon so I know you're fermenting

I’m holding out hope that these bubbles might mean that fermentation is starting, but I don’t know yet.

Last night I learned an important lesson. It’s just beer. I was nervous making my first batch that I would ruin it, and you know what? I just may have, but I’m learning. So that’s something.

I bought Charlie Papazian‘s (@CharliePapazian) book The Complete Joy of Home Brewing (CJHB): Fully Revised and Updated 3rd Edition to help me with this quest. It’s been invaluable. Charlie does a fantastic job of helping you understand the steps as a beginner. The book grows with you, with intermediate steps and tons of recipies for advanced brewers. I’m sure I’ll be trying some of them as I get a better grip on the whole process. (Who knows? Maybe that will be Part  II of the Great Brewing Adventure: Brewing through CJHB.

Anyway, I’ll have some video of my brewing tomorrow or Thursday. I’m excited to start drinking this already. The wort smells amazing.

1) Don’t assume the biggest culdron you have is the required 12-quart minimum to start brewing wort. I found out mine is only 8-quarts, and what was going to be a fun night of brewing has turned into a sad night of staring at my brewing equiptment until the Brew and Grow opens tomorrow.

Assumptions make an ass out of you and me.

2) Bottle washing can be a pain in the ass. I’ve been trying to get the labels off several different types of bottle with varying degrees of success.

My first attempt was with soapy water, soaking for 2.5 hours, this gave good results getting off some labels, but left a lot of glue on the bottles and some of the wrappers refused to budge. I’ve read Ocy-Clean and bleach work.  Many people pitch the “difficult-to-remove-the-label” bottles, but I’d rather salvage a bottle, even with effort, than pitch it. (Reuse is better than recycling.)

If you’ve got any thoughts or tips for this intro stuff, be sure to leave a comment.

Finally, I can start making delicious beer

So it begins. Thanks to the crew at Brew & Grow for helping me find the equipment. I should be pumping out Weizenbier (as the label calls it) sometime this week.

Because I don’t have any real experience brewing my own beer, I’m going to start where most people start, with an at-home beer brewing kit.

Surprisingly enough, there are many kits out there, from the 2-gallon Mr. Beer to the standard 5-gallon 2-stage fermentation kits for beginners. These run between $60-$150 for a basic set. However, it’s important to note what you’re getting for that price.

Some come with bottles, some don’t. Some have ingredients in the kit, some don’t. It’s important to make sure the kit you’re looking at has everything you want at a price you can afford.

I’m still in the process of selecting my kit and beer style, but don’t worry, details will be coming….