The Brew day in Pictures

Just a few pictures from today’s Rye IPA brew session. You can click on the thumbnails to see a larger version. For a a general overview of the brewing process see, The Brewing Process.

The first thing we need to do is crush the grain to expose the starchy goodness inside. Through the mill it goes.

You can see the husks have been cracked open exposing the fleshy bits inside.

While I’m crushing the grain, I’ll start heating the strike water to prepare for mashing.

This is the mash tun where I’ll combine the crushed grain with the hot water to create the mash. The hose you see in the bottom of the mash tun is perforated. After the enzymes in the grain have converted the starches to sugars, I can drain the sugary liquid wort while leaving the husks and other solids behind. There is a valve on the outside front of the mash tun to start the flow.

The mash looks a bit like oatmeal. Here most of the wort has been drained.

The liquid (wort) from the mash goes into the boil kettle where the hops are added. Boiling the hops creates the bittering compounds and the longer the hops are boiled the more bitter the finished beer will become. Adding hops closer to the end of the boil results in more hop flavor and aroma. The brewer controls the bitterness by adding specific amounts of hops at various times during the boil.

The boiled wort must be chilled to fermentation temperatures for the yeast to work properly. I use an Immersion chiller which pumps cold water through the copper coil in the kettle.

After cooling, the wort is transferred to a fermentation vessel. The idea is to leave behind as much of the leftover hop matter and solids as possible. This will help to improve the clarity of the finished beer.

Fermentation takes place in a sealed container. The airlock on top allows CO2 produced during fermentation to escape, but keeps wild yeasts and bacteria out.

All that is left to do now is add the yeast and wait 2-3 weeks for fermentation to complete. After that the beer will go into a keg for chilling and final carbonation.

Tagged as: brew day, pictures