A New Brewer

Last night, I delivered my birthday gift to my niece, and we immediately got into making her first beer, a pale ale.

Here's the recipe, for a 1 gallon batch.

======================
1 lb light malt extract
8 oz 40L crystal malt
1 oz Willamette hops (3.5% AA) (split, 1/2 bittering, 1/2 dry hopped)
1 pkt dry English ale yeast
======================

A simple recipe, but it should be a delicious beer.

First, she brought 1 1/2  quarts of water to a boil, turned it off, and added the crystal malt. This was allowed to steep for about 20 minutes or so.

Then, this was strained into a larger pot, the malt was added (rinsing out the container thoroughly), water was added to bring it to just below a gallon. One half the hops were added, with the other half being added to the fermentation jug.

The wort (unfermented beer) was brought to a boil. I always tell new brewers (and, if you've made beer, you know this) this is probably the most critical phase of the process. DON'T LEAVE THE POT! When the boil starts, it will boil over very quickly, so it must be watched constantly.

When it started to boil, we removed it from the heat, lowered the heat, and put the pot back on. We had to repeat this a couple of times, until we got a stable, gentle boil.

After boiling for an hour, it was cooled in an ice water bath in the sink, to just under 100 deg. F. Then, it was poured into the fermenter, and lukewarm water was added to about the gallon mark.

The dry yeast was poured in, the stopper put on, and the length of tubing placed into a bottle half-filled with water, as an airlock.

Now, we wait a week, and bottle.