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  • >> LAURENT: Hi. I'm Laurent.

  • >> PHILIP: And I'm Philip.

  • >> LAURENT: And we're going to try and show you how to do some homebrewing today!

  • >> LAURENT (VO): We're going to start by steeping these specialty grains,

  • which means they need to soak for about 10-15 minutes

  • In water that's about 150 to 160 degrees

  • So, we do this in the kitchen, with a smaller pot

  • That allows us to get this started

  • And start the rest of the water in a bigger pot, out in the garage

  • >> LAURENT (VO): Time to fire up the beast!

  • We do our boils in a 10-gallon pot

  • We'll be boiling around 9 gallons, once it gets going

  • And, especially at that volume,

  • Having a propane burner is absolutely essential.

  • >> LAURENT (VO): We are transferring the grains...

  • What you want to do is you want to end up

  • taking out all the solid grains that are left,

  • that have been steeping for about half an hour

  • and end up with what is really just an unbelievably

  • delicious-smelling brown liquid

  • It's really hard to describe just how _good_ this smells

  • And that's one of the nice things about this.

  • This is safe to do in your house, when you're brewing at home

  • because this smells good

  • You get in trouble sometimes with the hops...

  • [laughter]

  • The hops are the reason why it's good to do it outside,

  • or in another building, if you can.

  • But nobody's going to have a problem with this smell in the house

  • because it smells really, really good.

  • >> LAURENT (VO): At this point, having strained out most of the grains,

  • we are now going to pour the steeping liquid

  • through the filter.

  • (You can see that there's still a good deal of grain, in there)

  • >> LAURENT (VO): Now, what we're doing, is we're starting to top off the pot.

  • We're generally going to have a boil of about 9 gallons

  • in this pot, because it's a 10-gallon pot,

  • but we need to leave a little bit of headroom at the top,

  • to make sure that, as the boiling happens,

  • and especially as you throw in the hops,

  • you tend to get some foaming that happens

  • We're adding a fair amount of water,

  • because we know it needs to go in.

  • Once we get this up to a boil,

  • we'll be adding the malt extract

  • We'll be toppiing _that_ up, once that's in,

  • and we know exactly how much we've got.

  • >> LAURENT (VO): Now that we're waiting for that water

  • to come up to the boil,

  • now is usually a good time to make sure

  • that our buckets are clean and ready to go.

  • We're going to do this in two stages:

  • We're going to use a pretty powerful detergent,

  • called "PBW" ("Powdered Brewers' Wash")

  • that is designed to clean beer equipment;

  • and then we will sanitize it,

  • with a product called "Iodophor",

  • which is a dilute iodine solution.

  • You can pour it out,

  • and you can let it air-dry,

  • and that's all you need to do.

  • >> LAURENT (VO): As you can see, the beginning of our "wort"

  • (pronounced "wert") is coming close to a boil.

  • So we're going to let it reach a full boil,

  • and then once it does,

  • we're going to cut off the flame.

  • >> LAURENT (VO): What we've got here, is the malt extract,

  • which is just the grains that have been

  • converted in a factory,

  • and it turns them into a thick syrup,

  • that's a lot like molasses, or almost a honey.

  • So we're going to pour it in,

  • and you can see it's really thick.

  • We've found that the easiest thing to do

  • is actually to ladle some of the hot wort back into here,

  • and rinse it out a couple of times,

  • and that helps get it all out.

  • It's a lot easier than digging it out with a spatula.

  • This is all going to get boiled again for an hour,

  • before it goes into the buckets,

  • so it'll all be sterile by the time it's done.

  • And, again, it's very, very important that

  • we're doing this off the boil,

  • because what you don't want to do

  • is to have any of the malt settle to the bottom and burn,

  • before it's thoroughly mixed in.

  • And you want to be careful, because the hot water in here

  • and the steam will tend to build up

  • a little bit of pressure inside.

  • And you can see the pressure building up...

  • [small hiss from the opening lid]

  • And there we go.

  • A pretty much clean bucket.

  • >> LAURENT (VO): Now that we've brought nine gallons,

  • with all the extract, up to a full boil,

  • it is time to put in the hops.

  • Hops really have two ways that they contribute

  • to the flavor of your beer:

  • The first is that they have "alpha" acids in them,

  • that contribute bitterness;

  • and they have essential oils

  • that contribute flavor and aroma.

  • The hops we put in now are going to boil for an hour,

  • which is going to drive off

  • almost all of those oils,

  • so these hops that we're putting in right now

  • are really going to contribute to

  • the bitterness of the beer.

  • Later, towards the end of the boil,

  • we're going to add a couple of different types of hops,

  • at different times, and those

  • will contribute less to the bitterness,

  • and much more to the flavor and the aroma

  • of the final beer.

  • This is an ounce and a half of "Warrior" hops,

  • that are going to go in and boil for an hour.

  • And when you add in your hops,

  • you'll see how that starts to boil up, a little bit,

  • so you want to add them gradually,

  • because if you add them all at once,

  • especially when you've got a double batch going,

  • like this, you can end up with a lot of foaming

  • coming up, and over the sides of the pot.

  • [shakes in some hops]

  • And now is really when it starts to smell like beer.

  • [background traffic noise]

  • [Phiips stirs pot]

  • [background traffic noise]

  • [Phiips stirs pot]

  • >> LAURENT (VO): So right now, what we are doing is

  • we are sterilizing the wort chiller.

  • The "wort chiller" is really nothing but about 60 feet

  • of copper tubing, that's in a great big coil.

  • That's half-inch copper tubing,

  • and as you can see,

  • it's got two plastic hoses coming out of it.

  • One of them hooks up to a garden hose,

  • and the other one is just an outlet hose.

  • When it's time to cool the wort,

  • we're actually going to be running water through that,

  • and we're going to be dunking that

  • directly into the wort, which is why we need

  • to sterilize it right now.

  • >> LAURENT (VO): Now we're going to gradually

  • add in the second stage of hops.

  • This is the "Amarillo", and because this is going to boil

  • for three minutes before we cool it down,

  • it's going to contribute some bitterness,

  • but a fair amount of the oils

  • are also going to remain.

  • This is what you would call a "Flavoring Hop",

  • since you'll be able to taste much more of

  • the specific hops in the final product,

  • than you'll be able to from the "Warrior" that

  • we put in at the very beginning.

  • [Timer alarm goes off]

  • >> PHIL: Alright, it's "go time".

  • [tosses in Citra hops]

  • >> LAURENT (VO): Now, we've added the "Citra" hops,

  • at the very end,

  • and we are now killing the flame.

  • Let's give it a good stir.

  • [Philip stirs]

  • These final hops, which are actually a very

  • aromatic kind of hop,

  • really are not going to contribute any bitterness at all,

  • but they are going to bring a lot of flavor to the beer...

  • a lot of aroma to the beer...

  • The beer's going to smell like this.

  • So now, we've got the wort chiller on.

  • We've just got a garden hose hooked up to it,

  • and it's pumping water through,

  • and the difference right now, in the two handles,

  • between the one that's coming in,

  • which is pretty cold,

  • and the one that's coming out,

  • which is _really_ hot,

  • is pretty striking.

  • Moving around like this helps circulate it,

  • and tends to help more heat go through.

  • [laughter]

  • Aaand we're down to, about, a hundred degrees,

  • in not even five minutes.

  • It's a little bit of an investment to either

  • get or make a wort chiller like this,

  • but it makes an enormous difference.

  • >> PHILIP (pointing): That's huge.

  • [laughter]

  • >> LAURENT (pointing): It's our first time using

  • an easy-to-read thermometer like this.

  • [more laughter]

  • >> PHILIP: Yeah...I think we're there.

  • We're right at 75.

  • >> LAURENT: Awesome.

  • >> LAURENT: Here we have about 8 gallons

  • of cooled wort

  • that is ready to be transferred

  • into a couple of buckets.

  • Once it's in the buckets, we will pitch the yeast.

  • One of the first tricks we learned a little while ago

  • is to try and create a whirlpool, in the wort,

  • before we siphon it.

  • All of what's called the "trub" collects at the bottom,

  • in the middle of your pot,

  • and as you siphon, if you come down the side,

  • you tend to pull out a lot less of

  • what's basically spent hops, and just whatever else

  • has been accumulating.

  • >> LAURENT (VO): The whirlpool has slowed down,

  • and it's time to do some siphoning!

  • Now you're going to see why this is so handy.

  • Rather than try and start a siphon with your mouth,

  • which could introduce some "infection" into the beer,

  • this pump system allows you to start it mechanically,

  • and then we are just pouring it into the buckets.

  • Here you can see the "trub" on the bottom of the bucket.

  • We've tried to leave most of it -- as much as we can --

  • without leaving too much of the wort down there.

  • Now we've got two buckets,

  • each with about 3-1/2 gallons of wort in there,

  • so there was about 7 gallons left in the bucket,

  • by the time we were done with all the boiling.

  • Now we're going to top them off, with water,

  • to exactly 5 gallons.

  • It's important to make sure to do this

  • _before_ we check the gravity of the final wort,

  • because this wort right here is much denser

  • than we actually need it to be,

  • because it's boiled down so much,

  • and we need to re-dilute it to the correct concentration

  • and then we can check the gravity of our wort.

  • [Philip places lids onto buckets]

  • >> LAURENT (VO): Now it's time to check the "Original" gravity of our mix.

  • We're sanitizing a cup, in Iodophor.

  • [Philip hands hydrometer to Laurent]

  • [Philip pours wort sample into cylinder]

  • [Laurent drops hydrometer into wort]

  • >> LAURENT: Whoa-ho!!

  • This is 1 point 0 ... 6 ... 2

  • ... 6 ... 4 ...

  • which is very high.

  • Not "out-of-the-park" high...

  • >> PHILIP: It's not a "high-gravity" beer...

  • [laughter]

  • >> LAURENT: Other beers are higher,

  • but that's about as high as we've made.

  • >> LAURENT (VO): This tells us the density of the wort, at this point.

  • This is actually a very important measurement to take,

  • for two reasons:

  • The first is that it's going to give you an idea of

  • whether or not it turned out right,

  • since any recipe is going to give you a "target" gravity

  • that you should be at, for this point.

  • And also, the difference between this "original" gravity,

  • no matter what it is,

  • and the "final" gravity, when you measure it

  • after fermentation is done,

  • is what's going to tell you how alcoholic the beer is.

  • You really want to make sure you're measuring it at both times

  • so what whether or not you've made exactly

  • what the recipe expected, you'll at least

  • have a rough idea of the alcohol content of your beer.

  • >> LAURENT: Oh, that's good.

  • >> PHILIP: Mmmm...that's really good.

  • >> LAURENT: So this is your chance to taste it,

  • what you pulled off to sample for the gravity.

  • You do _not_ want to put this back into your wort, obviously.

  • It's going to be very sweet, compared to where it's going to be,

  • because these sugars haven't been "yeast-ified",

  • and fermented, and turned to alchohol, yet,

  • but you can start to get a sense of how it's going to end up,

  • especially as you do this more and more.

  • If you over-hopped it, or you made any mistakes,

  • you'll probably be able to tell at this point.

  • Basically, if it tastes good at this point (but a little bit sweet)

  • then you're in good shape.

  • This is what's called a "yeast starter",

  • and it means rather than just pitching in the yeast,

  • straight out of the vial, when you get it from the store,

  • you build a simple wort and put the yeast

  • into it ahead of time, and it means that not only

  • are you pitching a lot more yeast,

  • but your yeast is active, and ready to go

  • as soon as you put it into the wort.

  • It's pretty simple to do, and it's not too hard

  • to find the instructions for how to do it,

  • but it's not something you _need_ to do,

  • especially when you're starting.

  • >> LAURENT: Because we've got so much yeast starter,

  • we're going to divide it into two Mason jars,

  • just trying to get it relatively even.

  • [Philip agitates and then pours starter]

  • >> PHILIP: There it is.

  • >> LAURENT: Go, little yeasties, go!!

  • [bucket lids are sealed]

  • >> LAURENT: Our airlocks have been soaking in Iodophor

  • for a while, to make sure they're sanitized.

  • To err on the side of caution, we usually top them off

  • with a little bit of the Iodophor water.

  • >> PHILIP: We may use vodka from now on...

  • >> LAURENT: That's right...we've heard you can use vodka.

  • >> LAURENT (VO): Here we have Phil's awesome

  • fermentation closet that he's set up.

  • This is something we've learned, which is that

  • it's a lot easier to put the water in the airlocks

  • _after_ you get them to where they need to be,

  • instead of putting it in early, and trying to cart them around

  • with water sloshing around.

  • There we go! They're going to sit there for a week,

  • at 68 degrees, then we will be transferring them

  • to glass carboys.

>> LAURENT: Hi. I'm Laurent.

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