So, I'm now in Houston. I had a great job opportunity come up in late January, and interviewing and negotiations took a little bit, then I moved down here with one of my cats and a suitcase about...I guess it'll be three weeks come Tuesday. My wife (she was Thorn on MBF, not sure if she's registered here) is still up in the Bronx, but our lease is up at the end of March, so she's working on finishing up packing and arranging for all our crap to make the trip down here!
I moved into my apartment last Saturday (and when I say "moved" I mean I brought my cat and my suitcase, and the food I had bought, and brought them into the apartment), had a 2" thick queen-sized memory foam mattress topper delivered (via amazon) to serve as a temporary bed (I folded it in half, so it's basically a 4" thick twin-sized memory foam bed, which is actually pretty damn comfy) and decided I needed to brew more.
I looked and looked for a cheap Brew Demon kit, but the least I could find one going for was like $50! I went to Target on Saturday, and was hoping to find a clearance Mr. Beer kit, but didn't score one. So, I finally broke down and searched for a used Mr. Beer kit on Amazon, as I wanted to make sure not to give Mr. Beer any money directly.
I got one of the craft brew kits with the bottles (which I actually need, since I don't have a capper here) and two refills (Czech Pils and Aztec Mexican Cerveza) for like $32, shipped. Not the best deal I've ever gotten, but not a bad one!
I also don't have any temp control, or even a pot to boil 4 cups of water in (I have a cast iron pan that I bought at target and have been cooking everything in...somehow, I don't think its seasoning would be so good for beer, and I'm pretty sure it can't hold 4 cups). So I worked with what I had.
My first brew is the Aztec Mexican Cerveza, but I'm definitely not going to settle for brewing it stock...yet I didn't really have anything to add to it, either.
So, I started by soaking the can in hot water in my sink...the hot water here is pretty damn hot, so it really helped thin out the syrup. I poured that into 3 oj jugs worth of filtered water from the fridge dispenser, then filled the can with hot water and let it soak for a while (hoping most of the residual HME would dissolve), I poured that into the fermentor, topped up with another OJ jug, and that worked out to be right around the two mark.
I don't have scissors here, so I had to cut the yeast packet open with a chef's knife (I have 1 fork, 1 butter knife, 1 spoon and 1 chef's knife...all of which I got at Target last Saturday) on a cutting board. It worked, and I didn't lose TOO much yeast to the cutting board. I sprinkled the yeast on top...didn't stir, and put the whole thing in the fridge before going to work. This was yesterday (Thursday) morning and both the wort and apartment were WAY too warm to let it start fermenting in those conditions. When I got home around 9:30, I took it out of the fridge and set it on the counter on the edge of the sink (with the spigot over the sink, just in case a leak developed), and it looked like the yeast had already started reproducing.
By this morning, there was definite, noticeable fermentation happening...it was in the 50s overnight, and I had left the windows open...but I don't think it dropped below the mid 60s in the apartment. Of course, I don't have a thermometer, so I don't really know. Before I left for work this morning, I turned the AC on and set it to about 75*. I went grocery shopping after work and (in addition to beer and normal groceries) I picked up some sugar and molasses for the express purpose of adding it to the fermenting beer.
I dipped the spoon (after sanitizing, of course) in the molasses and drizzled the molasses into the beer. A lot got stuck in the krausen (which is actually quite thick at this point), so I used the spoon to stir (and also get most of the rest of the molasses off). I then added a coffee mug of sugar (not a huge one, so probably not more than 10 oz volume of sugar) and stirred it in as well.
I replaced the lid and the beer is sitting at mid 70s ambient temps. Thorn (my wife) is shipping me some things here and there, and the next box is supposed to have some dry yeasts and a sealed bag of hops from the freezer, so maybe I'll do something more interesting with the Czech Pils.
I may or may not dry hop this batch...we'll see what I decide. I may even just drop 2.5 gallons of apple juice and some sugar onto the trub so I can get a cider going, though I guess a lot depends on when all our stuff from the New York apartment is scheduled to arrive. I might just ferment the other Czech Pils with T-58 and some added sugar to make a nice Belgian Blond/Tripel instead. Having only one tiny fermentor makes keeping the pipeline going a bit tough!
I'll keep you posted how this batch goes. Luckilly, there are quite a few great craft breweries here in Texas! I have yet to find a good German-style Hefe, but I'm going to keep trying them until I find one (or give up and just make my own
).
