My First Ever Solo Homebrew!
The Eldest Sibling - West Coast IPA Brewed and bottled in Bethesda, MD
Holy homebrew Batman! My very first solo homebrew! And what a process it was! It definitely wasn’t one filled with equal parts anxiety, excitement, fear, and enthusiasm. I emphasize the ‘solo’ part of it because I’ve brewed with other people before, but I’ve never been the supervising adult. Not a fan of being in that position, but I was a fan of making this West Coast IPA. HUGE shoutout to my sister Sara for getting this ball rolling. She was the one who sent me the equipment and recipe kit. The last time I brewed was years ago, so I’m glad she reinspired me to tackle this again. In all honesty, she sent it to me for my birthday, which was last December. Only took me 6 months to gather the courage to finally do it, but better late than never! ‘Twas a tremendous amount of fun, and I will certainly be doing it again in the near future. However, before I jump into another project, let’s talk about this Saturday afternoon endeavor!
West Coast IPAs are traditionally known for their bold hop flavors and high bitterness. The hop flavors are more pervasive for a few reasons: first, the sheer amount of hops used (more so than in other IPA styles) increases its punchiness, and second, the timing at which they are added during the boil and fermentation periods. The recipe I followed was quite clear as to when and how much of the Summit, Cascade & Summit blend, and Cascade Dry Hop to use. West Coast IPAs typically have zesty citrus flavors, such as grapefruit, and they showcase a piney flavor as well. The aforementioned hops maintain that profile, with the addition of spicier punch from the Summit hops. The overall process of making beer is not that hard, but it certainly is precise. Overall it follows like this: steep your grains for a bit, remove grains, add and dissolve malt, bring to a boil and add hops, cool, add yeast, ferment, wait, bottle, wait some more, and enjoy! There’s obviously more to it than that, but I thought it might be a good idea to lay it out there before getting into the nitty-gritty specifics, which are coming up next!
The ingredients included in this kit were: Bries Pilsen Light dry malt extract, specialty grains, Summit and Cascade hops, and fresh yeast. For this brew I steeped my grain in a gallon of 155 degree water for 20 minutes. I was also instructed to add my Summit hops during the steeping - early hopping increases its presence when enjoying later on. Temperature regulation is KEY, so I made sure to have my thermometer ready to check on it every few minutes. If the temperature is too low, the flavors from the grain will be left behind. Too high, and you’ll have unwanted tannins, a biomolecule that makes plants unpalatable. Have you ever bitten into an unripe pear and felt that weird mouth coating? Yeah, that. If not, eat more pears.
After steeping the grain for 20 minutes, I added in half of the dry malt extract, and made sure it fully dissolved before bringing to a rolling boil. I kept this rolling boil going for 60 minutes. At the 30 minute mark, I added half of the Cascade & Summit hops blend. At the 45 minute mark, I added the rest of the dry malt extract. At the 55 minute mark, I stirred in ⅔ cup of table sugar - this helps boost the alcohol by volume (ABV) by giving the yeast more fermentable sugars. At the very end of the boil, I added the remaining Cascade & Summit hops blend. The most stressful aspect of this part of the brew was making sure that the wort (this is what the liquid is called at this point because it’s basically just sugar water) didn’t boil over. Luckily it didn’t, but that’s because I literally stared at the pot for an hour to make sure it wouldn’t. Wasn’t anxiety inducing at all. It’s what we would call “fun for the whole family!”. Something I should have prepared for was how much of my wort would boil off during this part of the brew. I ended up having to add almost two quarts of water so that I’d reach my full gallon of beer. Not too much of a big deal, just something I should have foreseen. If this did anything it decreased the ABV.
Next comes cooling the liquid. You don’t want the yeast to cook while in the primary fermentation chamber, so you have to bring the temperature back down with either a wort chiller (big copper tube you run cold water through and put in your wort to cool faster) or an ice bath - I used an ice bath. Had I been brewing a 5 gallon batch, I’d use a wort chiller. Once cooled to below 75 degrees, I was able to pour my wort into my glass carboy, AKA my primary (and only) fermentation chamber. I was then able to add my yeast and aerate the wort so that it would ferment. At this point it was just a waiting game! Waited for two weeks, added my Cascade Dry Hop, waited another 5 days, and then bottled my beer! When bottling, I made and added a simple syrup so that the leftover yeast would have more sugar to feed on in order to carbonate the beer. After two final weeks of waiting, it was ready to drink! I’ll tell you what, right before bottling I got a number of pretty incredible whiffs of my beer and DAMN did it smell good. Those two weeks of waiting were rather tough.
One of my favorite parts of this whole process was making the label. In terms of creativity, it was the most inventive part of this whole debacle. Brewing the beer was just a matter of following instructions but making the label was much more personal. The label is based on Sara’s hand tattoo, and it’s called “The Eldest Sibling” because, surprise ,she’s the oldest of four. I thought about making some kind of Lord of the Rings reference, but I wasn’t sure what to do, and I thought this would be more personal. The purple label came out surprisingly well! I was worried it might be overwhelming, but I think it looks great. I kinda wish I had a different color bottle cap though haha. Regardless, I’m proud of it and look forward to this part of the process for next time.
First sip: pause, pause, pause….nailed it! Bitter, hoppy, a little piney, and a smidgen of grapefruit. Very happy with this one! And especially proud considering it’s my first. Gives me the confidence and motivation to do it again!
Looking back on the whole process I know that there are things I should have done and will do differently next time. First, I want to get a brew log notebook. I’ll be able to note initial gravity and final gravity, and also when I add ingredients into the wort at which times, etc. This will play a role in fine tuning different recipes. Next, I want to get a secondary fermentation chamber with a spigot to make bottling a little easier. Siphoning is effective, especially if you have a bottle filler, but a spigot would be so so much simpler. Finally, I want to get a refractometer - a tool used to measure the concentration of a specific substance within a solution by passing light through it. In other words, it's a tool used to determine the ABV of beer. The good news is that they’re not expensive at all, and I can order one from Amazon.
No matter how stressful this shindig was, I’m proud of myself for doing it. I often have a hard time trying new things on my own because I’m afraid of failing, but that’s how we learn! I’m absolutely planning on practicing this craft more. Doing this was more than worth it. If you’d like to give homebrewing a shot, here’s a link to the same kit that my ever-so-gracious sister sent to me:
https://www.uncommongoods.com/product/west-coast-style-ipa-beer-brewing-kit#234730000000
Happy brewing!