Day in the Life of a brewer 1

Decided to get into home brewing after being poked by Terry over the years to give it a try.  It was one of those things festering in me for some time now.  My students keep asking me if I know how to make meth, thanks Walter White, but saying I can brew beer is pretty cool.  The science is very easy to understand, but I have a feeling there's a lot to this iceberg than what I've read so far.

I'm very excited.  I understand the chemistry and don't think there's anything I can do wrong other than not keeping everything clean.  That and I'll probably shake things up too much, and will be waiting to let stuff settle back down, but that's OK.  I'm not Anheuser Busch here.

3/9/17
Bought from Northern Brewer Homebrew Supply
Phat Tyre Amber ale  http://www.northernbrewer.com/phat-tyre-ale-extract-kit
Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II
Priming sugar



3/11/17

Went to Terry's to pick up some equipment
1- plastic bucket fermenter with lid and spigot, has "siphon less Fermenter on side"
1- plastic bottling bucket with lid and spigot, has "Ale Pail" on side
1- air lock bubbler
1- metal boiling bucket
1- plastic stirring spoon/paddle
1- metal strainer
1- plastic funnel, fits on both plastic buckets
1- netting/cloth to add to straining
1- hydrometer
1- floating thermometer
Box of caps and other small equipment, spare parts
2 cases of bottles, 48 total
1- length clear plastic tubing for siphoning

Borrowed propane burner


Went to MidwestSupplies.com and bought some Star San sanitizer.  Wishing I would have just bought it from Northern Brewing.  Oh well.

3/12/17
Continuing to read from Northern Brewer on how to actually do this.  Using this: http://www.northernbrewer.com/learn/home-brewing-101/
Found another site, http://howtobrew.com that is really well written and easy to follow.  I may spring to buy the book to go along with it.  The site may be good enough.

After reading, I'm finding the siphon hose from Terry to not be too adequate.  Not that siphoning by mouth is all together bad, I'd rather avoid transferring germs that way.  Plan to stop at UBrew Tuesday and get a racking cane to make siphoning easier and cleaner.

3/13/17
All the equipment is cleaned.  Used blue Dawn dish soap.
Still reading up on the steps to do this.  Just don't want to screw up :o)  But I know the kit I have and the resources I'm using will be perfect.

Made a list of things to get:
ice
gallons of water since ours is pretty hard
spray bottle for Star San spray.
Racking cane- stop at UBrew to pick one up and check out their inventory