Lazy Brew Day

I've been short on time recently, but even worse, short on homebrew. So this week I decided to get back to my origins and brew some extract beer

For the uninitiated, there's two basic ways of making homebrew: extract and all grain.

Beer is basically made of four things: Water, yeast, hops and malted barley.

Extract brewers use malt extract, in syrup or dry form, for the barley component. Malt extract is basically just the sugars in malted barley in a condensed form. Some of these sugars are fermented into alcohol, while the ones that aren't give the beer flavor and body. Extract brewing is simple, it's quick, and there's a wide variety of quality extracts available. For new brewers, extract is the way to go. For busy brewers, extract might be the way to go because it cuts at least 2 or 3 hours off of your brew day. An extract brewer dumps in some extract with some water and hops and boils it--if you really rushed it you could probably make a batch in about 2 hours.

Remember those sugars in the malted barley? All grain brewers extract those sugars from the actual grains of barley by steeping the barley in hot water, kind of like making tea. All grain brewing is more complicated, but you also gain near total control of your beer's composition. There's a wider variety of raw malted barley than of extracts, and some less common styles really cannot be brewed with extract alone. All grain brewing is an awesome way to learn even more about the brewing process and how different malts contribute specific flavors to your beer. But it's more time consuming and requires a bit more speciality equipment.

Anyway, on Saturday I brewed a Cream Ale for my dad 1) because I was feeing lazy and 2) because he "wanted a nice summer beer," presumaby something that's nice for when you're sitting on hot porch sweating your ass off because it's 90 degrees outside. I picked up a Cream Ale extract recipe kit. For the ultra-lazy brewer, lots of stores sell kits for some beers with all the ingredients pre-measured. It's pretty fool-proof and the best way for new brewers to start out without being overwhelmed.

Cream Ale is a light yellow ale with a clean, dry finish and no notable hop aroma or flavor. It's kind of like an ale version of Bud-Miller-Coors light lagers, but when well-made, infinitely more satisfying and delicious.

Anyway, here's the recipe:

Cream Ale (extract)
3.3 lbs liquid Light Malt Extract
2 lbs dry Light Malt Extract
.75oz Halletauer hops (60 minutes)
.75 Halletauer (1 minute)
6 gallons of water

Pretty much an uneventful brew session, save for a few boil overs. Once I got the burner set at a steady rate, though, I was able to leave the pot unwatched to play soccer with my dog (that is, kick a ball as far as can and watch my dog chase after it) and, of course, drink some beer (the most vital step of the brewing process, which I call "priming the pump. It takes beer to make beer, really.) I'll let you know how the cream ale turns out.

And while the Cream Ale was brewing, I kegged some Dunkel, which might end up as more of an altbier. More on that Dunkel (and its recipe) tomorrow.