BEER

So I make beer.

Most of you know this by now but for those of you who don't I do. And it's pretty awesome. Making beer has been a hobby of mine for a little over a year now. I got started with the Mr. Beer collection which is a great great device. I recommend it to all you new brewer's out there! It's easy and really makes decent beer. The one draw back is that there is a lot of head! My friend Julia had said once that Mr. Beer really is the champagne of beers because of how much head is produced. But seriously, good beer.

After a couple months with that thing I decided to really go for the real home brewers stuff and buy some serious equipment. SO I got the glass carboy and the ale pail and the cleaners and the kits and now I'm a brewing machine!! It is so fantastic to make and figuring out recipes and stuff like that is a lot of fun. People say that bottle capping your beer is one of the biggest pains, which I completely agree. It's about 30-40 minutes of pouring the stuff into your bottles and then capping them which is boring. There's nothing exciting about doing it. I don't complain about it because it's like anything else that you do in the kitchen. THe end result is yours! YOu just made some really good beer and you're bottling YOUR brew. I think that excitement in itself is worth those 30-40 minutes of bottling.

The reason why I'm writing this is that I just made a really great Smoked Porter and I wanted to share the recipe with everyone that actually reads this, which I doubt is very many. I hope one day I will have a following on here but for right now, those 3 people, you are my biggest fans! This porter had a very rich flavor and a definite taste of something grilled on a woodfire oven! The one thing I definitely recommend is to put NO more than the specific amount of liquid smoke in your brew. It seems like very little but it's a strong pungent smell that will overpower your brew if you use it too much! ENjoy. I'm making a Peach beer (which I'll lie and say it's a Apricot. who can taste the difference?!) and then the Next step for me, is all-grains!

Malt extract: 6lbs Northwestern dark extract

Specialty grain: 1lb 40-L crystal malt

Bittering hops: 2oz Northern Brewer (60 min)

Flavoring hops: 1 oz Fuggles (15 min)

Yeast: Wyeast #1028

Flavor ingredient: 1 ox Wright's liquid smoke

Primary: 6 days at 65 degrees ( I actually did 12 days in one fermentor just because I only have one!)

starting gravity: 1.045

finishing gravity: 1.012

Now just for those newbies out there, your starting and ending can be completely different from mine. ONly go with what you know! But average that gravity out at least 35% from the beginning. if it's not there you probably need to wait!