Beer Making at Cask & Kettle

On Friday August 2nd, the club members tried their hand in making beer at the Cask & Kettle in Boonton, NJ. The Cask & Kettle is a beer and wine making shop that provides all of the necessary ingredients and equipment for the home brewer/fermenter. The six of us chose to make two batches of beer. We decided on a Creamy Stout and a Belgian Ale, called "It's a Trap."

The beer making process is not that complex, but the various ingredients that accentuate the beer definitely are. We split into 2 teams: Simman, Frank and Craig were in charge of the stout, and Joe, Steve and Tinyee were in charge of the Belgian Ale. The first step was to measure out all of the ingredients precisely.

 

Next, we start by steeping the grains in a cheese cloth bag in 170-180 F water for 30 minutes. The steeping allows for the flavors of the grains to be released into the water as well as darken it.

  

Cream stout almost ready

After steeping, the bag is removed and drained. Next, malt extract and other sugar crystals are added to dissolve with constant stirring. Once the sugars are in solution, the brew is brought back up to a rolling boil before the next ingredients are added. When it's boiling, there will be a lot of foam as the proteins from the grains start to precipitate. Lowering the heat will help reduce the foam. Once the foam starts to subside, hops are added. If the foam still doesn't go away, you can add a few drops of a silicone-based de-foamer. Depending on what type of beer you make, there could be other additions of hops and/or adjuncts, like orange peel or spices. After another hour of boiling, the brew can be cooled down to 75 F. At this moment, you can wait patiently and have a beer or two, or use a 75 foot copper tubing immersion chiller. Once the beer has cooled to room temperature, the beer is drained into a 5 gallon bucket. A mesh sleeve was used around the drain to catch any additional precipitous material. Last, the yeast is added. The bucket is lidded and an airlock is inserted into a hole at the top of the lid. At this point, the beer will now ferment.

Stay tuned until next time as we bottle our beer after 3 weeks...