How To: Brew Beer, Day 6

Time to upgrade this brew's housing

Disclaimer-Captain DIY and DIYtoFI.blog highly recommend exercising extreme caution when attempting DIY projects. Not everybody can do everything, and some things should only be done by professionals. Keep your digits attached, and keep the insurance company off of your back. Do it right or call the right people!

It has been almost a week since I started this high end brewery in my kitchen. The bucket of beer in the basement has been fermenting nicely, and I took great pleasure in watching little bubbles coming through the bubble-inator (“bubble thingy”, as the pros say) for the first day and a half or so.

As we have made it through the requisite fermenting period, and also because I actually have a bit of time in which to do this, it is time to transfer (“rack”, as the pros say) the beer from the Primary Fermenter (bucket) to the Secondary Fermenter (jug). Continuing on the professional terminology, this jug is known as a Carboy.

Once I sanitized everything, I was ready to siphon. I placed the bucket up on my old workbench, set up the carboy on a lower bucket on the ground, installed the siphon hose between them, and nothing happened. I don’t know what I expected, I guess I just figured if I bobbed the end of the use in the bucket a bit it would start flowing. No such luck.

Well, this is an institution of higher learning, so off I went to the research store (google) to find out How To Start a Siphon. Apparently the best and cleanest way to do this is to fill the hose with water, plug one end with your thumb, and then install the hose between the vessels. once the water flows, it will pull the beer with it. I had an empty bucket nearby for the water, then quickly switched over to the carboy once the beer followed. There was a minimal loss of beer to the floor. I will mourn that loss later, after I’ve cleaned up.

Watching the beer flow was mesmerizing for the first few moments, until I realized the length of time required to pump five gallons of beer through a 3/8” hose. I went back upstairs. I put out some fires between the junior DIYers. I put the leftovers away. I exercised Daddy’s Angry Voice to put out some more fires, then I went back downstairs to check. Only four more gallons to go. Sigh.

Eventually all of the beer, minus most of the crud on the the bottom (called trub ), made it into the secondary fermenting vessel. I capped it with the bung and the airlock, and then it was off to clean all of the used stuff. Apparently 75% of brewing is waiting, 24% is cleaning, and 1% is actual brewing. Fun stuff!

Not a whole lot to report aside from the fact that it actually kind of smelled like beer, which I found promising. Now I leave it in the carboy for a week, and then I bottle. Hopefully in three weeks I will have five gallons, about nine six-packs’ worth, of premium Oktoberfest Beer! Cheers!

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