Tonight Julie and I took a shot at brewing our own beer.  We won’t know for about 4 weeks how it turned out but so far so good.  There were a couple minutes of panic but it went pretty smooth.  The only time we found ourselves scrambling is when Julie was literally reading to me about how the wort could possibly foam over and then of course it did at that very moment.

We got all of ingredients at the Beer and Grow Chicago.  As far as Google knows it’s the only place in the city that sells home brew ingredients.  From the look of the place you would think they sell weed and not beer but I digress…

The basic steps we followed were:

1. Disinfect all of the gear.
2. Boil 1 gallon of water.
3. Stir in 1 can (3.5 lbs) of liquid light malt extract.
4. Stir in 2 lbs of light dried malt extract.
5. Once all of the above dissolved add 2 ounces of cascade variety hop pellets and let boil for 30 minutes.
6. Pour 2 gallons of cold water into the carboy.
7. Add the wort to the carboy.
8. Add the yeast and gently stir.

Next up is bottling the beer in about a week.

The Aftermath: