Greg's Adventures in Homebrewing: The All-Grain Leap, Part 3: That Time I Won a Homebrew Competition

Hey everyone! I’m back to tell you the tales of the BBQ & Brew event that took at the NewBo City Market in Cedar Rapids. After all of my all grain experiments and producing some decent beers, we thought it was time to enter a competition and see what other folks around Cedar Rapids thought about my work. 

Greg's Adventures in Homebrewing: The All-Grain Leap, Part 2: Lessons Learned

All right! I’m back for part two of the all-grain leap series. In my earlier post, I went over the equipment that I had to upgrade to be able to start brewing with all-grain. The first recipe I made was a saison I found after some googling. I figured I would start with a good recipe and modify it from there after getting the process down. When starting all-grain, I’d suggest finding a recipe first. Creating your own is hard enough without having to add complexity of figuring out a recipe from scratch.

Greg's Adventures in Homebrewing: The All-Grain Leap, Part 1: Equipment & Upgrades

Hey all! So over the last year I have been pretty lax in my updates with how the homebrewing has gone. Well, there has been a whole pile of stuff that has happened and I couldn’t possibly fit it all in one post. I guess I could but that wouldn’t be any fun would it? The first part of this little trilogy will be about getting a hold of all of the equipment. The second will feature some of the good, the bad, and upsetting experiences we’ve had with all grain. Finally, you’ll get to hear all about the homebrew competition I entered at NewBo City Market in Cedar Rapids.

I needed to upgrade a few items to get the equipment up to par for all-grain brewing. The biggest piece was a mash tun. What is a mash tun you ask? Why that is a very good question, faithful reader. A mash tun is the device used to mash grain. Not a very good answer, huh?

And the homebrewing adventures begin!

I've been wanting to try a bit of home brewing for a while now. There is a great home brew store in Marion by the name of BIY Home Brew Supply LLC. Jess and I visited a month or so ago and were pretty impressed by the amount of stuff packed into that little store. When we walked in, the owner was super helpful and gave us just about all of the information we would need to start home brewing.  The store also carries all the stuff you would need for wine and cheese making if that's more your style.   

A couple weeks later (after a ton of online reading and video watching) I decide to take the plunge and drop the $200ish needed to get started up homebrewing.  I opted for the premium beer kit made by Brewers Best. I got the one with a glass carboy so I that I wouldn't have to worry about scratching it.  The lesser kit was only about $20 less than the best one he offered, so there was no reason to get one that wouldn't hold up. I asked Jess what she would like to brew for the first beer and she chose a robust porter. Loaded up on the supplies, we headed back to her place and dove in. Surrounded by boxes and kit pieces, we looked like little kids on Christmas morning. All of the stuff we needed was right there, so we set the date to wait until the next weekend to get to work.

The weekend before last, we started our first ever batch of homebrew. Here is the quick, high level process of brewing beer: Heat up some water, steep grains, boil water, add extracts and hops, boil it for a while, add more hops, boil it for a while, add more hops, boil it, then stick it in a bucket with yeast and wait. That process took about 3 hours. After about 24 hours our "little yeasties" as Jess likes to call them, started going to work and the one way valve started releasing C02.

I did have a bit of a worrisome moment. The heat in my apartment broke and I had 2 days of 55-60ish degree temps that stopped the fermentation process. Once the heat was fixed, I transferred the wort to a glass carboy and it picked right back up. We should be able to bottle shortly and see how it is. Can't wait!

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Cedar Rapids Beer Nuts Homebrew Festival Benz Beverage Depot | Cedar Rapids, IA

On Saturday afternoon, we ventured out into the gorgeous fall weather to the second annual Cedar Rapids Beer Nuts Homebrew Festival. After all the European beers we sampled at BrewNost the night before, we were excited to put them in contrast to some Iowa homebrews.

The first festival of its kind in Iowa, there was no commercial beer served. Homebrews only! Greg and I have had an interest in homebrews for a while now, but haven't had the opportunity to taste any. So this was a treat!