Brews and Blues Beer and Smokin’ Blues

Getting Ready to Brew

Tomorrow is the day... I'll be brewing my first batch of beer as I re-enter the hobby of home brewing. I have all of my ingredients in place, and I made a yeast starter this afternoon. I'm a little worried about the yeast starter because I haven't seen signs of activity in it yet after about seven hours. Hopefully it will take off soon and get bubbling so I can be confident that my yeast is good. If the yeast is not good, I'll have to delay pitching the yeast, but I'll still be cooking the beer tomorrow afternoon.

I'm making a variation of a Marzen recipe that I found in Charlie Papazian's "The Complete Joy of Home Brewing" book a few weeks ago. The ingredients are as follows:

7 lbs BierKeller Unhopped Light Liquid Malt Extract
1/2 lb Dark Crystal Malt
1 cup of Roasted Barley
1 ounce Glacier Hops (bittering)
1/2 ounce Amarillo Gold Hops (bittering)
1/2 tsp Irish Moss (clearing)
1/2 ounce Amarillo Gold Hops (aroma)
1 vial White Labs WLP029 German Ale/Kolsch Yeast

Tomorrow night I should have some pictures and/or video to go along with this adventure :)