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Beer Making Kit from Design 55

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Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial.

I am not a huge beer drinker, so when I had the chance to review a Beer Making kit I was interested mainly because I thought the idea was intriguing. I have been teaching chemistry for a few years now, and beer making is chemistry in action!  Design 55 sent me the Brooklyn Brew Shop Everyday IPA kit, and brewing the beer was fun and interesting.

beer making kit

The whole process isn’t complicated, but it is time consuming, and takes about a month to do from start to finish.  You start off by cooking the mash, which is the grain that is going to be fermented. It has to cook for about an hour, and you need to keep track of the temperature to make sure it does not get too hot.

Cooking the Mash

Next it is time to make the wort.  This involves straining the hot grain and collecting water that is poured over the grain to release the sugars.  After you have about 5 quarts of wort it you need to boil it. The wort has to boil for another hour, so you can see you need to block out a large amount of time for the first part of the brewing process!  As it boils you add hops every 10-15 minutes, depending on the type of beer you are making.  The kit I used was a combination of Cascade and Columbus Hops, and the instructions explained clearly how much to add at a time.

Cooling the Beer

After an hour it was time to cool it to 70 degrees, and I used the snow on the deck to cool the pot quickly.  Once it is cooled it need to be strained into the large glass fermenter, then the yeast is added and fermentation starts.  The kit includes all the tubing and airlock that you need to set it all up. I was worried that we hadn’t shaken the yeast enough, or boiled it too much or something, but sure enough the next day it was bubbling away and clearly we had completed the process correctly!

The brew has to ferment for 2 weeks, and then it is time to bottle.  Bottles were not included with the kit, so we bottled into plastic soda bottles.  It is not the traditional glass bottle, but a friend of my husband’s brews his own beer all the time, and he said plastic would work fine.  So we decided to take his word for it because we had plenty of empty soda bottles laying around.

Bottling the Beer

Bottling went quickly, but we had to restart the siphon four times before we figured out how to do it right!  But it finally worked, and we ended up with 6 bottles of beer.  It needed to sit another two weeks to finish, and then we were able to taste it.

So how did it taste?  It is pretty good, with a nice taste that has just the right amount of bitterness.  I was surprised at how well it turned out since there are so many steps there are lots of places to mess up. I think we might have over-carbonated it a little bit, but other than that it worked well.

everyday ipa beer

In addition to the supplies in the kit you will also need some big sauce pans, a strainer, a funnel and bottles.  Overall this was a fun project that produced great results!

Have you ever tried to make home brew?

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free

anne

Hi, I’m Anne!

I love to cook and I want to share my recipes with you. I believe cooking should be approachable and fun, not a chore. I want to make simple recipes using everyday ingredients that you can make again and again, whether it is for a busy weeknight, a summer cookout or a special dessert. Read more...

2 thoughts on “Beer Making Kit from Design 55”

  1. What a coincidence! I just blogged about homebrewing recently, too (well, my husband did, actually). He’s been brewing for about a year and has made 8 different types so far. I hate beer, but it’s fun to watch him enjoy his hobby. A kit like this is a great way to get started.

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