Over the weekend, I did my first run at home brewing. Along with Will and Dan, I brewed a porter and got it into fermentation. We picked up the supplies from Vegas Homebrew & Winemaking, which is a fantastic store for Las Vegas homebrewers. The owner, Steve, was incredibly helpful and spent 30 minutes with us, going over all the details of what we would need and how to get everything done. He also threw in some free supplies – higher quality yeast, extra bottle caps, some carbtabs and iodine for sanitizing.If you are interested in brewing in Las Vegas, I can’t recommend a better way to start off than with his help.

Once we had all of our supplies, we headed back to Will’s place and got our gear setup. We sanitized the brew pot and spoon and started boiling water. Prior to this brewing, I didn’t have a really good understanding of the brew process, but I sure understand it now. We mashed some chocolate roasted malted barley, mixed in the liquid malt extract, dried malt extract and UK Kent Goldings hops and then transferred to the bucket and pitched the yeast. It was a standard process, but quite exciting to be doing for the first time.

The fermentation has all but stopped and it is starting to settle. On Friday, Will and I are going to transfer the beer to a carboy for further settling, and do some dry hopping with more of the UK Kent Goldings hops. Next Sunday, we will bottle and the following Sunday we can drink. August 23 will be the first taste of my first beer. I think it will turn out quite well.

We bought a brewkit for this first beer, and I’ve already picked up a pale ale brewkit for the second beer that we will be brewing on Sunday. After this, we will move to clone brew recipes and then we will try our hand at making our own recipe. I really want to make a dark chocolate stout with lots of cherry. I want the taste of Sierra Nevada Stout with a huge amount of cherry. I think we can try making it before the end of the year.

I also calculated the costs of homebrewing, and it is significantly cheaper than buying, with a chance for much higher quality. It will come out to around 75¢ per bottle, compared to $1.44 per bottle of the usual stuff we buy ($7.99 / 6-pack). This is a hobby that I could really get into, and Will is the same, so I think I’ll be doing this for awhile longer. In the Winter, we will switch to brewing lagers at my place, since I can get colder temperatures for the lager yeast to ferment properly.