Home Brewwww

Today Israel and I are brewing our second batch of homebrew beer. We are making an American Dortmunder style German lager. (We don't know what that means.)In honor of our second batch of beer, I will tell you about our first batch. We'd been talking about brewing beer for a little while, so we sprung for a starter kit at our local homebrew store, Kirk's Brew and Gifts. We got the starter kit and an ingredients kit for an IPA. Then we invited our excellent friend Zachary, who has been brewing his own very good beer for some time now, to come assist.
Here is our sterilized fermentation bucket and our clean, shiny bottles. When making beer it is very important to sterilize everything carefully. It's actually kind of a big pain.
Here Iz and Zach pour the crushed grains into a cloth steeping bag. The smashed-up barley will steep in hot water for 20 minutes before we add the malt and hops.
Now that the grains have been steeped in hot water, the mixture is called "wort." It's baby beer!
Zachary and Israel are drinking beer while brewing beer! Zach is stirring the wort so it doesn't boil over all over the stove, like our second batch just did...
Mmmm, grainy-sweet-smelling beer wort.
After we immersed the pot in a bathtub full of cool water, Israel is pouring it into the fermentation bucket.
This, I think, is a very appropriate face for a young man to make when he is about to be the creator and owner of five gallons of India Pale Ale.
Here I am transporting the fermentation bucket to the dark closet to ferment for a week. The airlock on top is so that the CO2 can be released but no air or bacteria will get into the beer. Here we are with our first bottle of beer!