After hearing the stories from Mineral Spring Brewery about a flash boil over at their first location (Cindy Pelton’s kitchen), Linda the wife  of the co-brewmaster (Steve) suggested that instead of a repeat of this problem in her kitchen, we get a stove and sink setup in the basement, so we did. After the obligatory problems with electrical connections on the stove and plumbing problems for the sink and hooking up Kara’s old portable dishwasher, we were set.

Co-brewmaster (John) was able to get brewing equipment from his brother Kevin. We got both 5 & 6 gallon carboys, 20 quart kettle, hoses, funnels, filters, filling tube and an assortment of cleaning supplies and brushes.

We stopped at Os’s Point Brew Supply in Plover to pickup a Red Ale mix, some extra cleaning stuff and some liquid yeast. They were very knowable and helpful at the store.

We enjoyed a nice brunch at Christensen’s Bistro next to Os’s and enjoyed a few Os’s Rusty Reds. Steve told John about buying some land near his home and the common refrain of being called a Land Baron, so we decided to use this as the name of our brewery. We decided our first batch would be called Red Baron’s Red Ale. Ideas were exchanged for labels and logos. We have a few weeks to make this decision before we are ready to bottle.

We cleaned up all of the equipment in the wash tub with the cleaning solution, then ran into our next barrier. The red ale kit had hard grains that needed to be ground up. Without a coffee grinder or even a blender, we ground the grain on a plate with an empty beer bottle (we had one, imagine that). Memo to self, buy a coffee grinder.

The kit came with a muslin bag that we boiled into the pot, like a big tea bag. Next we added the malt extract powder and broke the mix to a boil (while avoiding a boil over) and then added the first bag of hops. 40 minutes later we added the other bag of hops for 20 more minutes. Then we cooled the wort in a snow bank outside. We boiled another pot of water to combine in the carboy to bring to an even 5 gallons.

We debated the need to buy a hydrometer. The instructions suggest having one, but many home brew veterans discount the usefulness.

At the end of the day, the brewmasters are rather pleased after the first attempt at brewing beer!