Rest stop

One of the hardest lessons to learn about homebrewing has been how much time you spend doing nothing at all. It's strange, because doing nothing is usually where I shine. After the initial boiling, cooling, and yeast-pitching, all I had to do was kick back for about a week and let those yeasts do their work.

And it was agonizing.

I'd put so much mental and physical preparation into the process, and now I found myself twiddling my thumbs. I felt like I should be doing more. So I padded into the basement several times a day, where I would cross my arms and frown at the fermenter like a concerned parent. "You doing okay in there, little guy? Everything all right?"

After about four days the vigorous bubbling in the fermentation lock had subsided. As that was my only visible sign that anything was happening inside the bucket, I found this distressing. Probably, it was a good thing: when the yeasts had run out of fermentable sugars to consume, they'd settle back at the bottom of the bucket, and my beer would be ready for bottling.

At seven days, I could wait no more. I sanitized my hydrometer and my beaker and prepared to take a sample. Although I struggled a bit with the lid, on account of being a weak-ass man, I was encouraged when the unmistakable smell of beer hit my nostrils. Not even skunked, half-empty-Bud-Lite-can-the-morning-after-a-party beer. Real, fresh beer!

It was hard to tell in the dim basement light, but when I brought my sample back upstairs I found that it looked like beer, too -- a dark, golden honey color. A healthy amount of sediment was still suspended in it, but overall I was encouraged.

The hydrometer reading was encouraging, too. The beer's specific gravity was registering at 1.016, without needing to correct for temperature. That was close to the target! The recipe called for a final gravity of 1.008-1.012. Considering that my initial sample had read much higher than what the the recipe called for, this seemed like a good sign. But it also seemed like I wouldn't lose anything by waiting a day and taking another measurement.

Back into the dark, dry basement it went. I would have to wait another day -- but not before tasting the little bit I'd measured.

Looked like beer, smelled like beer, and tasted like beer, too! It wasn't carbonated, which made for a strange mouthfeel, and it did seem a little tart on the finish, but overall I was optimistic. Or, let's say, "hoptimistic."

On second thought, let's not say that.