Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
“You gonna marry Mandy Turner?” Clint chuckled.
“Hell no, you asshole,” he teased back, but still, the exchange had soured his mood.
When they finished eating and he told Clint he needed to head out, he didn’t tell his friend he was going home to brew beer with Vince, still wanting to keep this between him and Vince.
The whole drive home he was anxious about it, though. A jitteriness bounced around inside him like a Ping-Pong ball. A good kind of jitteriness. One that hinted at an excitement Colby couldn’t figure out why he was nervous to admit to.
“Hey, you.” Vince was already out in the detached, large shop when he got home. It had work areas, benches, electricity, and even chairs and a fridge, so it was the perfect place. “I’m just looking at the kit.”
“Learning anything?” Colby joined him.
“This has to ferment for like two weeks after we brew. Talk about delayed gratification,” Vince joked.
“Have a little patience. It’ll be worth it.” Well, Colby hoped it would be worth it. “Unless our beer tastes like shit.”
Vince nudged him with his arm. “Our beer isn’t going to taste like shit.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because we’re making it, and we’re fucking kings.”
Vince winked, and Colby felt a strange flutter in his gut. “Good point.”
Vince clapped his hands together. “All right, babe. Let’s do this.”
And that easily, the nerves melted away, and all that was left was pure anticipation.
Colby’s smile started and continued to grow. “Let’s do this.”
They’d gotten a beginner’s kit that came with a recipe. Colby knew that if this was something he continued, there would be more steps that included advanced techniques, but this would do them well for now.
They were starting with a hoppy red ale. Colby liked the added citrus taste.
“What do we do first?” Vince asked.
“We need to mix these ingredients in the hop bag.”
Vince grabbed the bag and added the black roasted barley malt and other ingredients into it. Then he placed the bag in a five-gallon pot with water, making sure the grain was covered. Colby had a portable camp stove out here for now, but if he kept this up, he’d need something better.
“It says the bag can’t sit on the bottom of the pot when we start the heat,” Vince told him, and Colby nodded.
“How long do we keep the bag in?”
“Until it reaches 170 degrees.”
They followed the directions, bringing it to temp, removing the bag, boiling and adding liquid malt extract.
“It says to stir until dissolved,” Vince said, which Colby did, before they added the hops to the bag and put it back in the water. “Now we basically let it boil for forty-five minutes.”
“Okay.” Colby grinned, though he had no idea why. He went to the fridge and grabbed them each a bottle of beer, and they sat on the couch in his shop.
“What do you think so far?” Vince asked.
“It’s fun. I’m enjoying it. I’m anxious to see how it’ll taste when the time comes.”
“Welp. That’s a start.” Vince held his bottle out to Colby. “To new beginnings.”
The fluttering started in his gut again as he clanked his bottle with Vince’s. “To new beginnings.”
Brewing beer was a long process that included a whole lot of waiting, but the waiting wasn’t something Colby minded. He liked knowing he was waiting for something specific, a process he was involved in, which made it feel like he wasn’t waiting at all.
After the first boil they added Amarillo, then waited again, this time for a little over an hour. Some beer would take even longer, but this one was fairly simple.
They sat on the couch again, talking and teasing each other through the second boil and then while the wort cooled in a large bin full of ice.
“I need the fermentation bucket,” Colby told Vince, who grabbed it for him, and they transferred the wort to it. They continued the process by using the siphon to remove enough wort to test with the hydrometer, poured it into the cooled wort, and agitated.
Once that was done, they covered the fermenter with the airlocked lid.
“You’re going to have to keep the temperature cooler in here.”
“It’s insulated and has AC, so it should be good.” Colby was jittery again as they put the fermenter in a dark place, and then Vince followed him over to the couch.
“Now we just have to wait two weeks,” Vince said, making him laugh.
“That was fun.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it. I thought it was pretty cool too. Who would have thought I’d ever brew beer?”
“You and me both.” Colby was still smiling. He should probably stop, but he couldn’t seem to make himself do it.
“You’re happy,” Vince said, surprising him.
“I am. Is that weird? It’s not like we did anything special tonight.”
“I think what we did is pretty damn special.”
“It feels like it,” Colby admitted. “But then I think it shouldn’t feel that way. I don’t know why.”