The next step

Next.....

      I decided that I wanted to take my brewing to the next level.   Half way through the first batch of beer.  

      I picked up a secondary fermenter at a wonderful place Mike and David discovered in Seven Corners,  across the street from the Dogfish Head Alehouse, called "My Local Home Brewery Store."  What a glorious place!  They are incredibly knowledgeable about all things beer.  I need to take a trip out there and see about getting a different bottle caping device.  I'm getting a head of myself though.

    

After the bucket:

      After about a day, stange an mysterious things were happening to the magical bucket-o-wort!  It was becoming a bucket-o-beer!  After we added the wort and some ice to cool the liquid to room temperature, we "pitched" the yeast.  Which is really just a glorified way to say we put the little yeast buggers into some warm water and then turned them loose on the sweet and delicious mixture that would become my beer!  We put the airlock and lid on the bucket and left it to its own devices in my hall closet.  24 hours later there were bubbles galore issuing through the air lock as the yeast converted the sugars into alcohol.  

      After a few days the bubbles started to subside and I "racked" (another fancy beer word, this time for moving beer) the beer into my newly purchased secondary fermenter.  The primary fermenter bucket had an amazingly thing and strange tan sediment coating the bottom, which is apparently the dormant yeast.  I feel like after eating and reproducing for three days straight I would probably go dormant and fall to the bottom of a bucket.  

      Allowing the beer to condition in the secondary fermenter allows the liquid to reach a new equilibrium with the sediment, allowing more of the tan stuff to settle at the bottom of the fermenter.  This also gives me the ability to bottle the beer when ever I please.