White Orange Belgian Ale #1

For our second brew we chose the Belgium Ale recipe from MoreBeer! in Los Altos. The description of this beer from their website states:

Belgian ales are really about creating a simple yet elegant malt base upon which the unique Belgian yeast strains can create their wonderful, complex flavors.

Unlike with our previous ale, the Belgian Ale recipe does not steep any flavoring grains. Instead, you simply bring the water to a full boil and start the brew. The recipe uses only 6 pounds of Ultralight malt extract but adds another pound of powdered malt extract and clear candi sugar. During the boil, 2 ounces of Vanguard hops are added, part for bittering and part for flavoring.

After our first brew we understood the process much better this time and it didn't take as long. In fact, everything went very smoothly. That's one thing that you realize once you start home brewing: it's actually a lot easier than you initially think! So if you've been contemplating trying it out but were hesitant thinking it was too complicated or time consuming, just go for it! You'll be glad you did because it's a lot of fun and once your first brew is ready, you have a steady stream of good beer to enjoy with friends.

The Belgian Ale recipe had an estimated original gravity (OG) of 1.049 and our first OG measurement before fermentation was 1.049. The temperature of the wort at the time of measurement was 64 degrees.

Note: We discovered a problem with the yeast required for this brew after we had transferred the wort to the fermenter. But we'll save the details for another post...

Nut Brown Ale #1

Our first brew was the Nut Brown Ale recipe we bought as part of our home brew kit from MoreBeer! in Los Altos. The description of this beer from their website states:

Our Nut Brown Ale has a richer, maltier, less bitter flavor than the American Brown Ale. Victory malt provides a nutty, biscuity flavor. A very full, robust beer.

The Nut Brown Ale recipe uses 8 pounds of Ultralight malt extract; 24 ounces of steeping grains including Crystal, Caravienne, Victory, and Chocolate; and 3 ounces of Glacier and Willamette hops.

The plan was to start the process between noon and one o'clock. Many people showed up from that time or throughout the afternoon. We spent the afternoon brewing the beer and designing logos for our brewery and beer labels. But the bottling process is two weeks away and drinking four weeks away!

Being our first time brewing, the entire process took longer than initially expected. The first problem we ran into was providing enough heat on the stove to raise the water temperature to the required 170 degrees when steeping the flavoring grains. A single burner on the gas stove was insufficient for the large 8 gallon kettle; but once we straddled the kettle across two burners, everything was super green and the rest of the brew process went well.

During the steeping process, the water temperature didn't reach 170 degrees during the allotted time due to our single burner issue. So we steeped longer than specified in the recipe. At this point in our experience, we have no idea how this will affect the final taste of the beer. But the rest went without a hitch and we ended the day by transferring the wort to the carboy for fermentation. (I will post pictures of the fermenting brew later.)

For the more technical geeks out there, the Nut Brown Ale recipe had an estimated original gravity (OG) of 1.062 and our first OG measurement before fermentation was 1.053. And the average temperature of our fermentation location is roughly 65 degrees.

Waiting to enjoy the fruits of your labor is the hardest part when you first start brewing your own beer. But once you start the process and continue to brew on a regular basis, you'll have a steady stream of beers ready to drink.

Our Brew Kit

Since we are all new to home brewing, we bought an inclusive kit that contained (almost) everything that we needed to get started.

We bought the PersonalBrewery(tm) No.4: Bottling Super Deluxe kit from MoreBeer!. It includes the following components:

• 6 gallon glass carboy fermenter
• two stoppers (one solid; one with hole)
• siphon system for transfers
• 19" stirring spoon (which we're missing... oops!)
• 8" funnel
• airlock
• 6 gallon bottling bucket, with spigot
• hydrometer and jar (for measuring gravity)
• bottle filler and tubing
• hand capper and 50 bottle caps
• carboy cleaning brush
• bottle cleaning brush
• sanitizer
• nylon steeping bag
• book: Home Beer Making III
• 8 gallon kettle with spigot
• wort chiller
• hop brew bags
• 24 x 22 ounce bottles

The kit also includes a recipe and ingredients for Light Ale and the yeast that you need. But since they were out of that ingredients for that brew (and we're not too found of light beers anyway) we upgraded to the Nut Brown recipe.

In addition to the kit, we also bought an adapter and tubing to transfer the wort from the kettle to the fermenter; a sink faucet adapter for connecting the wort chiller; and a bottle sanitizer and drying tree.

MoreBeer!
Northern California Showroom - Los Altos
991 N. San Antonio Road
Los Altos, CA 94022
Phone: (650) 949-BREW (2739)
Mon - Fri 10:30am to 6pm
Sat & Sun 10am to 5pm
LosAltos@moreflavor.com

Origin of the Name

The Nijikai Brewery was named from the Japanese word nijikai (nē・jē・kai) which means "after-party". In Japan, when you have a dinner or some other event, if you go to another place afterward, that is known as nijikai. (If you to go to a third place, that is called sanjikai and so on.)

Unlike the first event of the evening, the nijikai allows people to come together in a less formal environment to share a few drinks, get to know each other, and become friends.

Note: In Japanese, nijikai is written 二次会 but we use the alternate characters 弐次会.

Introduction

Welcome to Nijikai Brewery!

This web log (or beer log, or brew log) was created to document our experiences brewing our own beer. And this post is the very first of, we hope, many on the fine art of home brewing. We hope you enjoy your stay!