{"id":10533,"date":"2019-07-16T00:55:10","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T04:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/?p=10533"},"modified":"2019-07-16T00:55:10","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T04:55:10","slug":"just-brew-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/2019\/07\/16\/just-brew-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Brew It!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"By: Karin Gipple<\/p>\n

Chemistry 101? Cooking with yeast? No!\u00a0 It was an entertaining and educational afternoon learning the art of brewing beer which, contrary to popular belief, is a lot like chemistry and a lot like cooking.\u00a0 A group of over-21, adventurous Fantastic Friends got together for an afternoon to brew a Czech Pilsner.\u00a0 First, everyone put on our beermaking t-shirts which were donated by the American Homebrewers Association.\u00a0 All participants got a printed guide covering the ingredients used in making beer and step by step instructions with pictures about the beer brewing process.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Soon, everyone knew that water, grain, hops and yeast were needed to make a batch of beer.\u00a0 Folks tasted chocolate malt grains and passed around whole hops to feel and smell.\u00a0 A beer sampling was conducted to see how different yeasts, grains and hops affect the taste and smell of the beer.\u00a0 Olivia was the lone wild card preferring the very \u201choppy\u201d taste of Troeg\u2019s Hop Knife beer while many of the others liked DuClaw\u2019s chocolate peanut butter Sweet Baby Jesus beer.\u00a0 Kevin, who may have a very bright future as a brew master, had endless suggestions for creative beer blends including seaweed beer and marshmallow beer.<\/p>\n

\"\"The first step in the beer process is to make some sweet water or \u201cwort\u201d which we did by heating ground grains in water to a temperature of 162F.\u00a0 We called this a mash. Everyone got to learn how to read a digital thermometer and record the measured temperatures in their guide books.\u00a0 Everyone tasted the wort and were amazed at its sweetness.\u00a0 This is due to sugars being pulled from the grains.\u00a0 Sparging was next.\u00a0 This part of the process separates the wort from the grains.\u00a0 The wort is then boiled for 1 hour.\u00a0 Hops are added periodically during this part of the process.\u00a0 Everyone had to help with stirring, timing hop additions, adding the right hops at the right time and enjoying the wonderful aromas pouring out of the boil kettle.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It is tradition, during the boil, to feast on brats and sauerkraut.\u00a0 Our meal was finished off with brownies and a Happy Birthday song to Ronnie.\u00a0 Soon, the boil was complete.\u00a0 Five gallons of wort were quickly cooled to 75F, and poured into a fermenter.\u00a0 Once in the fermenter, the yeast was \u201cpitched\u201d which means the yeast could be added to the wort. The wort has to be cooled because the yeast is happiest over a small temperature range. The yeast feeds on the sugars extracted from the grains and multiplies to a population of billions \u2013 which everyone found both fascinating and disturbing.\u00a0 During the final step of fermentation, the yeast produces alcohol and carbon dioxide.\u00a0 The result is beer!\u00a0 This takes about 2 weeks.<\/p>\n

The finished beer will be kegged, chilled and carbonated for all to enjoy. \u00a0Ronnie summed up the day perfectly with his take on the four ingredients of beer: “love, heart, cook it and relax.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

**Special thank you to the Gipple Family for volunteering to host this educational and fun activity with GiGi’s Playhouse Fantastic Friends!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Karin Gipple Chemistry 101? Cooking with yeast? No!\u00a0 It was an entertaining and educational afternoon learning the art of brewing beer which, contrary to popular belief, is a lot like chemistry and a lot like cooking.\u00a0 A group of over-21, adventurous Fantastic Friends got together for an afternoon to brew a Czech Pilsner.\u00a0 First,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,482,10,9,8,34],"class_list":["post-10533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-annapolis","tag-brewingbeer","tag-down-syndrome","tag-fantastic-friends","tag-gigis-playhouse-annapolis","tag-inspiration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}