The beer is still fermenting and will soon be put into bottles.  For my part, I plan on making Mr. Petrie cute labels.  Check out the previous installments of Casa Petrie Homebrew:

Casa Petrie Homebrew I: The Beginning

Casa Petrie Homebrew II: The Research

Casa Petrie Homebrew III: The Kit Purchase

Casa Petrie Homebrew IV: Brew Day

Hi Casa Petrie fans.  So we’re here now.  We made it all the way from the excitement of trying, to the research, to the purchase, to the doing.  Now we’re at the morning after.  Or maybe the week after.  How do I feel?  Freaking great!

This is still an exciting time.  A little over a week since the boil and I have done my first specific gravity test.  Yep, it came in high, 1.022, but I’m not worried.  First off, it tasted amazing for such a young beer.  Recollect that this is an India Pale Ale.  It is supposed to be a hoppy, higher alcohol content beer.  Right now I have the hoppy.  It is nice.  I also know there is alcohol in there.  Although, with that specific gravity measurement, we’re looking at an alcohol by volume of under 5% (less than Budweiser).  Additionally, I am having one heck of a time trying to find a good International Bitterness Unit (IBU) calculation out there.  In some calculations I’m seeing an IBU of 54, in others I’m seeing below 30.  This stuff is madness for me.  But when I relax, stop worrying and have a homebrew (in my case, right now, just a beer), I ask whether in homebrew if it matter what the IBU is?  No!  What matters (to me) is that this beer has a very distinct hoppy taste (it does), and even as green as it is I really like it.  This is a beer, as of right now, I would have no hesitation going out and buying at the liquor store, grocery store or at a brewpub.  That, dear readers, is worth its weight in gold!

After giving my young brew a specific gravity test I also gave the fermenter a shake to get those yeasties that may have participated in flocculation (sedimentation, or grouping) moving again and possibly kick up the fermentation and get that specific gravity down.  It’s a long shot, but I figure there is no harm in trying.

A point that I should make is that I’m in no hurry.  As it stands I’m planning on moving my beer to my secondary fermenter some time in the next week if I see that fermentation has ended by checking the specific gravity a few times.  If the specific gravity is the same a few times over then you can be pretty certain that fermentation has ended.  Secondary fermentation is a misnomer, by the way.  There isn’t any real fermentation in the secondary, it is just an aging and clarifying location at that point since you’re supposed to be leaving your old yeast behind when you move your beer to the secondary.  After it sits in the secondary I’ll move it either to bottles or to a keg.  More on that soon!

This gravity test has given me additional impetus to do this again, and soon.  I’m planning on brewing another batch of beer as soon as I get this batch into the secondary, which could be this coming weekend.  If there is interest, I’ll let you all know how that works out.  In the mean time I would like you to do four things:  Relax.  Don’t worry.  Have a homebrew.  And make your own homebrew!