Frank and I were like two little kids on Christmas morning when the equipment was promptly delivered a week later, gleefully tearing open the giant cardboard box the stuff had been shipped in. We then carefully handled and inspected each piece of equipment, getting our first real look at the tools of homebrewing, which included:

• 5 and 6 gallon glass carboys, each with handles
• plastic bottling bucket
• jet bottle washer
• Phil's filler
• plastic airlocks
• drilled rubber stoppers
• Red Baron bottle capper and bottle caps
• stick-on thermometers
• plastic tubing
• 8" funnel
• brushes
• racking cane
• 18" metal spoon
• stainless steel brewpot (purchased at Lechter's, on sale for $19.95)

In our ingredient kit we received:

• 6 pounds of malt extract
• 1 pound of specialty grains
• 2 ounces of hops
• yeast
• priming sugar
• muslin grain bag

We stacked all the beer gear in a corner of Frank's kitchen, where we'd actually be doing the brewing. He had the extra space, and didn't seem to mind if his apartment smelled a little like a brewery for a few days each month.

Early on a warm October Sunday morning I arrived at Frank's apartment ready to make our virgin batch of homebrew. We considered it appropriate that we had chosen October as the month to begin brewing, in honor of the great German beer drinking holiday Oktoberfest. The day before Frank had woken the yeast by popping the food capsule inside the foil wrapped packet, which then needed a full 24 hours before it would be ready for use. While our ingredient kit specified that it was "suitable for beginners" it was clearly not the simplest or quickest kit on the market. The malt extract was not pre-hopped, the specialty grain had to be cracked, and the recipe strongly recommended a second fermentation.

1. We started by vigorously cracking the specialty grain with a rolling pin, then pouring it into the muslin grain bag.
2. The brewpot was filled with one and a half gallons of water and the heat turned up high. The brewpot is not covered until the wort is cooled.
3. We then added the grain bag, which looked like a big tea bag, to the brewpot as the water heated, which is referred to as "steeping" the grain. The grain was removed after fifteen minutes, before the water began to boil.
4. As soon as the water came to boil it was time to add the malt extract, which had been sitting in a bath of warm water for about ten minutes to soften the syrup. The brewpot was taken off the stove, and the malt extract was then poured in while stirring. As the syrup dissolved, the malty mixture, now called "wort," became intensely aromatic.
5. Once the thick dark brown wort began to boil we set a timer for 60 minutes. We added our first round of hops, in pellet form, minutes after beginning the boil to the wort, as specified by our recipe.
6. Then it was time to begin sanitizing everything that would come into contact with the wort, our primary fermenter, rubber stoppers, funnel, airlock, even the foil packet of yeast, just to ensure the outside didn't contaminate the contents upon opening. We used Northern Brewer's One-Step cleanser, which requires no rinsing.
7. Next we headed to the fridge and grabbed a couple of beers, it was time to relax for a few minutes.
8. Our recipe called for adding our finishing hops 2 minutes before the end of the boil, which we did, continuing to stir the wort.
9. When the 60 minutes were up it was time to cool the wort. We filled the sink with ten pounds of ice and water, and after putting the lid on the brewpot, we set the brewpot into the sink, which we let sit for 20 minutes.
10. We filled the primary fermenter with 3 gallons of water and after the wort had cooled we poured it directly in, making sure to leave heavy sediment in the brewpot. We then topped off the fermenter to an even 5 gallons by adding some additonal water.
11. "Pitching," or adding, the yeast was the final step. Yeast is temperature sensitive, so we made sure the wort was below 78o before adding the yeast, which is known as "pitching" the yeast, then added the fermentation lock and drilled rubber stopper to the fermenter. We then retired our fermenter to a large, upturned cardboard box in the corner of Frank's kitchen with a small hole cut in the top to accomodate the protruding airlock. This box came to be known affectionately as "the house."

After our brewing chores were complete we set our sights on the bottles we planned to use for this batch. The bottles had been soaking in the bathtub in scalding, soapy water since that morning, and now we proceeded to scrap off the labels and scrub them clean. We would still have to sanitize the bottles, however, before using them.

Even if our beer turned out to be undrinkable, just the experience of actually brewing our own beer was exhilerating. We found going through the motions and working with the grain, hops, yeast, and malt extract had been as instructive as it had been enjoyable. If nothing else we had gotten a brief glimpse of the science of making beer. And even with all the additional steps our advanced kit added, homebrewing seemed fairly simple. If you can follow a recipe, and keep things clean, then you can brew beer. The only procedure we outright bungled was when we tried to take a hydrometer reading; the accompanying instructions were less than specific as it how to use it correctly. Since we hadn't made any big mistakes, as far as we knew, we assumed our first batch beer had been a success, however we wouldn't really know until we tasted our beer 6 weeks later.