Home Brewed Beer Project ~ complete the first steps

Boiling water with Malt

A few years ago, my neighbor gave us home brewed beer and it was very tasty.  I wanted to make beer some day.   However, I did not have a chance to do it.   Especially, we moved last summer and it was very busy and I did not have time at all.

This year, we settle in the current place and finally, I have a time to try own beer.

Got starting kit from a local store, HopTech

I got a starter kit from a local store in Dublin / CA, USA, HopTech. This is a shop the neighbor recommended to me to get the kit and ingredients.   It is very close to where I live.  However, I did not have any chance to stop by before.
During July 4th weekend, I decided to try this and I finally stopped by on the way back to home from a park.   There were many brewing equipments and ingredients.  Also, people in the shop is very friendly.   When I told them, this is my first time, then they explained what I need / how I can make beer.   I felt it was much better to get a starter kit from online shop like Amazon.

I got a starter kit and 30 qt boiling kettle.  I also asked an easy recipe and got "Golden Ale" ingredient kit, that includes "ready to use Malt", "hops", "dry yeast" and "priming sugar".

You may get them from on-line as well.   I think their quality is very good.

Preparation

 Last night, I read all instructions coming with the kit as well as the recipe.   Also, I did a "dry-run" with just a water to under stand how to transfer the contents one to the other during the process.

Getting started!

Then, I went through a whole process for fermenting beer.  It took about 6 hours including preparation and cleaning up after the process.   The kettle with water that is about 4 ~ 5 Gallons might be too heavy to use kitchen stove.  So that I used a camping stove in my back yard to boil the water and the malt.   I guess it might be a good idea.

The process was simple enough, just following the recipe instructions.   Boiling water, added malt, adding hops, then cooling down the liquid and settled.  The finally moved to the fermenting bucket with the yeast!

It was fun and I could not wait for it is ready to drink!!

Based on the instruction, the fermenting may take a few weeks.  Then, bottling and wait for another a week to get it ready!   I just checked the bucket and it seems to be good!

I have not drunk the first beer, but I started looking for the next batch!!  It is so fun and excited to make own beer at home.   The smell during the process is very very good!!!!

Anthony Lake Chabot Regonal Park ~ much less water due to drought this year.....

Due to drought, the water level was externally low!!

Anthony Lake Chabot Regonal Park

Anthony Lake Chabot Reagonal Park is located near Castro Valley in Almeda county in California.  It is about 30~40 minutes from San Francisco International Airport.   This is called "Lake" in the park name, but it is actually a reservoir.

In the park, there are many trails around the reservoir, picnic area and camping grounds.   This week is a part of a long weekend, 4th of July weekend, in the US and it was very crowded today.

There is a parking lot after the toll gate.  However, many people parked on Lake Chabot Rd.   Since the street is almost full and I had to walk long way to get to the park.  I decided to park Nike Classroom Parking lot on a hill.  This parking lot is also free but we need to walk down a hill about 30 minutes.

No thing on the hill!

A last a few days, San Francisco bay area was hot more than 85F in daytime.  Even if it was early in the morning around 9am, the temperature is over 80F.   Around the parking lot, there is no shade and it was very hot and almost no wind.

 Near Nike Classroom parking lot, no shade!

 We walked down from Ten Hills Trail to Cameron Loop Trail toward the east end of the reservoir.  It takes about 30 minutes to reach a trail around the reservoir.  At the east end, there is a small bridge, but there is no water or water stream under the bridge.  It was dried out.

 Good thing was, once walked down from the top of the hill, there is a shade and there was wind on trails around the reservoir.   It was not too bad to hike in such hot day.   There were many people walk around.   On the other hand, there was no people except us on top of the hills.  It was obviously too hot to walk.    It might be better to park near the reservoir even if we need to pay some parking fee!!

We can walk to the islands

The right side of the islands is dried out!

Since it was really hot day, we decided to rent a row boat instead of walking around the like.  Walking around the lake is about 13~14 mils (about 20+km).  So we walked to the visitor center on the south west side of the park.
The rental fee is USD$20 / hour, $28 for 2 hours and $40 / day.  Not much different more than 2 hours.  So if people stay longer or do fishing, it is worth to pay some extra dollars.   We just rented for 2 hours and ate our lunch on the boat!!

Even if there is no shade on the lake, it was not too bad.   Duo to nice wind on the lake, it is nice to stay on the lake.

 Friendly ducks!

Ducks were very friendly and they came very close to our boat and kids were so happy many ducks around our boat.   I was with 2 kids, therefore, we did not have an options to rent kayak.  But renting kayaks would be another good option to enjoy the lake. 

Since we parked on top of a hill, we had to climb the hill after that..... It was too hot and we talked that we would park near the visitor center next time!

But it is a fun park near tri-valley in summer time!