The brewing kit came from William’s Brewing here in the Bay Area
(http://www.williamsbrewing.com). It contained everything except the
bottles. We diluted their malt concentrate in tap water and boiled it
in the huge kettle they sent — it barely fit on the stove. We added
hops during the boiling. Then we cooled the liquid (it’s called “wort”
at this stage), put it in a plastic tub, added yeast and set it in the
shower stall to ferment. That’s the photo in the previous posting. It
needs to sit at 60-65 degrees for 12 days before bottling, and the
downstairs bathroom is perfect for that. For once we’re glad that the
ground floor is chilly.

The clear plastic frammis on top of the fermenting tub is an airlock.
Carbon dioxide is released by the fermenting beer. It bubbles up
through water in the airlock, and the water barrier prevents airborne
microbes from getting into the beer and spoiling it. Sometimes I go
watch it. Every five to ten seconds the carbon dioxide builds up enough
to release a burp of gas through the water. That and the whiff of
alcohol in the shower indicate that the yeast is happily doing its part
in the procedure.

It struck me how close brewing is to breadmaking and that beer is
essentially liquid bread. The ingredients are the same — water, grain,
flavoring, yeast — and the processes require the same careful timing
and attention to temperature.