Irish Stout (First Brew)

My first brew day occurred in late December 08' when I brewed a 5 gallon batch of Irish stout. This was not the easiest beer to start off on, but it was great for learning from mistakes. Everything went very well in the sanitation, grain steep, boil, chilling. One lesson came from the pitching of the yeast. I should have created a starter which would've re-hydrated the dry yeast with warm water before pitching. Because of this, the fermentation process was slow to start and probably caused some ill effects on the little yeasties. The bigger lesson came when my patience clashed directly with the fermentation process. I pitched the yeast on a Monday and was excited to see the airlock start bubbling within 24 hrs (a sure sign of active fermentation). After two days passed, the airlock activity had completely ceased which I naively took as a sign that fermentation was complete. I decided (with some guidance with the provided instructions) that bottling later that week on Friday would've given the beer plenty of time to ferment and get nice and tasty.

Bottling went very well (with some minor struggles with siphoning equipment). The 5 gallon batch produced about 45 twelve ounce bottles. We stored the beer away from the light, in the basement for about 2 weeks before trying one. The first one was great, and so were the others for that matter. The problem was that the warm, roasted flavors were overshadowed by a bitterness that came through at the back end. In doing some research in some online forums, I found that the bitterness was probably from my beer being green (incomplete fermentation) and probably due to suspended yeast. Friends and family seemed to like the beer, which is really all that matters and was really exciting to hear. But now it is my mission to brew beer that can hold up to anything that people buy commercially and to be able to replicate it at will.

As for that Irish stout, I've got a 12 pack sitting in the basement waiting to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with me and the wife.