OK, lets put that brewpot on the stove, or propane burner, add about 2-3 gallons of water, and turn on the burner. You want to make sure that you leave some space in your brewpot for the malt extract and expanded liquid so don't fill it up to the brim. Next, pour the grains into the grain steep bag, tie if off at the top to make sure none of them escape, and place the bag in the water. Heat the water up to about 150-160 degress f, then turn the burner way down as you want to hold this temp for about 20-30 minutes. Basically, you are steeping the grains to leech out the color and maybe some flavor too depending on which specialty grains you used. If you used some chocolate malt for your specialty grains, you will definitely get a dark color and a chocolate taste will also become part of your "malt profile". The malt extract that you will be using will give you a "base" malt profile, so the specialty grains are a way to add a different color or taste to this base malt profile.
Once you are done with the steeping, it is time to add the malt extract to the brewpot. Get your spoon or some other scraping device and get as much of it as possible out of the container and into the pot. Turn up the heat and wait until you start to get a foamy layer on the top of your concoction. You should also stir constantly as you are adding the extract and immediately after so that it doesn't just sit on the bottom of the pot, where it will burn!
WARNING!!! This is a fairly critical time of the process where you can make a *HUGE* mess on your stove. Watch your beer carefully right before the boil as malt has a tendency to foam up rapidly into a "boil over" within minutes, if not seconds.
So when your wort starts to foam up, turn down the heat until your beer is involved in a rolling boil. This is also when you are going to add your first addition of hops. You can also add the first addition before the boil if you would like. The first addition of hops will serve as the "bittering addition". Hops contain a resiny substance which in turn contains "alpha acids". The alpha acid content is one of the ways that hops are measured and rated. The more alpha acids in a hop, the more hop characteristic will be introduced in the beer. The recipe that I have outlined for this HowTo calls for more hops than the typical beer, but that is characteristic of a Pale Ale. So, for the bittering hop addition, you are going to throw 1 ounce of Centennial hops into your beer at the start of the boil, or earlier. The longer the hops are boiled, the more bittering characteristic is introduced to the beer and that is why the hops are added to the beer in stages. Most beers usually have a bittering addition, a flavor addition, and then an aroma addition at the very end. Most hop oils are completely "isomerized" by a 60 minute boil and that is why most recipes call for a 60 minute boil. The purpose of boiling the wort is to extract the hop oils from the hops and also to "sanitize" the wort. You are also going to want to make a note of the time when you add your hops as the other hop additions will key off of this time.
Continue to monitor the boil as wort has a tendency to "foam up" into a raging boil. You also want to stir the wort every few minutes or so. When you are about 15 minutes until the end of the boil, throw 1 ounce of the Cascade hops into the wort. Continue to stir the wort until you have 3 minutes left to go in your boil. Throw the other 2 ounces of Cascade Hops into the wort. Stir for another few minutes and then turn off the heat. You can either let your beer steep for a few minutes or immediately begin the cooling process. There are many ways to cool down your wort, but the easiest is probably to put it into your sink with an ice bath around the outside. NEVER add ice cubes to your wort to cool it down. The time between the end of your boil and when you are going to pitch your yeast is fairly critical and you need to make sure that anything that comes in contact with your beer at this point is completely sanitized. You should also have your floating dairy thermometer in your wort at this time so you can monitor the cool down. Cool the wort down to room temp, about 70-75 degrees. Your yeast should also be the same temperature by now. You want the combined wort/water combination in your fermentor to be the same temp as the yeast. If the wort temp is too hot or too cold, you could potentially do damage to the yeast when you introduce it to the wort so that is why you need it to be about the same temperature.
After the wort has cooled to room temp, you need to add it to the fermentor. I use glass fermentors because I like to see what is going on with my beer without having to open up the fermentor. If you use a plastic fermentor, you pretty much have to open up the lid if you want to inspect your beer. Whatever type of fermentor that you use, it is now time to add about 2-3 gallons of fresh, room temp water to the fermentor and then our chilled wort. NOTE: This fermentor must be 100% sanitized, as must the funnel, thermometer, strainer, etc.. Add the water first and then put on the lid if you are using the plastic version. Place your funnel into the top of the fermentor. Place your strainer in the funnel and start slowing pouring your wort into the fermentor. You are going to have 5 ounces of hops in your strainer so you might have to stop a few times and empty it out as it will fill up. I always liked to smash the hops down to make sure I got every bit of hop juice/wort out of the hops before I disposed of them and I would recommend that you do this too with a sanitized spoon. The stuff at the very bottom of your brewpot usually is not desireable in your beer so leave about the last 1/4 - 1/2 cup of wort for the disposal. You should end up with about 5 - 5.5 gallons of wort after this whole process. At this point, you should take a hydrometer reading of your pre-fermented wort. This will give a point of reference so that we can measure and monitor the fermentation process. Dip the sanitized test tube down into your wort and fill it up about 75% of the way. Now place your hydrometer into the tube, let it settle, and take the reading. Record the number of where the wort meets the hydrometer which should be around 1.050 - 1.060.
Now it is time to pitch the yeast. Oh yeah, did you remember to rinse out your brewpot and the other utensils before they dried? Now is a good time to do that if you have not done so already. Before you throw the yeast into the wort, you want to aereate the wort. The wort has already been areated to some extent when you ran it through the strainer but it is a good idea to slosh it around or stir it up with a sanitized spoon in order to get as much oxygen in the wort as possible. The yeast need oxygen in order to get going so this is why you need to perform this step. This is the last time that you will want to introduce oxygen into your wort/beer though. Once you are done with the aereation process, you can add the yeast to the fermentor and stir it in. Put the fermentation lock on the top and put it in a cool, dark corner somewhere. About the fermentation lock though. First you will place the stopper in the hole of the plastic lid or the top of the glass fermentor. For the fermentation lock, you want to have some sanitized water inside of it. I always add some water/idophor solution in my fermentation lock which is what I usually use to sanitize everything with also. After I have sealed the fermentor with the stopper, I place the fermentation lock into the stopper. This pretty much concludes the boil part of the processs and now you are ready for the fun part, cleanup!