Immediately after removing the pot from the heat, immerse it in a cold water bath. Actually, they make fancy cooling gadgets to speed up this step, but hey this is supposed to be cheap and easy, right? The idea is to cool the brew down as quickly as possible, which causes all the malt proteins to clump together and settle out to the bottom. It also helps to stir the wort round and round before setting it aside. Then, after it's cool, the sediment kinda gathers towards the middle and you can leave most of it behind. Check the temperature periodically until it reaches about 90-100 degrees.

Carefully siphon off the liquid brew from the top of the kettle into the fermenting bucket, leaving behind as much of the solids as possible. Don't worry if you suck some up the tube, it will settle out eventually. Add room temperature water (I used bottled spring or drinking, NOT distilled) to reach the 5 gal. mark on the bucket. Let it continue to cool until it reaches about 70-75 degrees. Now it's time to give life to millions of little yeast cells! Shake up your bottle with the yeast starter-remember it? Pour it in and STIR WELL!

Using the hydrometer, measure the initial specific gravity and write it down. Hey RELAX this isn't brain surgery here - drop it in and look at the numbers! Big deal! After you think the fermentation is complete and all the sugars have been converted to alcohol by the yeast, you'll take another reading and compare the two. If you bottle the beer before it is completely fermented, the bottles could explode and send bits of glass shrapnel everywhere! No lie!

Put the lid on tight then jam the assembled airlock into the hole on the lid. Fill the airlock to the line with vodka, take a drink of the vodka, and place the bucket in a quiet, dark, cool place for about a week.

Don't get anxious and peek, the beer needs to remain sterile as the little yeasties do their thing! Within 24 hours, the airlock will start bubbling as the yeast goes to work making what else, alcohol and carbon dioxide gas. Come to think of it, beer would be pretty boring without it!