Homebrew?

[ericgarner118]

I've done a couple searches on here so far for homebrew beer and haven't found much. All I saw was a little one mead and a little one wine. Homebrewing beer has been a big hobby of mine for several years now (before I was 21 in fact ^_^ ). I was just curious if anyone else is interested and if so I'd be happy to write up a little basic tutorial/guide. Any takers?

[Alec_end]

Yer I sure would be interested and any information would be more than welcome.


Cheers Alec

[Rick]

I'll bet you would, Alec.

Hang tight, eric. There are some folks on here that brew their own beer. I'm sure they will respond once they see your post.

[crashdive123]

Just don't forget to send out your samples of home brewed beer to the QC Department for evaluation. Ken and I are QC, and we are your friends.

[Winter]

Ever since my Viking reenactment days, I LOVE mead.

Well, not so much the next morning. It explains why Vikings were unpleasant.

[Alec_end]

For sure Rick with what I could save I could buy a new dingy. I think it would be a sweet skill to have. To be able to make your own beer, ale, mead, wine and sprits. Cant wait to learn.

Cheers alec

[canid]

i brew pretty much everything. i'm not great at beers, but i love doing them.

[ericgarner118]

Cool. It sounds like at least a couple people would be interested in a guide to brewing beer and little info about it. I'll write some stuff up and get back to you guys.

[beetlejuicex3]

Homebrewing

Charlie Papazian's The Complete Joy of Homebrewing is the homebrew bible written by the man who pioneered the term.

John Palmer's How to Brew is a complete online guide that is must read material.


There are two extremes to homebrewing. But first a review of the basic process, probably familiar to most already.

The goal is to take sugars which have been extracted from malted barley (and/or wheat, rye, corn rice,oats, etc) and put them into a volume of water that makes the sugar an easier substrate for yeast to act on.

Add hops for bitterness, flavor and aroma. Hops balance the residual sweetness of the beer and act as a preservative of sorts.

Expose the sugary sweet mix, called wort, to yeast which convert most of the sugar to CO2 and ETOH.


The simplest way to make beer is essentially a "Mr. Beer" type setup. One puts prepackaged sugars that have been extracted from malted barley in a factory somewhere, water and dry yeast into a plastic keg looking thing, waits a week and drinks the results. This is known as extract brewing and can be made slightly more sophisticated to enhance results.


The more complicated form of homebrewing essentially involves scaled down, simpler versions of equipment found in a commercial brewery.

1. Buy malted barley (7-10 lbs per 5 gallon batch of beer), hops, and liquid yeast from the local homebrew store.

2. Steep (or mash) the grains in a large volume of water at ~152 degrees for an hour to extract the sugar from the grain.

3. Drain the sugary water away from the grain. Dispose of grain.

4. Boil the sugary water (called wort) for 1 hour while adding hops to give the beer bitterness, flavor and aroma.

5. Cool the wort as fast as possible.

6. Put the cooled wort in a plastic bucket and add the yeast.

7. Seal the bucket lid leaving an airlock in place to let CO2 escape.

8. Ferment for 7-14 days.

This is called all grain brewing . It can be done cheaply and be readily accessable by the beginner or it can be extremely complex and expensive. Generally all grain brewing allows wider control over ingredients and other variables in the brewing process. Beers produced this way often taste more like commercial quality beers than extract beers. Or I should say, it is easier to make commercial quality beer this way than with extract brewing.

If anyone's interested I can post more. I can talk about this forever, yo.

[huskymill]

dude i would love to know how to make whiskey, although theres no way in hell it would be as good as the good irish whiskey

also a question, do you have to be 21 to purchase the ingrediants to home brew beer?

[LowKey]

The tough part about making whiskey is what they do to you when they find your still.......

[Justin Case]

dude i would love to know how to make whiskey, although theres no way in hell it would be as good as the good irish whiskey

also a question, do you have to be 21 to purchase the ingrediants to home brew beer?

Barley, Hopps , yeast and sugar ??,,,,, Not anywhere that I know of

[Rick]

I suppose there is the option of brewing up petro for use in vehicles and generators.

[canid]

fuel ethanol production isn't very difficult, but that requires distillation as well. of course, legal requirements must be met, or you could face serious charges.

[canid]

dude i would love to know how to make whiskey, although theres no way in hell it would be as good as the good irish whiskey

whiskey is not difficult to make either. the biggest hurtle would be monitoring vapor temperature and distillate output for proper fractionation, and blending to achieve a good flavor profile. the congeners produced during fermentation are distilled with the ethanol. if you remove all of them, you end up with a neutral spirit [think vodka], and if you don't remove any of them, you end up with slightly dangerous moonshine that would taste like nailpolish remover and rubbing alcohol. retain and blend a small portion of them and you have the flavors which, along with the oak terpenes/vanilins combine to make the flavor of a brown liquor.

there are precious few places on earth where doing so at home isn't a serious crime.

also a question, do you have to be 21 to purchase the ingrediants to home brew beer?

you do not need to be 21 to purchase any of the ingredients used in brewing beer, but for prepared kits intended for homebrewing, sellers in some jurisdictions may be required to, or may choose to restrict sales to minors.

[huskymill]

you do not need to be 21 to purchase any of the ingredients used in brewing beer, but for prepared kits intended for homebrewing, sellers in some jurisdictions may be required to, or may choose to restrict sales to minors.

yeah i think i can wait, i only have like a month and a half till im 21