The art of homebrew
 

I took a shot at this recently. As far as 'art' goes, I'm still at the "colouring book" stage. Turns out there is a homebrew shop very close to where I live, and I stopped in to check it out. I came out with all the hardware to make a five gallon batch of brew, as well as an "Octoberfest kit".

The hardware was all fun. A bucket with a spigot, enormous glass bottle, capper, etc. I found the bottlecapper and the airlock particularly entertaining.

The kit consisted of a big can of malt extract, hop 'pellets', some actual malt grain, and a little packet of brewers yeast. Upon opening the kit I experienced the same sort of thrill I felt as a child, opening a big box of lego for the first time.

Washing and sterilizing the equipment isn't a lot of fun, but the cooking part made it all worth it. After steeping the malt grains for about 1/2 an hour, the entire house smelled of malt. It was like heaven. The hop pellets looked like rabbit food, and I guess I was surprised a how they smelled. Nothing like beer, but a deep whiff reminded me of beer. It was cool.

Here we are three weeks later and I have 5 gallons of beer portioned into rows of 12-oz soldiers. I cracked the first one last night. I think I did something wrong, because it tastes just slightly watery to me. I like it, it's just not as strong a flavour as I expected. But after you subtract the initial cost of reusable hardware, I spent just under 30 bucks for 50-ish bottles of beer tasting far better than Budweiser, and I got to make it myself.

I'm brewing another batch. This time an American wheat, also from a kit. I'll try my hand at doing it from all-grain eventually, but for now the kits make it easy and fun.

Has anyone else done this?

More hops! Fresh hops!
I'm just guessing.

My next batch will involve blueberries and fresh hops, opposed to the pellets. I'm told by some "experts" that the taste difference between fresh and pellet hops is negligible, but I want to try it anyway.

Try to use some other bittering agents as well. It is best experiment in small batches for these. I've tried and liked correander seed (actually gives the beer a very red brew) and anise seed (sort of a liquerace taste). I've also used rose petals (interesting taste) as well as various other spices (basil - not bad when fresh and strong)

Other variations that are worth playing with are small amounts of distinctive grains such as oats, deeply roasted barley, and rice.

Good luck and tell us all about your breing adventures...

I tried this for a while, but the whole production lost its appeal after the munchkins came along and time and space were at more of a premium.

Anyway, for my money, the preparation of the bottles and the bottling was a pain in the kiester that I got really tired of. If I had continued, I would have gone with one of the mini-keg systems that are available.

Way back in the day ( befor it was legal for me to drink ) my moms boy friend started brewing beer , he and I turned out some OUTSTANDING brews !!! A few folps , but over all what we made was FAR better that what you could find in stores !!

I have since made a few batches of wine , again a few flops and more success . I made a batch of plum wine a few years ago that was KILLER , we named it Love potion #69 , you split a bottle between a couple and befor you know it you are in bed :doit:

A few things I have learned ,
1) Store your full cases in a spot that draines well !!!!! And have a plan in mind if things go WRONG !!! Even properly maid batches go BOOOM some time !! :bawling:
2) Champaine yeast is VERRRRRRRY energetic !!!!!! :mg: ( see #1 )
3) don't be dissapointed if things don't work out the way you want , LEARN from the experence .

I try and dig up some links to a few places that had lots of info on home brewing :beer: :guinness:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/

Here is a KILLER site with Lots of goodys !!!

ForksBob was an excellent Brewmeister. Apparently he's going to get back into production (ooh, baby, I can't wait.)

I helped him prepare a couple batches, back in the day (this means he fussed about the kitchen, did all the work, and occasionally let me stir the pot).

I will have to email him to see if he still has the recipe for Jet Fuel.

It's a chocolate stout.

Absolute Heaven.