Beer Making

Beer-brewing is a sweet science developed a long time ago may be before war times as a survival skill to overcome the cold climate and get warmth and refreshment. Not only is the methodology and biology at play immensely interesting, but you get to drink the results. When you make your own homebrew, you join yourself to centuries of brewing tradition, from monks wild-fermenting their own abbey ales, to the Bavarian brewers espousing strict adherence to what is and is not an ale, down the line, to the folks who are driving the wave of home-based craft-brewing and micro-brewing today. rnYou may even save some money. While you may not have enough grain at your disposal on your own property, you can easily grow your own hops and other bittering and flavoring herbs. If you have fruit trees, you can incorporate fruit into your brew. rnThere is a basic process to follow when brewing. Once you've mastered it, you can move onto advanced techniques. The same goes with equipment. You can obtain a basic kit from a brew store, or, barring that, online. Once you've mastered using the basics, you can graduate to wort chillers, kegs and other useful gadgets. rnBrew! You're basically going to need a stock pot that will hold at least five gallons or more, two fermentation vessels (they can be glass carboys or plastic food-grade plastic buckets), and a bung and airlock for your fermenters. The airlock allows air to escape, but no contaminants to get in. rnSo the basic thing to remember is to keep clean. You will need to keep your equipment clean and sanitize everything your beer (called “wort” before you pitch your yeast), touches after it cools off from its boil. When you add yeast, you're creating your own microbial environment in the beer. You want the yeast in there and nothing else. If unwanted bacteria get in, it could ruin your beer. Keep clean! rnBasically, you're breaking down starches from grains (barley in this case), by steeping milled grains in hot water, flavoring it by boiling your wort and adding hops at apportioned times and then bringing the temperature down, transferring your wort to a fermenter, aerating your wort and then pitching the yeast. You'll then seal it and allow it to strongly ferment for a week or so. At this point, you transfer the beer to a second fermenter via a siphon (everything being clean and sterile here, too) and letting it go through a smaller, secondary fermentation where sediment will settle. You then add a bit more sugar and bottle the beer. The little bit of sugar primes dormant yeast and “bottle-conditions” your beer, fertilizing it. Save your empty brown, pop-top bottles, rinsed and sanitized for this step. You'll also have to buy a hand-capper and some bottle caps. If you're making an ale, it needs to be kept out of strong sunlight and at a general temperature of 70 degrees F. This is because the yeast live optimally at this temperature and you want to keep them happily eating sugar and excreting alcohol and CO2.Test and taste the chemical composure of the Beer, until you feel self-sufficient of the complete process. rnThere are plenty of free recipes all over the internet and books devoted to beginning to homebrew. The Joy of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazian is a good place to start. Extreme Brewing by Dogfish Head's Sam Cagalione is another. rnWhen you're getting started, you can choose to brew from a kit, using malt extract solely. I'd recommend partial garin, if you have access to a brew store where you can mill grain. This type of brewing, “partial grain” is easy to start with. You'll still use a quantity of malt extract to get enough starch into your wort, but your grain profile will be more complex and tasty if you use fresh grains. So here you are a perfect country person with simple living, who has added beer-making skill as his new efficiency.