Brew Master

Welcome to the world of Home Brewing. Today would be a great day for brewing, in fact it will take all day to do this.

Back when I first got into making my own beer, I did it from scratch, I mean I used the grain and created a mash, a special grain and water mixture designed to extract the sugars from the grain. That was back in the early 90's. Have I been doing Home Brew all these years , hell no. When I was hanging out with Denise, she would only drink Light Michalob, so I stopped making beer and then I bought my house, so I stopped doing it for the next 5 years, I didn't want to wreck the appliances which I had bought new. Then I went and sold all the equipment.

So, why am I doing it again. Isn't it easier to just buy the beer down the road. Yes it is easier and probably cheaper, but it's something to do that is creating something from raw ingredients, etc. So, it is a hobby and the best part is the drinking the result of my efforts. So let us get going and brew some beer, but first pour yourself one. This is going to take all day, so pace yourself so that you can make it through the day.

First and foremost is the brewing station. The heart of making beer the stove to cook the wort, the liquid with all the sugar and other stuff extracted from the grain. So today we are not doing the mash, we are going to use the extracted malt already prepared for us. I have given in to the easier way of making beer. Only because I can't possibley boil five gallons of wort on this stove. So today we use about 3 gallons of water and the various malts, etc. Not as hard core as I would like to be, but it is still better than Mich Lite and better for you.

Now a look at the Sanitation Station. In order to make this stuff to taste like beer, everything has to be super clean and sanitized. Now the wort that we are creating is the perfect food for any wandering yeast organism and let me tell you they are all over the place.

Back when I was in college taking biology, the teacher gave each of us, petri dishes and we were to take it home and expose it in any way we chose. Well you know what happen, what body part would be exposed to the petri dish. Those were the most unique petri dishes, they had some really exotic stuff growing in those dishes.

So I don't take chances, I sanitise everything. I use some special stuff which I get at the beer store. But I used to use Clorox Bleach, which works real well too.

With everything sanitized and the wort cooked and ready to ferment. All that is left is to put the wort in the carboy and add the yeast.

Then, all you need to do is watch the yeast loving your wort and making you lots of alcohol. So thats all I need to do for the next 10 to 14 days. When the fermentation process is completed, we can bottle your beer and maybe taste a little. So the complete process will take about a month to complete. Not bad for 5 gallons of beer.

Just one more little thing, that is to clean up after your done. Actually what happened is that I had a boil over so the stove was a mess and had to do a major cleaning, but the end result looked pretty good to me.

So that is a day at making beer, but wait your not done yet. Do you need another beer, just grab one for the fun of it. There are definate benefits to homebrew.

Homebrew is not pasturized or filtered and definately is not chemically made. It is made the old fashioned way, with loving care and the skill of a Master Brewer.

So now everything is done including the cleanup, so now go realax with one of those awesome homebrew beers.