Home Brewing For By Dummies

One of the latest trends in the world of DIY is home brewing.  Myself and two friends took a shot at it this past weekend.  Why not? What could be better than creating your own supply line for a rather expensive product? The average brew kit will yield about 2 1/2 cases of beer per attempt. A pretty sweet return for 3 hours of work, and after the initial investment, each batch will cost very little compared to buying the finished product. But, judging by all the bumbling we did throughout the process, I can't imagine wanting to ingest what comes out of the fermenter in two weeks. It is really important by the way to get a great brew kit. Here is a five star rated brew kit from Amazon.com: Coopers Brewery DIY Beer Kit

Going into this adventure, the only experience any of us had at brewing beer was in quality control (drinking). So if you are a prospective brewer, and don't know what to expect, read ahead for a rundown.

Setting up:

Every instruction manual will stress that the most important step to successful brewing is sterilization. Anything that will be touching the wort (the liquid that becomes beer), must be sterilized. The problem is, different books recommend different methods.  One book will say to use bleach.  Another book will say to never use bleach.  Make sure to set aside a few hours at the start of brewing to both sterilize all materials that will touch the wort, and to argue with your friends over the best way to do it.

Making the wort:


Once everything has been properly sterilized, it is time to make the mixture of what will eventually turn into beer.  In this step, you basically mix a bunch of malt and hops in some boiling water.  Within minutes, the wort will give off a delicious smell, not unlike a great homemade soup.  By the end of the first hour however, this smell becomes unbearably awful.  I don't know if the smell itself changed, or if I just got sick of it, but it was horrific.  It was the kind of smell that not only stinks up a house, but also leaves little particles of shittiness embedded in your nose for days.  The best part of this step is the insane volatility of  the boiling wort. Don't panic too bad, its not going to explode, but it will probably boil over.  It is messy, and will spread that noxious, vomit inducing liquid all over your stove top. When this happens, much like when you jostle a homeless guy, the smell will become even more unbearable.

Fermentation: 


After all the wort making is done, all you really need to do is transfer it into the fermenter and wait.  There isn't much to this step other than dumping the wort into a plastic bucket with a couple holes drilled into it.  Here, it will interact with the yeast, and magically become beer.  Be careful when installing the airlock to the lid of the fermenter, as my friend almost broke the entire unit by pushing too hard.  It is very delicate, and will probably infect the wort mixture with bacteria when you are fishing the rubber seal out of the mixture.

Two Weeks Later:


After waiting two weeks or so, the fermentation process should be complete.  I'm not really sure what comes next, as we haven't gotten that far yet.  I'm guessing that you will open the plastic bucket, and do something to the liquid inside. See, I didn't read ahead in the instruction manual, so I don't even know if it is called beer yet.  There were a few things in the beer kit that went unused in the first few steps, so I figure there is some work left to be done.  Your guess is as good as mine.  Good luck with that.

In Conclusion: 


In the end, it doesn't really matter what comes out of the fermenter.  The whole beer making adventure was a lot of fun. Throughout the process, I discovered that brewing is really more of an art than anything else. The different styles and flavors of beer that can be created with just a stove and a bucket are endless.  All you really need is the patience to perfect the process. If you can do that, the world of beer is yours for the taking.