Earlier this year, my son came home from school and asked me how hard it was to brew beer. This was not a surprising question from a boy who is 17. I still asked him why he wanted to know. His response was related to school (shocking). He said his Chemistry teacher brewed beer. I thought for a moment, and pointed out that cooking was a form of chemistry, so brewing seemed a natural extension.
At that point I mentioned a brew kit my brother had purchased for my birthday many years ago. It languished in an apartment closet until we moved to our house, and I never utilized it It was gone, but I asked would he be interested in learning to brew?
The answer was robustly affirmative, and we began to look into the purchase of a brew kit.
If you have the desire, you can build your own brew kit for about $35. Two 6 gallon Home Depot buckets, a siphon, an airlock, some washers and a small plastic spigot and you're all set to build the kit on your own. The spigot, washers and airlock can all be purchased online. You'll need lids for the Home Depot buckets. You'll need drills to attach the spigot and the airlock. It will take a little time and effort, but would save a little cash. The alternative is to spend about $100, buy the kit ready made along with all the ingredients for your first batch of brew. I opted for the expensive, easier, route.
You'll also want to read up on brewing first, too.
At roughly $25 a case (for a decent beer...you can get Coors or Bud or Miller for less than $20 here in the NYC area), you should break even with your brewing by the third or fourth batch. Each brew will produce roughly 5 gallons, or 48-54 bottles. You'll save about $15-20 per brew after third brew. That makes it an economical approach to beer drinking. The break even point will vary based on where you live, what you like to drink, and how you put your kit together. Since I chose the expensive path, I knew I was going to take time. But this is about having fun and making tasty beer, not saving money.
We are on to our third brew, so I'm feeling good about the savings. I'm also feeling very good about the brew process.
Our first was a Brown Ale. It was delicious. Honestly, it's hard to beat a good home brew. As long as you follow the directions carefully, and avoid introducing any bacteria or other unwelcome items, you should wind up with something quite palatable. We named it "Barking Spider." The day after drinking, I discovered we had given it an apt name.
The second batch was a Stout and I quickly learned the limitations of taste management. Stouts can be temperamental, often being too bitter if you're not familiar with them. I had a problem during fermentation that forced me to open the lid of the fermentation bucket to prevent a messy explosion. It's likely this opening introduced something which altered the taste of the Stout. Ultimately, it was drinkable but not good. It worked very well with a Yuengling Lager in a Black & Tan, so there was a small consolation. This brew was called "Portly Dog".
The current liquid down in our basement is a Red Ale. So far, it's been fermenting nicely. The aroma from the airlock is perfect. We bottled last weekend, after 5 days of fermentation. We now have three to four weeks of bottle fermentation, at which point it is ready to drink. It should be ready right around Halloween, and I'll be sure to share how it tastes.
For now, I'll share some tips to those who wish to attempt home brewing. Let's start by saying it's very easy, and is quite a bit of fun. But start simply. Brew kits have step-by-step instructions, and the ingredients are all prepackaged. As you gain confidence, you can move on to using real ingredients, such as actual malt or hops. I've been told, by more experienced friends, this is the best way to brew. I'm not there yet. In the meantime, I recommend sticking to the prepackaged stuff and hone your skill.
Keep a diary of the steps you take, the temperatures, lengths of time of boiling up the ingredients to create wort (wort being malt, hops and water, along with any other grains that might be added for flavor, which are boiled prior to fermentation, with yeast added after it has cooled a bit). Every step in the process can alter flavor, and if you keep careful records, you can develop consistency or find a recipe that provides tasty results.
Bleach!! You don't need much, but it's absolutely necessary. Don't sterilize, just sanitize. Sterilization would be expensive, time consuming and unnecessary. Sanitizing helps assure quality and it's only about 1 tablespoon of bleach to 5 gallons of water for a proper sanitizing wash.
Bottle capper. These are inexpensive, and make sure you get reusable brown bottles. Grolsch bottles, those with the ceramic stoppers, work great and are reusable. If you can't get bottles with ceramic stoppers, you can get 48 reusable brown bottles, bottle caps, and a bottle capper for about $30 or $40. Most of the fully packaged kits (like the one I bought) come with the caps and the capper. You can reuse bottles that had twist-off caps, but I don't recommend these. The bottle cappers don't work as well with them.
One thing to keep in mind is that beginners should stick to ales. Lagers are difficult. There are several differences between ales and lagers. Ales use top fermenting yeasts (which add flavor and cannot be reused) and are typically stored at room temperature while fermenting. Lagers (lager from a German word meaning to "store" or "set aside") use bottom fermenting yeasts and are cold fermented. Ales tend to be a more complex drinking beer, inviting more flavor and having a higher alcohol content.
I'll walk through the process of making wort and fermenting with my next post. In the meantime, if anyone wants to come up with a name for our Red Ale, I'll share them with my son and we'll choose a winner. We had some ideas for labels on the first two brews, but never got around to drawing them. If we get a good name, I'll have him draw a label up and post it.
