Draft Equipment

The Greatest Home Bar and Home Brewery Story

There are beer enthusiasts who are deeply enriched in the beer making world, who own their own home breweries and who take advantage of all the benefits. Then, there are beer enthusiasts who have never even thought of making their own. I can’t imagine why a beer enthusiast wouldn’t at least be interested in giving it a try, but I’m going to try to change that now.

There are many benefits to brewing your own beer and I’m going to take it one step at a time. When you are ready to get off this wild ride, take stage coach left and no one will think any less of you for it. But I bet once this journey begins, you will want to ride it until the wheels fall off.

First, brewing your own beer is a way of putting a mark on your own home bar. You can even get online and design yourself a label and then place it on your bottles, glasses and beer taps even. When company comes over, you can have them all try it. It might just become their favorite beer meaning you might just get company more often if that seems like something you would like to have.

Then, you can start marketing your beer to the local bars. Give them a taste and see if they like it. There are different ways to make this happen. You can get in touch with a local bar owner and tell them you would like to have a tasting at their bar. You offer some of your beer for free and then when people say they like the taste, the bar owner will most likely want to stock it. Make a thing of it. It’s supposed to be a fun time. So, have fun!

The next logical level is to enter into some beer events. Start locally, but again have fun. Go across the country if you want. The more exposure you get, the more buyers you get. Don’t be surprised when someone approaches you to see if you want a sponsor. Sponsorship can take you to levels you have never imagined. Nationwide distribution. Export. International attention.

By this time of course, you have expanded your enterprise to include so much more than a bucket and a kegerator. You have built your brewery into a high powered system that produces enough beer to satisfy all your orders. You’ve moved your operation to a local location that houses your brewery and invites the neighbors to wander in and have a beer. You’ve had to apply for your beer license so that you can start selling your beer and you’ve had to build a bar so that your neighbors have a comfortable place to sit. You’ve got a sign on the front of your place with your name on it and you’ve been highlighted in the paper as the local beer expert.

With a few different flavors now in your inventory, you can have a seat. Take a breath. You’re finished the first phase of Operation Your Brew. The rest of the ride goes anywhere you want it to go.

Make your Own Beer, Right on Your Stove

Homemade beer is the best beer in the world, by far. Have you ever tasted anybody’s homebrew? If you have, you probably thought it was darn good. Let me tell you that when it is your own, it is even better. In fact, it is incomparable to anything else on the planet.

I am a beer lover and long-time homebrewer. There is no other hobby that is as satisfying as this one. I have entered many, many homebrewing competitions and have won lots of blue ribbons for my beers, including at my local County Fair (which is a huge one). In fact I had so many ribbons that I finally threw them all away and stopped entering competitions. Now I just brew what I like and drink it while browsing the internet or watching television with my wife. Yep, life is good for homebrewers.

Listen, anyone can make beer on their stove – and I mean really, really good beer. You don’t have to take it to the level that I did. If you enjoy beer one-tenth as much as I do, then I highly recommend that you at least make one batch in your lifetime, just so you can say you did it. Having brewed a batch a beer changes a person, for the better, and forever. You will then be one of my brethren.

You are going to need some simple pieces of equipment: A large pot to brew in, a big food-grade plastic bucket with a lid to ferment in, a small plastic “airlock” and rubber stopper that goes into a hole in the bucket lid, bottles and caps, and a basic bottlecap crimping tool. It also helps to have something to stir with; a big wooden spoon will do nicely.

There are only four ingredients in beer: water, malt, hops, and yeast. Malt refers to malted barley – for your first batch you will simply use packaged “malt extract.” Hops are best purchased in pellet form; they look like rabbit food. A package of dry brewers yeast costs about one dollar. Water can come from any source, but at least two gallons of it needs to be sanitized. Those 2.5 gallon water vessels from the market work nicely.

Homebrew is typically made in 5 gallon batches. This will fill two cases worth of bottles. Take my advice and go for the large, 22 oz. Bottles, as this is less bottling work. You will need 6 total gallons of starting water with about 2.5 gallons chilled in a sealed container. The plastic bucket should be a 6 gallon size. Over half a gallon of water will evaporate while you are brewing.

Here is what you do:

1. Boil 3.5 gallons of water with 6 pounds of malt extract for one hour, adding an ounce of hops at the beginning of the boil, some more hops after 45 minutes, and some more hops when you turn off the heat. Cool the pot in the sink by running water around it. Sanitize your bucket fermenter with a shot of bleach mixed into it full of water. Let that sit for a few minutes with the airlock and rubber stopper then pour out over the inside part of the bucket lid and rinse everything that the bleach solution touched with
hot water.

2. Put the chilled 2.5 gallons of water in the bucket first, then pour the brew from the pot on top of it. Do not stir. Add the yeast and seal the lid tight on the bucket and put the airlock in the stopper and the stopper in the lid-hole. Put water in the air lock. After a day or two the airlock will start bubbling.

3. After a couple weeks its time to bottle the beer. Boil 3/4 cup of sugar with 2 cups of water and add it to your bucket of beer. You can sanitize a measuring cup with hot water, or just put it through the dishwasher with heated drying on. Scoop out the beer with the measuring cup and fill the bottles leaving 1″ of space in them. Crimp the caps on and store the bottles in a cool dark area for two weeks. Clean everything.

4. After two weeks put some bottles in the fridge and enjoy.

Most of brewing is cleaning and sanitation. Everything that comes into contact with your unfermented beer, and even on bottling day after it has fermented, must be sanitized. A small shotglass of household bleach mixed with 5-6 gallons of water makes an effective sanitizing solution, given 5-10 minutes of contact time.

Don’t forget to tell me when the beer is ready to drink. If I live in a nearby state, I just may come over and taste it with you.

About the Author
Andrew Kasch is a beer lover and long-time award-winning homebrewer. Many of his recipes can be found on his website http://www.makeyourownbeer.info

Article source:
Make your Own Beer, Right on Your Stove

George Washington – Beerthusiast

Posted by CarBoy Films

The Father of Our Country loved his beer.  English–style porter was George Washington’s drink of choice and whenever he could he would seek out the product of Robert Hare, a brewer in Philadelphia who was one of the first to make porter in the U.S. Washington was no stranger to homebrew either and this recipe from a personal notebook he kept will make 30 gallons of ale, enough for a large household like Mount Vernon.

"Take a large Sifter full of Bran, Hops to your Taste—Boil these 3 hours.  Then strain out 30 Gallons into a Cooler put in 3 Gallons Molasses while the Beer is scalding hot or rather drain the molasses into the Cooler. Strain the Beer on it while boiling hot let this stand til it is little more than Blood warm. Then put in a quart of Yeast if the weather is very cold cover it over with a Blanket. Let it work in the Cooler 24 hours then put it into the Cask. leave the Bung open til it is almost done working—Bottle it that day Week it was Brewed."

"To Make Small Beer” is the title of this recipe. “Small beer” is normally brew made from the second runnings through the mash for strong ale and the beer that is created has very little alcohol (about 3%).  However, a note on the NPR website says that the above recipe produces a beer with an alcohol content of about 11 %.  If this was George’s “small beer” then consumption of his “large beer” must have somehow disrupted space-time for its imbiber. Compare that ABV to a popular modern American brew, say Sam Adams Boston Lager at 4.9%, and you realize that “Town Destroyer”, as the Iroquois nicknamed Washington, wasn’t effin around.   In fact, I think he might have been trying to kill himself and anyone around him.

So if you try this recipe use caution (or just less molasses) and for God’s sake send us pictures of the aftermath.

Image by cliff1066