The Wine Bottle

A Little Home Brewing Fun for the Kids

Home Brew Academy 

In any family when one person gets excited about something new, everybody gets in on the act.  And that is certainly true of children.  They love to be active in whatever hobbies mom and dad love to be part of.  So if you bowl, the kids want to go and play the video games.  If you love Shakespeare in the park, the kids will go and play on the ground nearby.  So if you can find a way to give the kids a part of what you are doing, that keeps the family together.

That may seem tough with a hobby like home brewing.  After all, the process of brewing is pretty involved and there is boiling water and sterile instruments to think of.  That kind of thing really isn’t fun for the kids.  So if you can find a way to make a “beer” just for them, then they too can enjoy the excitement and feel part of what the adults are doing.

A way to fill this need is to brew up a delicious batch of ginger beer from for the kids. And the nonalcoholic beverage drinkers in the family will love it too!  Of course, ginger beer is not real “beer” in the sense of an alcoholic brew although it can be mixed with beer for delightful and very British toddy.  But it’s so easy to make that the kids can get involved and they will love the beverage that results almost as much as mom and dad love their home brewed beer.

It’s a good thing to have the procedures, tools and ingredients for your ginger beer all ready to go on brew day because it’s a great surprise to the kids to let them know that they are going to get to make their own beer too!   Because the steps for making ginger beer are fast, easy and harmless, the kiddos can have a ball doing it using a very simple recipe and even if they drink it all gone, it’s easy enough to whip up another batch.  

The ingredients for ginger beer are not exotic and they can be found at any grocery store.  They include…

.     Be ready with 8 plastic bottles that will hold a pint and 4 bottles that will hold a quart and some bowls to mix the ginger beer up with.

.     Ginger – you can get it fresh at larger grocery stores.  Two ouches is enough.

.     Cream of tartar – about one teaspoon will do.

.     Two lemons sliced.

.     A pound of sugar

.     An ounce of yeast

.     Boil one gallon of water. 

Now it’s just a matter of putting it all together.  Cut the lemons in big sized rings and combine them in a big bowl with the other ingredients.  The only other preparation you need to do besides boiling the water is to crush the ginger so it mixes with the water and other parts of the beer.

Now just chill the mixture to room temperature and add the yeast.  Put it in the larger bottles to let it ferment for a couple of days.  Once that is done, skim off the residue on top and your ginger tea is ready to enjoy.

Home Brew Academy

Tricks of the Trade for Making Great Beer

Home Brew Academy Assembling the equipment and the ingredients to make beer is a cut and dried operation.  The process of making beer at home isn’t really a mystery.  That is one of the reasons that home brewing has become so popular.  Because you can get set up to brew beer at home with a relatively low investment in equipment and ingredients, it’s easy to get started on making your own beer.  And when you finish that first batch and it is stored away to be sampled in a few weeks, the excitement that you soon will be drinking your own beer is a unique feeling and one you want to repeat often.

 Once you have confirmed that you can indeed make beer, the next question comes up is – can you make GOOD beer?   When you tasted that first batch, you were pretty excited because it really was beer.  But you may have noticed some aspects of the beer you would like to improve.  The beer may have been too bitter or have too strong a hops flavor.  The clarity of the beer may have been imperfect or you could see stuff floating around in your beer. 

 But these flaws are acceptable at first because they drive you to want to become a better beer maker.  You want your beer to be so flavorful and enjoyable to drink that your guests say its as good or better than store bought beer and that it even lives up to the quality at the local beer pub.  That’s a tall order but part of the fun of brewing beer at home is to strive for those goals.  To get there, some of the tricks that the old pros of home brewing know will help a lot.  Some of their wisdom can help you move from a rookie beer maker into the ranks of people and actually know what they are doing.

 Most recipes for making beer at home call for making a batch of five gallons of beer.  That’s a lot of beer.  So sometimes home brewers try to cut the batch to make less beer.  It’s done with good intent.  It’s hard to store five gallons of beer.  And if you don’t drink your own beer up pretty fast (or give it away), the beer can go stale or bad which is hard to see watch happen to “your” beer.   But old pros tell us don’t cut the batch and go ahead and make beer up five gallons at a time.  You need that quantity to get the full value out of the brewing process.  And it’s hard to adjust the recipes for a smaller batch which means that there is a good chance you will end up with a beer that does not have the right balance of malt, hops and yeast.  The outcome can be a beer that is difficult or impossible to drink and it all gets thrown out.  Better to make five gallons of good beer than three gallons of undrinkable brew.

 The more you study and learn about beer making, the better you will become at home brewing.  Don’t just go from the instructions that come with the equipment.  Sink your teeth into learning all you can.  The beer you make will benefit from the homework you do.  And you will have more fun too. Home Brew Academy

 Just as it’s not advisable to cut the size of any batch of home made beer you produce, also avoid cutting corners in terms of time or clean up.  Sometimes it seems that boiling the beer in progress which is called the “wort” for an hour to an hour and a half seems like a lot.  But the long boiling time helps the ingredients mesh in just the right way.  It also boils off bad elements of the mixture that you don’t want in the beer and it brings out the flavors of the malt, the grains and the hops so you are getting the best of those ingredients.  Finally, don’t be worried about being too fussy about cleanliness.  Keeping your boiling pots and fermentation tanks absolutely clean and sterile assures that nothing will get into the beer except that pure wort that you so carefully brewed. So go ahead and be fussy.  The beer you make will be better if you are.

Home Brew Academy

The Heart of Home Brewing

Home Brew Academy

 Can you remember the moment you first got the idea in your head to take up brewing your own beer at home?  For many it is a tour of a brew pub or some other behind the scenes exposure to all that happens when good beer is made.  Before that one pivotal moment, you may have never even thought about beer being made at all.  The origin of beer was the liquor store or the market and that was that.  But when you realized that not only does beer go through a fascinating transformation from grains, hops and malts to this delicious brew you enjoy but that you can make your own beer if you want to, that is when the idea of becoming a home brewer started to become a reality in your mind.

 For others that moment of realization that home brewing could be a whole new world may have happened when you first were exposed to “real” beer, as the home brewing enthusiasts call it.  That is when you sampled a brew that was not made by one of the big retail beer makers like Budweiser, Coors or Miller and you discovered what beer tasted like when it came directly from the brewing process to your glass.  That may also be the day you found out what an amazing diversity of beer types, textures and flavors there were.  And for many when you realize that you can find a diversity of beers that is almost as extensive as in the wine world that it is often very difficult to go back to boring old pasteurized beer again.

 So if you are about to “make the leap” to become a home brewer yourself, you are about to step into a rich and full world that is full of history, culture, tradition and new friends and associates.  You won’t just take up the hobby of brewing beer, you will “become” a home brewer which is a unique kind of individual indeed. 

 It isn’t hard to “define” home brewing because the term is self explanatory except to go on to say that it is entirely possible for you to make high quality beer right in your own home with a small investment in equipment, the base ingredients that are readily available as well and the love and patience it will take to learn the process.  But the process is not difficult which explains why home brewing is a passion and a hobby that is growing in popularity more and more every year.  You might be surprised who you know who has a love of brewing beer because it is not just the hard core beer drinker you might know.  Because brewing beer at home is as much about the art and the craft of making a quality beverage, home brewers come from every walk of life there is from bartenders to ministers and from college professors to librarians. 

Home Brew Academy

 The heart of home brewing is the fun, the excitement and the fulfillment creating your own batch of delicious beer can bring.  But what transforms home brewing hobbyists to life long makers of beer is the challenge of always finding new blends, new methods and new ways to make their beer even more flavorful than the last batch. 

 Be forewarned that a zeal for becoming better and better at home brewing can be habit forming.  But if you get hooked, you will meet thousands of others in your town and around the country and the world who have the same addiction as you.  It’s a wonderful addiction that you will never regret catching because brewing beer at home can provide decades of fun and enjoyment making your own blends of beer.  But it provides something else just as good which is really great tasting beer.  So enjoy.

Home Brew Academy

Going to the Source to Learn Home Brewing

Home Brew Academy 

The time between when it first dawns on you that you could start learning to brew your own beer at home and when you actually take a stab at it is often a long one.  For one thing, it takes a pretty significant learning curve to even begin to visualize that it possible to make beer at home.  Oh, you may have heard about home breweries but to think of doing it in your own home setting is a leap of understanding that takes some time to get through.

 The internet is often a source of information that we go to start learning more about a new area of life like home brewing.  Perhaps that is how you found this article and that’s good.  That means you are off on the right foot and using free information from people who have already learned a few things about brewing at home to get your orientation to what it would take for you to learn to brew your own beer at home.

 As often happens with any new area of interest, if your fascination with how to brew beer at home starts to get some momentum, it’s a good way to go to log on to the major home brewing web sites and begin to get oriented to the methods, the equipment and the process of brewing beer at home.  Do be aware that some of these sites get very technical and it’s easy to get intimidated. 

But if you can just get an understanding about the equipment and the ingredients and some basic ideas of how the process would go if you were the one doing the brewing, that is a good start.  Because online articles and web sites mix expert knowledge with newcomers orientation, if you do stumble into a section of those sites that you don’t understand, just surf on to pages that are intended to help you where you are and understand that when you get to that level that that technical sophistication, you can always come back to these pages.  Just build a good bookmark library because it will serve you well.

But to pick up speed on learning the real details of what brewing is all about, you don’t have to depend just on reading or books.  Because brewing beer in your own home is more than just book knowledge, it is handling of equipment and ingredients, the more direct exposure you can get to the brewing process, the better.  But it is also very likely that you developed your interest in home brewing while enjoying a good brew at your local brew pub.  Most towns have brew pubs where home made beers are sold in just about every flavor, color ant texture.  Many times these brew pubs grew up out of a home brewing hobby that just got bigger and bigger until it became an enterprise and a money making business

That is why most brew pub owners are more than happy to give tours and lessons in home brewing.  This is probably some of the most value exposure you can get to how the process of home brewing works.  By walking through a brewery where the beer you make is made, you can step through the process to get a feel for how you will proceed.  You can see the boiling pots, how the strainers are used and the filters and fertilizers and everything that is needed to take beer from raw materials to the finished state of a fine brewed beer.  In fact, with a little charm and by working for free, you may be able to apprentice in the brew pub making beer.  This time will be tremendously valuable to you to help you learn the ropes of making your own beer.

You combine this hands on knowledge with what you are learning on line and from other training sources along with what you can learn by networking with other experienced home brewers and you have a powerful source of knowledge that will pay you well when you start making your home beer yourself.  And that knowledge will result in some great tasting beers from your kitchen so you will be glad you took the time to learn all you can before taking the plunge.

Home Brew Academy

Getting Set Up to Make Beer

Home Brew Academy 

The hobby of brewing your own beer at home is growing steadily as more people discover how much fun they can have making their beer at home and how great absolutely fresh beer can be.  There may be no more gratifying moment for a home brewer than to serve your own fresh beer to your guests iced down in your favorite beer mugs and hear the rave that your beer is as good as the store bought beer they like best or maybe even better!

Part of the reason for the huge popularity is that getting set up to make beer and finding good supplies and equipment is neither difficult nor overly expensive.  You can find or create the equipment fairly easily or get it discounted from others who have retired from the brewing business.  And right now there is probably a home brewing store in your town ready and able to provide you with the ingredients as well as instruction books and recipes for all kinds of wonderful tasting beers you can make right at home.  And with the explosion of web sites, ebooks and articles out there on the internet about home brewing, all the help you could ask for is at your fingertips to help you get started.

The reason different people get into home brewing vary.  Some love the social aspect as you join a large local and international community of brewers.  Another reason is that it is just great fun to assemble the equipment, learn the recipes and take a stab at making your own home grown batch of tasty beer.  Even if you “botch” a batch of beer, its all in the spirit of learning and it just drives you on to learn from your mistakes to make even better beer next time. 

A third great reason is you have so much more control over your beer when you brew it yourself.  Because you are not dealing with a beer that is mass produced and shipped from hundreds of miles away, you can control the taste, the consistency and even the level of alcohol to make your beer as strong or mild as you want it to be.  And you can make changes with each batch with virtually endless variations on the recipes that are available to the home brewing community.

The supplies you will need to get started are easy to find and not very expensive either.  Probably the best way to get a feel for what the best equipment is and who are the suppliers to favor would come from becoming a regular at home brewing clubs and gatherings and making some friends there.  If you make it well known that you are a “new recruit” and need some mentoring in how to get set up, you will be overwhelmed with offers for you to sit in on a brewing session or two to get a feel for the process.  If you take advantage of their zeal to help you get started, you will be way ahead on the game when you go shopping for the stuff you need to get set up to make your own beer at home.

 The equipment you will need is pretty much only used for brewing beer so you will need to think of storage.  The pot for boiling your initial wort and the equipment to handle the beer, filter it and ferment it are all made in sizes and at prices to encourage the home brewing markets.  You can find them at retail prices at your home brewing retail outlet in town.  You can use the internet and shop second hand shops to get better prices.  But many like to patronize the home brewing store that helped them get their start just to make sure they stay in business to keep selling you great fresh ingredients.

 That same retail outlet will be a good source for the grains, yeasts and hops you need for the actual production of beer.  Freshness is the key so communicate with the management of the store to learn of just how fresh those things are. As with the equipment, you can buy these things from the internet and that is fine.  But get to know your supplier whoever you use and make sure you are confident you are getting the highest quality materials to make your home made beer. It will make a big difference.

 Home Brew Academy

A Perfect Hobby for that Guy Who Loves Beer

Home Brew Academy 

If the man in your life is thinking of getting into brewing beer because he loves drinking different beers, there are some solid reasons to encourage that enthusiasm.  Your first reflex might be that he already has a love of beer and that making his own is going over the top.  But in truth, making the move toward home brewing has a lot going for it and it is a very creative and productive approach to the love of fine beers.

 There is a difference between a true lover of beer as a fine beverage and the average “beer guzzler”.  Beer actually has a rich history and the diversity of flavors, textures and blends of beers is almost as strong as the wine culture which we know is one where real connoisseurs know what a fine wine is.  So the move toward making beer identifies with that side of the beer culture that seeks the finest in flavors in beer and seeks to become part of the way very good beer is made rather than just be a consumer.

 By encouraging your beer connoisseur to develop this new found passion for beer making, you are emphasizing the noble and creative side of his love of good beer. And the new social connections that novice beer makers find at retail beer brewing stores and local societies devoted to this hobby will help him become educated in the best way to make a truly fine beer at home.   Once that home brewing hobby takes off, the passion to make beer becomes more about improving the quality and taste of the beer he makes even more than just drinking a beer that you made yourself.  And that is a productive and creative way to approach his passion for beer.

 Along with the creative side of beer making, if you start to produce your own beer at home, there are some economic benefits.  Like everything else, beer prices are going up.  But the costs of making a batch of beer at home are phenomenally low if you break it down to a per glass cost.  Now there is equipment to buy up front.  But it’s a myth that getting set up for making beer at home costs an arm and a leg.  You don’t have to set up a brewery on the scale you may have seen when you toured the beer factory in St. Louis last summer.  There are beer kits that give you all of the basic equipment you will need and you can usually have a home beer production factory going at home for under $200.   And when you consider you can make many gallons of great tasting beer with that same set up, that’s a pretty smart investment.

 It’s not out of the question that if your beer loving guy develops his abilities as a Brewmeister, you may find a market to sell the beer he makes.  There are lots of brew pubs that specialize in quality home made beers.  So if he can develop a unique taste and recipe that can be replicated consistently, you may be able to bottle it and sell it at local pubs.  If that beer gets some popularity with the local beer drinking popularity, you may be able to make back your investment in equipment and supplies to make beer and even turn a nice profit from a great hobby.

 These are all good reasons for you to encourage that fascination with how to make beer at home in your loved one.  And if you jump in feet first and become a beer maker yourself, this new hobby can become a family affair and a wonderful way to share the fun together.  And who knows, you may even get to be a bit of a beer connoisseur yourself!

Home Brew Academy

 Home Brew Academy

A Brewing Society

One of the reasons the hobby of home brewing is so popular is that you are not just taking up a pastime, you are becoming part of a closely knit society of home brewing that has its own culture, language and social structure that is unique to brewers alone. 

Of course, the social aspect of drinking beer is well known.  The infrastructure of pubs and bars that offers to patrons a place of comfort, friendship, fun and relaxation is about a lot more than just tipping back a delicious drink,.  It is a part of our social fabric that goes back to revolutionary times when our most important documents were hashed out over a beer.  And the importance of sharing a beer is just as powerful today as we all enjoyed thinking about that bar where “everybody knows your name” called Cheers.

So just as the social aspect of enjoying a beer with others is strong and well entrenched in our culture, so too is the art of making beer a deeply rooted part of society that goes back generations.  That popularity has regular revivals and we are seeing a surge of interest in brewing today as all over the country brew pubs are springing up around delicious home grown beers that in many cases are far better than the mass produced beers that are heavily advertised during the Super Bowl.

This well developed and sophisticated brewing subculture not only will be of great help to you as you start to learn about becoming a home brewer yourself, it will become a society that is a lot of fun to be part of and where you may make friends for life as you share with others your love of making your own beer.  In America the grass roots level subculture of home brewing is growing fast.  This is no small concern to the big retail brewers who cannot possibly make the quality and rich kinds of beers that can be made at the local level.  But this is a natural evolution as we follow our cousins in the UK where keg beers made locally dominate the world of beer consumption in a culture where pubs are a central part of the fabric of society.

One reason home brewing has such an appeal is the tremendous diversity of beers you can produce and the control you have over flavor, consistency and alcohol levels.  In most cases, once you have your basic equipment for brewing beer, it is cheaper to make your own beer.  And there is something satisfying about brewing up a big batch of beer to put back to ferment as you enjoy a five gallon batch you made last month.  Beer brewers can become quite obsessed with flavor, color and “punch” and always be looking for new ways to become better at this fun and interesting hobby.

 Whatever level of involvement in beer making appeals to you, you can probably find new friends in the beer brewing society that you can share your hobby with.  There are beer brewing radio stations and ham radio channels devoted to helping amateur brewers share their secret recopies and solve each other’s problems.  And there are home made beer competitions that can really put some challenge that all on you to make that blue ribbon beer that rally makes the judges sit up and take notice.

 So as you find yourself getting more and more enthusiastic and “caught up” in the fun of home brewing, don’t be embarrassed by that because you can find a diverse assortment of other beer making enthusiasts to share your hobby with.  So have fun, make friends, make good beer and above all, share your beer and your knowledge with others.  Because beer is about more than good drink.   It’s about good times with good people as well.

Home Brew Academy

Home brewing is among the most thrilling past-times that more folks are engaging in today. It is a good way to produce something you can enjoy as you employ creativity and inspiration. For all people who are new to home brewing, it is vital for you to know what is needed to get started. More so, it’s critical to learn some of the major needs and you have to know about mandatory home brewing supplies. Brewing at home will require you to buy several home brewing supplies and this article will break down some of the most important items you need to get before you get started. This guide will help you achieve the tastes of beer you are looking for.

First, you will need resources that will guide you accordingly. This can include home brewing books and other items that will help you know the kind of home brewing supplies that will work well. Log on and obtain access to many books and get info that may sanction you with this regard. Home beer brewing supplies are many and for you to avoid being overwhelmed these guides will always help you find your way through to make excellent brews. Home brewing supplies will include lager kits, home breweries that are personalised and others. These are the major classes that you’re going to find and under them you’ll get to select the most acceptable gadgets.

Distillation supplies and alcohol flavorings will be among some of the top home brewing supplies you’ll need. For these products, go browsing and select systems which will please you. There are so very many types of home brewing supplies and this way, you can get to select the ones that will go well with your pocket. With regard to beer ingredients, you need to know exactly what you need and books will shed more light as you seek to achieve great tastes of beer in your home. There are different kinds of beer kits and you can look for those that will go well with what you have in mind.

The brewing kits are divided into assorted categories to lead you. You will start with kits that have basic home brewing supplies and equipment. This apparatus will be critical to generate results that you need. There also are home brewing supplies that will include intermediate kits and the like. Recipe kit will provide you with the overview you need to start creating the product. This kind of brewing has set deep roots in societies and beer lovers can personalize their beer experience this way.

When it comes to considering the recreation of producing beer in your very own home, it is important to take into consideration two needed components.  One of those factors is to make sure that the proper beer brewing equipment is purchased.

The other major factor to think about when going through this beer brewing procedure is to to follow explicitly the beer brewing instructions. The beer brewing instructions are located in several different places.  Generally, one method is to purchase a beer brewing system which often contains a booklet on explicit beer brewing instructions. Although, if one decides to buy the supplies one item at a time, the top method for acquiring beer brewing instructions is by looking online.

Purchasing a Beer Brewing Kit

There are several directions that a person can put together their beer brewing kit.   One of those ways is to purchase used equipment from an individual who possibly has stopped brewing beer home or may be has upgraded to a new system.

Usually buying second hand supplies is the simplest way to start the procedure of beer brewing and it is also the most cost effective method.  Also the possibility of buying a second hand beer brewing kit can the explored by visiting various garage sales or looking through classified ads.

One different avenue open for a person to buy a beer brewing kit is to go online and do a search for a beer brewing kit that contains all of the needed equipment and supplies to brew homemade beer.  A smart idea for someone is to use the internet to do a search of specific words or phrases through a search engine. These specific phrases should be beer brewing kit, beer brewing machine, equipment needed for brewing homemade beer, etc.  The results from these specific phrases will give the person access to several unique websites that offer these complete kits.

Acquiring Beer Brewing Instructions Online

Additionally, once the beer brewing equipment is purchased an individual is ready to proceed. The next thing you should do is to find a set of clear and accurate beer brewing instructions. Commonly, such brewing instructions are included in the guide that comes with a kit that you can buy which contains the needed equipment.

However, an individual may want to be adventuresome as well with their beer instructions and contemplate using a recipe for a unique or exotic beer. Often these different types of beer are called micro beer and formulate a different taste.

Three specific examples of different types of beer which are able to be manufactured in your home are bitter, cream or ginger beer.  The beer brewing instructions for each of these varieties can be located on the web. Yet another good place to check for unique beer brewing instructions is at a local beer brewers club or event.

Home brewing kits can basically help in a few alternative ways. For anyone who is interested in starting to make their own beer right at home, this is a great hobby to get into, but making sure to have all the right supplies and ingredients before getting started is really going to be implemental. Preparation is key here, otherwise there are bound to be slipups.

Choosing the best home beer brewing kits is going to be the first step, and there are a few different things that need to be taken into consideration when it comes to choosing the best home brewing kits. Of course price and items are the two most important factors to think about when trying to choose home brewing kits.

There are some home brewing kits that only come included with a few different pieces of equipment and supplies for brewing beer at home and then others that offer everything you need and more.

Irrespective of what you get in your kit, possibilities are that there are still going to be a couple of other things that you are going to need to supply yourself with before starting, including a no wash sanitizer, thermometer, stainless-steel spoons, and a recipe for beer . There are quite a few different types of beer that you could whip up at home, but draft beer is one of the most popular choices so if you are just getting started and are not sure, this is one that you will want to consider.

Of the various tips that one could find out about for brewing lager and which would be useful there are some besides on the right way to buy home brewing kits, that are vital to know. One is to always watch the brew. It’ll only take a matter of a few seconds often for a brew to bubble over, and then not merely will plenty of the batch be wasted but as well it will be quite the mess for you to be forced to clean up.

So long as you have got a quality brew kit you ought to be able to produce some fine tasting draft or other lager, and your pals and family will be particularly impressed. Before very long, your home will be more predominant than the local bar and you’ll be showing off your abilities to everybody. You can even actually bottle and sell your beer if this is what you are interested in and would like to do.