Brewing Your Own Beer Vs. Buying Your Own Beer

A month later and finally, I am able to pop the cap on a home brew and appreciate the splendid taste of success. And a success it was! Nearly 5-6 weeks ago I stumbled across a home brewing website (linked below) and discovered a new hobby. I had recently began farming my own vegetables and making my own condiments (i.e. mayonnaise and ketchup), so I decided to introduce home brewing. Why pay more money when I can indulge in my hobbies at home and save money!

So here I was, with a large shipment of supplies and an instructions manual. I researched home brewing on the net and found a variety of ways to brew; following a basic guideline of course. Since it was my first experience, I received the contents (i.e. grains, hops, etc.) already packaged. To start, you will need a home brewing kit, also available at the website below. I hear you can actually use many household components to brew, but I wanted to make sure I did it right. With the kit, I was to boil roughly 2 gallons of water with a few of the ingredients to create the wort, which is what your brew is initially called. After about an hour later, I made my first mistake. Apparently, before transferring your wort to a 5 gallon container you will need to cool your wort as quickly as possible. Although most of the websites I read mentioned that the best method is too put the container in a large bath of ice, I must've totally neglected the advice. Misinterpretation, instead, caused me to add the ice directly to the wort. I hear this is a no-no due to sanitary reasons; one being the bacteria in your freezer accumulating on your ice. Great! 2 seconds later, the kit included commentary immediately mentioned NOT to do this.

I decided to proceed with the process and figured that even if the brew did not turn out right, it was a first time experience that would remind me next time. Thus I began to add the yeast and pour the 2 gallons of wort into that 5 gallon container mixed with 3 more gallons of water. This is the primary fermentation cycle. Once you transport this to a desire location no more than 75 degrees Fahrenheit, you will insert the air lock so that the wort is free from oxygen. They say at this point your airlock with bubble; however, mine never did. Once again, I thought my wort was a failure. More research helped me discover that not all experiences are similar and that my concoction may still be ok. So once again, I proceeded.

2 weeks later I found myself siphoning the wort from the primary fermentor and into the secondary. The links below also explain the reason for this, though not all brewers do this step. There it would sit another week until siphoned into the bottling bucket. The only difference between the bottling bucket and the fermentors is that it has a quick release latch at the bottom to dispose of the liquid. With my sanitized bottles, caps, and bottle capper handy, I was once again transferring my brew into a different container. A very lengthy process, right? And all I wanted was an evening hobby, and to see how my brew turned out.

Fortunately, it was a success! After all failed attempts at quitting and to wave the white flag, I finished my first brew. A week after cooling in the bottles, I opened one for a drink, and can honestly say it tastes as if it was bought from a store. For those of you looking to engage in such a hobby, in the end it is definitely more cost-efficient that buying a 12 pack every week. Obviously my article lacked a lot of details in the brewing process and information as to why we progressed at that rate; which is why I provided you with a step by step process in the links below. If you enjoy this type of work, give it a shot!

Midwest: Home brewing and wine making supplies (2009). Retrieved Oct 23, 2009 from http://www.midwestsupplies.com/
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter1.html