Home Brewing 101: FAQs

Four weeks ago I bottled a new batch of beer and set it out in the garden shed. I opened one today and it doesn’t taste right. What’s up?

The chances are that it’s nothing you’ve done in the brewing process. Remember, brewing is a temperamental process and the most likely reason for your beer not coming out right is that you moved it from somewhere warm to somewhere cold. It is probably that the yeast you used needs to be at brewing temperature – that is, in the same room where you are brewing – in order to carbonate your beer. Leave it in the brewing room for two weeks before moving it outside next time.

This is the first batch I’ve brewed and it actually tastes OK but … it’s a little watery. What does it sound like I did wrong?

Just one thing, and it’s easily remedied. What you need to do is use blended sugars – something more attuned to the brewing process. What you have described sounds to me a lot like you have used white sugars in the brewing process. What comes out of that normally tastes a bit like cider – as you say, it doesn’t taste horrible, it just doesn’t taste like beer.

My first brew is really cloudy, having been in the keg for three weeks. I would have expected it to be mostly, if not totally clear by now. What’s happened?

It sounds like you have done things pretty much right, but to avoid this happening you could try leaving it in the fermentation vessel for four or five more days next time.

Tags: Home Breewing Tips, Types of beer, fermentation vessel, white sugars, brewing temperature, home brewing

A False Economy?

There are some people who feel that their main push towards home brewing was the high prices charged for commercial beers in stores and bars. This is understandable, too. After all, the companies who produce the world’s most popular beers are making a huge profit because it doesn’t cost them anything like as much to produce a bottle of their product than it does for us to buy one. As an economic move, brewing your own beer can be a sensible step.

However, there are many people who will look at the amount of equipment they need in order to make a batch of beer and go off the idea immediately. It is a big outlay to start off with, and for the same price you could easily go into a store and buy several crates of beer. The question you need to ask yourself is: Am I committed enough to this to make it work – to the point where I will make enough beer to break even on the deal?

That may take some time, and when ingredients are taken into account you will not break even in the early months unless you are drinking so much of the home brewed beer that you would be in no fit state to operate the equipment. You will need to really be committed, and do this long term, to make it an economical move. Of course, you may not be doing this for economy. If you are just doing it for the enjoyment and the craft, then you are likely to stick with it for longer.

Tags: commercial beers, economical move, Home Breewing Tips, Types of beer, home brewing, home brewed beer

A Voyage Of Discovery

Brewing your own beer is something that takes time. If you are thirsty and want a beer, then the time is not right to start mixing ingredients and waiting for the mix to be ready. In fact, from start to finish, brewing a beer may take weeks. It is because of this long process that brewing beer is such a voyage of discovery.

The first time you brew a beer you should not diverge from the instructions given with the kit. You need to work to a recipe – home brewing is one of the most exact sciences there is – and to stick to that recipe come hell or high water. If you vary from the instructions for even one small part of the process, the results are going to be undrinkable.

You can make changes to the process, but only after you have brewed a batch that tastes right. It is only at this point that you can trace the process and recognize where there is room for something to be changed. It may be with the addition of more hops, with the substitution of some hops for another ingredient, or something so minor that it would seem irrelevant. One way or the other, it is important to know the process before you try to change it.

Once you know what you are doing, the world is your oyster. Home brewing is a popular hobby, to the extent where people will attend conventions and sell their own brews and equipment. You may find, if your home brew is good enough, that it is commercially viable to start selling it.

Tags: Home Breewing Tips, voyage of discovery, brews and equipment, home brewing, exact sciences, Beer styles

Home Brew vs Factory Brew – Whose Side Are You On?

There is an understandable assumption made by many people that the beers available in supermarkets and liquor stores were all brewed by factory workers employed by some faceless corporation. It’s natural to associate a big seller with a big producer. However, a lot of people would be surprised to see just how many of the beers sold commercially were actually produced in a setting not totally dissimilar to your own home brewing station. Some of the more diverse beers, especially, were produced by independent brewers.

Many of the Belgian beers available commercially – the bottled ones which are often flavored with ingredients such as raspberry – are actually made by Trappist monks. Yes, those guys who live their entire lives barely speaking a word are actually making beers that will make hundreds of other people very talkative. The cloistered nature of their living and working conditions means that they can keep their brewing secrets very secret indeed, and as a result their brews are among the most unique and interesting on the market.

This does not mean that your own brewing will necessarily be so unique. You can go conventional if you want. If you enjoy the taste of a commercial lager, it is not impossible to achieve it with home brewing. You just need to follow the right instructions and be prepared to experiment in getting it absolutely right. But if you’re that keen on getting the taste of a commercial lager then it might be better and more economical to just buy it. You can lose a lot of money chasing a specific taste.

Tags: home brewing, trappist monks, Home Breewing Tips, Beer in England, belgian beers, Beer in Belgium

The Advantages Of Brewing At Home

There is an impression in many people’s minds that factory conditions are necessary in order to make something as complicated as beer. It is true that brewing a beer is not like cooking a meal – the skills involved in both overlap, but there are plenty of people who can do either one of the above, but are useless at the other. But factory conditions are not necessary, and you can brew your own beer at home and produce something worth drinking. Indeed, some of the more critically acclaimed beers available commercially were brewed in something that equates to a garden shed.

The advantage that home brewing has over purchasing ready-made beer commercially is that you are not limited by the choice on the shelves in front of you. Do you want this batch to be just a little darker? Do you want to flavor the next one? What flavor – banana? Plum? Apricot? Once you have the equipment, the world of beers opens up in front of you and you can be as bold or as conservative as you like.

Home brewing is not easy, and the chances are that even with a lot of preparation your first batch will be pretty close to rancid. Don’t despair if that is the case, the chances are that one of the many steps involved went a little bit wrong somehow. Retrace your steps and see if there was something you forgot. Try and work out what you can do next time to make sure it is right. Be a little more ambitious every time and before long, you will be producing beer that is the equal of, and then better than, that sold in any bar.

Tags: Home Breewing Tips, home brewing, Hospitality Recreation, American-style lager, little bit, Food and drink