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Do You Homebrew? 84

Posted by Cliff from the Alcohol-Lover's-Experiences dept.
Fiscus asks: "Alcohol is a part of most peoples lives, and I'm sure many Slashdot readers rely on a couple of 'cleansing ales' as the week draws to an end. While most of us drink alcohol, not many decide to start brewing their own - now is your chance! And if you already homebrew, a new forum has been setup to speak with fellow brewers. Homebrewing can open up a whole variety of benefits; brew your favourite beer, experiment, make rocket fuel, as well as impressing friends. The new forum, is Australian based, however everyone is welcome and I would love to see some Slashdot readers down there sharing advise/tips/recipes for the christmas homebrewing season! Happy Homebrewing!"
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Do You Homebrew? More

Do You Homebrew?

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  • pay someone to do it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fonebone ( 192290 ) <jessephrenic@n i n j a g u y . o rg> on Monday December 09, 2002 @05:13AM (#4842712) Homepage
    my housemates tried to make 2 different batches of beer a few years ago, but both times it just didn't turn out good whatsoever. it was theoretically drinkable, or, as our friend put it, 'fit for the funnel'. terrible stuff.

    depending on the laws in your area, there might be places where you can pay someone to brew the beer for you, so you still get it cheap, but without the work.

    just an idea..

    • Re:pay someone to do it (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 216pi ( 461752 )
      So, I brewed now several times. yes the first one was too bitter and the second one had no carbonic adcid.

      But since 80 or 90 liters (we brew every weekend 10 litres, enough for a week). it gets better and better. And that is what I like on brewing myself: You like it sweeter? Make it sweeter. less bitter: just chenge it.

      It's in your hands, brew the perfect beer.

      P.S.: I live in Germany. Here you get the most ingerdients for free from the next brewery.
      • we brew every weekend 10 litres, enough for a week. it gets better and better.

        Or could it be that you're just getting used to the (bad) taste? It wouldn't be unheard of... [guinness.com]

        • I think they called it an "acquired" taste :-)

          I do like Guinness BTW!
        • I thought getting used to the bad taste was the whole point of drinking beer? I have yet to taste a beer that didn't taste like piss...
        • Enough of the Guinness bashing. Contrary to most of my peers - it was Guinness and not lager that introduced me to the delights of beer.

          I found lagers and pilsners too wishy washy and flowery. Give me a Guinness or some other Stouter beer and I have something to chew on. Much better.

          Then coming down from the Guinness you can appreciate the french 'brun' beers, and then their sister 'blanc's which are normally pretty much just lagers with a foamier head and a less chemical taste.

          Gotta love the Guinness tho. Or Gillespies - have a pint or three of that if you get the chance.
          • Some people find Guinness WAY too bitter, even if they like darker (Stouts/porters) beers. (I'm one of these people) - My favorite beers are all stouts and porters, but I can't stand Guinness. It's just not that good of a stout...
            • Where have you drunk it? I'm no beer snob, but there are about 3 places in Scotland and a fair number in Ireland that do good Guinness. Nowhere in England that I've found.
              Everywhere else does it, but its harsh, edgy stuff with none of the silkiness of proper Guinness.
              Guess it doesn't travel too well. But seriously, a good pint of Guinness is a different thing altogether.

    • Re:pay someone to do it (Score:4, Informative)

      by k_187 ( 61692 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @07:33AM (#4842979) Journal
      I'd imagine that getting it cheap isn't the point. Although I suppose that it would be cheaper to get good beer for less money by making it yourself. I have a friend that makes his own and its not bad, at least as good as "good" domestic (US). As for the places to make it for you, they're called microbreweries and are a god-send for those of us that just like beer.

      Damn it I'm making myself thirsty. Time for a Natty Ice run methinks.
    • Since we're doing ads, I have a forum that's dying for participation:

      Brew-Masters.com [brew-masters.com]

      Thanks, slashdot. Next time, I'll post my free ad request as 'news' since the news I submit never gets posted.

  • Under age (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Im under age, you insenitive clod.

    • Re:Under age (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Im under age, you insenitive clod.

      What does that have to do with drinking alcohol?

    • I thought age had to do with buying beer, not drinking it... or brewing, for that matter.

      Hmm.

      --
      I Guess, in the US you need to be 21 to drink shitish beer while you're allowed to cause car accidents from early adolesence.
    • Yea, I'm underage and in the US and brewing beer. Homebrew is best. Parents seem to enjoy it too.
    • that reminds me of a funny, -1 Offtopic story...

      I was working as a "roadie" at a Kenny Rogers concert one time, at a local college [sbu.edu], when I was a senior in high school. As it got to be around 2am on a school night, I began to grow tired of lifting 500# speakers into the back of a semi. A couple of my friends and I would chant "BEER!" as we lifted heavy stuff. We were chatting with some of the college kids about how refreshing a beer would be. When this one kid said he didn't drink beer, I just said "oh yeah?", expecting to hear that he comes from a family of alcoholics/was a recovering alcoholic/has no liver/has no kidneys/is allergic to hops, or some valid excuse as to why he did not drink beer. Instead, he only answered with "Well, I'm not 21 yet!"

      We had a good laugh at the poor soul's expense.

      The moral of the story is that you don't have to be of age to drink. Drinking underage is a crime not unlike speeding, very few people give a shit if you break the law as long as you aren't excessive about it. ...and yes, we did get to hear "The Gambler".
      • I'd say drinking underage is even less of a crime -- in the moral sense -- than speeding. Speed limits may be set arbitrarily, but to a certain degree there's at least a reason for them: driving too fast really can kill other people. But a 19-year-old, say, who wants a beer is perfectly competent to decide to have one. Hell, if he wants ten beers, he should be able to do so, even if it's a stupid idea -- as long as he doesn't do anything stupid (e.g. drive while shitfaced) and harm anyone else in the process.

        I'm not at all convinced there should be drinking age laws at all. But if there are to be such laws, then 21 is absurdly high. Drinking at 18-20 is almost an act of civil disobedience.
    • So you can't buy beer but what's stopping you from buying the ingredients? Sounds like homebrewing may be the way to go for you.
  • Beer is an Aussie thing. The Powerhouse Museum [phm.gov.au] (Sydney, Australia) has had a game in one of it's many discrete corners where you must successfully brew a batch of beer. At the end of the game, if you got the mix correct, the guy swallows your drink and says "Well done son!" (or something similar :)), or he spits it out and tells you you screwed up!

    Anyway, from the age of 6 I've been a few times and my dad was the first to show me how to get the ingredients in the recipe correct. Beer is made and drunk all around the world, but it is such an integral part of aussie culture. I love it here.

  • Sure I do (Score:5, Interesting)

    by heikkile ( 111814 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @06:40AM (#4842885)
    Been brewing about a year now, some 20 batches. Some have turned out quite well, some I have dumped straight in the drain.

    There are only a few things that can go wrong. Infections, which can be avoided by keeping things clean and sanitizing everything; and exploding bottles, which can be avoided by long enough fermentation (or by kegging the stuff).

    As to economy, it is pretty hard to compete with the cheapest commercial breweries (at least here in Denmark), but who wants to make that kind of stuff anyway. Making good quality beer is certanly cheaper than buying the imported stuff. And most of all, you get to choose what kind of beer you want to have, down to the last detail. There is lots of room for tweaking and hacking...

    • I've been brewing for years now and have only had one batch go bad. This happened when the kids (or dog?) knocked the airlock off my fermenter and I didn't notice it for a few days because we went out of town. That batch was poison. Everything else has been creamy smooth. What a great hobby. Just be reasonably careful about sanitization and home-brewing is a breeze.

      One of my favorite brews is Mead. 16% alchohol - four beers in one! This is great if you have a wife who counts the empty bottles on the counter like mine. Yup, honey, just had one tonight [hic].

      The holy grail of homebrewing is having your own keg system. This cuts the time down per batch from 6 hours to about 4 1/2. I have "black and tan" on tap for my poker nights. Wheel that puppy right up to the table. Now if I put a piss bucket under the table nobody ever has to get up.

  • Since this is ask Slashdot, just what is your question?

    No I mean it, what is the question that warrants this being on ask Slashdot?

    Have the editors given up entirely on even trying to make ads blend in with the stories now?


  • At least try to mix computers, algos and empty casings with your stuff to make it sound like it.
    • "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters."

      well, to pick nits, it's "nerd" not "geek" but beside the point, it doesn't say "computer nerd" does it? just because it doesn't fit into your small definition of "interesting" doesn't mean that someone else is very interested in it.

      I've spend a couple of years in rec.crafts.homebrewing, and the majority of people there are very much involved in the computer industry, from research scientists to software engineers, but the majority seem to be old style UNIX folks. You know, the kind that grok *NIX with the best of them, but also do other things, like work on cars, bikes, and can actually string a few words together on topics other than AMD's latest processor or Intel's chipset pipeline.

      *guh*

      • Hmm.. And I thought programming for Plan9 and playing aalib Quake on a remote terminal qualifies me as an Ubergeek. Seems like I'm learning something new everyday. Now I'll have to start making beer and drink it too.

        Darn peer pressure.

  • hmm (Score:2)

    by Hadlock ( 143607 )
    i was researching distilling my own whiskey. it doesn't look too hard. it won't taste great, but supposedly a crockpot w/holein lid, copper pipe, and recepticle makes a cheap still, especially if you get it at goodwill. distilling your own liquor is illegal in the US, as we tax the hell out of it, or at least used to. i'm under 21 and don't check the local prices of liquor that often.

    why is it that stills in the old days used to blow up? you see this happen in an episode of the simpsons, but they don't explain why. otherwise i'd have set up my own distillery in my dorm by now...

    • Re:hmm (Score:2, Informative)

      by Atrahasis ( 556602 )
      why is it that stills in the old days used to blow up?

      Distillation is the process of evaporating alcohol off from beer - alcohol vapour flying around heating apparatus isn;t a good thing. Its like boiling a pan of petrol on a gas stove.

    • why is it that stills in the old days used to blow up?

      They still do. You know how a still works: It heats the alcohol to a point where it evaporates (but water does not), collects the vapors, and condenses them back to liquid. Now alcohol is a pretty well flammable liquid, and alcohol vapors mixed with suitable amount of air are downright explosive. If your still is badly constructed (as many are), and run in a place without much ventilation, you risk leaking vapors into the room. Add a spark or a small flame and you have an instant demonstration of the workings of a fuel-air bomb.

      Kids, don't try this at home. Or if you do, at least know what you are dealing with!!!

    • well, to distill your boiling the mash in a conical container to steam off the alcohol into to tubes to condense and collect the straight alcohol. If the small tube gets blocked somehow, pressure builds and the still blows up.

      you do have to be careful to make sure that you do it right and make sure you get the fusel alcohol and other impurities out before you drink it, as the products of your still could make you quite sick all the way up to blinding or killing you. I think this may have a little to do with distilling being illegal in the US. A bad beer might make you ill, but it couldn't make you blind or kill you.

      There is plenty of information online about building and operating a functional still, as doing so is not illegal in some countries. I didn't say legal, because they might not have laws on the books saying it is legal, they just don't have laws saying it is illegal. "The Alaskan Bootlegger's Bible" is a good book if your looking for information on the process.
      • In the US, I know that farmers and other industrial users can get permits for stills at a nominal fee (I think its around USD 20, and the price becomes competitive with gasoline at around USD 1.50 per gallon or so) to distill fuels. However, the production of spirits for consumption is highly regulated and taxed.

  • Try it - Don't worry (Score:5, Informative)

    by dgb2n ( 85206 ) <dgb2n@yTWAINahoo.com minus author> on Monday December 09, 2002 @08:36AM (#4843084)
    I've been homebrewing for nearly 10 years now. Although the homebrewing fad has passed, there's still some folks out there seriously dedicated to the art.

    rec.crafts.homebrewing is a great place to visit to ask questions once you've got the basics down. Brewing beer is not really all that complicated with the quality ingredients available today.

    A few tips:

    1. Sanitize - You must sterilize anything that touches the beer after its done boiling. Don't go crazy on this just wash your hands and arms and keep some weak bleach solution handy.

    2. Ferment Cool - For ales, anything over 68-70F is too warm. Basements work great for this and constant temperatures are important.

    3. Don't Worry - 9 times out of 10, whatever you're worrying about won't affect your beer.

    4. Wait - Homebrew less than 1-2 months old is almost never (some styles excepted) as tasty as it will be later.

    5. Moderate - Both in recipe's and drinking. If you're shooting for a high alchohol beer to get you drunk faster, it will probably be nasty. Same goes for hops. Keep it in the moderate range (20-35 HBU's for your first beer)

    Get some good equipment and try it. If you're spending $200 on a video card, you can afford $150 on a good setup that includes a wort chiller and a nice big pot to boil.

    You'll never want to go back to commercial brew again (those living in many places in Europe can ignore the last sentence).
    • Just finished bottling my fifth ginger-beer. The first ones were by the book (stuff from the supermarket), were a bit weak on flavour and kick, boiled some ginger, added some honey, b'yerdiful. Moved house during one brew and bottled nearly two weeks after they say you should. Had crusty stuff on top but it smelled good (what am i gonna' do, throw it without even trying?). 'Twas magnificent. Only three tips i can think of (if a noobee can give tips):- 1. forget the hydrometer, i'm sure they didn't have them 5000 years ago. Just make sure the bubbling stops to the point the air-lock levels out, then wait a coupla'days b4 u bottle; 2. don't panic if you don't bottle straight away - it doesn't seem to matter much so long as everything was sterilised; 3. don't be put-off by foul taste when you bottle - give it at least a month. And twenty dollars for a brew sounds purty good when in Oz 30 bottles would cost at least sixty bucks. Like the man said "Try it - Don't worry"

  • HomeBrew Digest (Score:5, Informative)

    by gizmo_mathboy ( 43426 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @09:19AM (#4843184)
    A long running forum is The HomeBrew Digest [hbd.org]. There's only about 14 years worth in the archives.

    You may also want to try: nntp://rec.crafts.brewing
    It's been awhile since I read that newsgroup but it was also useful for me.

  • Beer vs. Computers (Score:4, Interesting)

    by north.coaster ( 136450 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @09:50AM (#4843281) Homepage

    I have been brewing my own beer for close to 20 years, and I'm a computer geek, so I feel qualified to comment on this thread.

    There are a lot of similarities between DIY beer and DIY computers. Making beer offers many opportunities for fabricating equipment (to enable more advanced brewing methods), writing software (to help calculate recipies), surfing the 'net (for recipies, supplies, advice, etc), and the list goes. And as with Linux, there's a single individual (Charlie Papazian) who is very influencial in shaping the direction of the field.

    The Internet and it's predecessors have played an important role in the homebrewing community. As other posts have mentioned, the Homebrew Digest [hbd.org] and rec.crafts.brewing [nttp] are two long running forums for discussing homebrewing information. It's neat that several important advances in homebrewing (and commercial brewing) were first introduced, and refined, through discussions on these two forums. Beer making is definitely a field, like computers, where the home experimenter can make a difference.

    I should also put in a plug for the American Homebrewers Association [beertown.org], which dispite it's name it a worldwide organization that promotes homebrewing.

    Relax, don't worry, and have a homebrew!

  • Try mead too (Score:4, Interesting)

    by arkham6 ( 24514 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @09:53AM (#4843290)
    For the first timer, even beer can be a little complex. However, there is nothing more simple than mead.

    Take 17 gallons of honey, toss it into a carboy. Add water to fill up carboy to neck. Add wine or sherry yeast. Come back in a year.

    Its almost that simple. Ok, you could boil the mixture if you wanted, that tends to make it smoother and clearer faster. And add fruits or spices if you desire. And of course rack it every few months. But other than that...

    Btw, for those of you who like to read the manual for these sort of things before diving into it, I cannot recomend enough Charles Papazian's great book 'The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing'. It probably is one of the most important books that started the recent fad, and its well worth getting.
    • WHOA!!!! I think you might have hit the post button too fast! 17 gallons of honey is an outragous amount! I think you might have meant 17 pounds (even that is quite a lot for a 5 gallon batch) That being said, brewing mead is a great hobby, and having brewed beer for 5 years, I think I'm qualified to comment. Mead is easy to brew, often easier than beer. The original poster is basically correct. The steps are basically that simple 1. carefully sterilize your equipment 2. boil (7-15 lbs.) of honey and any fruits-spices you wish to add. 3. Ferment in primary fermeter for around 2 weeks. 4 Siphon to secondary fermenter, leaving spent yeast behind. 5. Wait (paitence is a virute, mead often takes up to a year to finish, unlike beer) 6. Bottle and enjoy while not worring! When brewed right, mead is a wonderfully refreshing beverage. I prefer mine dryer as apposed to sweeter, it tastes more like an alcoholic ginger ale than anything else. I just sampled my version of Barkshark Gingermead yesterday to test it's progress. I can hardly wait until it is done, it was fantastic!!!
      • Yeah, sorry. I ment pounds, not gallons. Thats what happens when you post to slashdot without your morning coffee.

        Generaly though, i perfer 17 pounds of honey in my meads, for a semi sweet drink. Anything after 15 pounds the yeast cannot ferment (they die in the alcohol), leaving a sweet, but not overpowerful taste. I would not go over 17 pounds, since that makes it very sweet. Personaly, for me, semi sweet is good enough, and the ladies love it.

        And if you want to be very out there, try using maple syrup instead of honey. I had it once and found it to be odd, but very good.

    • Re:Try mead too (Score:2, Informative)

      by Ob the Rat ( 32737 )
      However, there is nothing more simple than mead.

      How true. I just bottled a batch yesterday. Put 7 quarts (about) of honey into 5 gallons of water 6 or 7 months ago. Added some "yeast food", and waited. No boiling, no racking, no nothing.

      It doesn't get much easier than that.

      --Probably shouldn't have added the yeast food though. It's a bit drier than my wife likes (~13%). Mixed with some Jagermeister or some cranberry juice, it's really good though.

  • Do it! (Score:2, Informative)

    by Andy Dodd ( 701 )
    First, I wonder why this is in "Ask Slashdot" - It's more of an announcement, it belongs in the general category (heck, belongs front-page). Still, I'm glad it made it to Slashdot in whatever form. :)

    So far, I've brewed one very small (1 gallon) and one "normal" 5 gallon homebrew batch.

    I got lucky - Both batches are drinkable. Not the best, but drinkable, and I know exactly how to fix the problems. (Too much priming sugar in the second batch, it's overcarbonated, tastes much better if you let it sit for a while and lose some of the excess carbonation. Yes, I've had 1-2 bottles go boom in storage.) Both batches were primarily fermented with bakers' yeast, which is normally a no-no, but the kits I made these with weren't exactly fresh...

    That said - If at first you don't succeed, try and try again. Most people consider it to be extremely good luck if your first 1-2 batches are drinkable, but you learn from your mistakes. I fully intend to brew myself a weizen of some form when I finish drinking through my current batch. (I'm not a big drinker, so a batch of 48 bottles lasts quite some time)

    The process can be fun, and it's very rewarding when you get something drinkable, and after a few tries, better than what you can buy in the store. (Even my "weird" batch is still far better than the likes of Coors, Bud, etc.)

    Economy-wise - You will probably save money, as long as you don't compare prices to the economy beers like Coors, Bud, etc. You might be spending a bit more, but after a few tries, there is no comparison as far as quality - Homebrew is much better. (Competing with microbreweries is a different story - Most of them are VERY skilled, but they also tend to be quite expensive.)

  • Yes I do. (Score:4, Informative)

    by whipping_post ( 521700 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @10:03AM (#4843343) Homepage
    I have been brewing on and off for about 6 years. I have probably brewed close to 150 gallons of beer during that time.... And I have never once had to put batch down the drain.

    The beers I have made that I didn't LOVE were due to experimentation. I brewed a dead-on Hefeweizen that I couldn't stand. I ended up giving it all away to Hefeweizen lovers who all told me how great it was. Turns out I don't like any wheat beers. Another I made that was questionable was a very high-alcohol Russian Imperial Stout. Each bottle had a 1/3 lb of malt in it, it tasted like licorice and coffee but was very drinkable after it had aged. Most people did not like this beer however.

    The biggest piece of advice I can give you is to get a good homebrew shop and be very loyal to them. Take their advice and ask them questions. If you are in the U.S., in the northeast there is a great shop in Monroe Connecticut called Maltose Express [maltose.com]. They have never once steered me wrong... no I am not an employee, just a gracious customer of many years.

    Which brings me to another point. The beer you make will only be as good as the recipe you use. DO NOT use the recipes off of the can of malt extract, if you do, I can guarantee that your beer will suck. Do not use recipes off the internet unless you validate them with an experienced brewer. Your best bet for recipes is a quality recipe book (Try Clonebrews or Beer Captured by Mark and Tess Szamatulski, owners of Maltose Express) or your homebrew shop.

    As far as process goes:

    Use liquid yeast, either Wyest smack packs or tube yeast, or yeast you cultivate yourself. Those packets of dry yeast are very hit-or-miss. Your beer is only as good as the quality of your yeast.

    Be paranoid about sanitation. Get a quality chemical sanitizer (I currently use C-brite but there are others) and use that on anything that the beer will touch once, tools, hoses, containers, bottles, etc.

    Use a two-step fermentation. Your primary fermentation will be VERY active over the first four to seven days. Once the majority of the yeast have settled out of the beer, rack it to a secondary fermenter, and complete the fermentation there. Getting the beer off of the 1-2" of yeast that will cake up of the bottom of the primary will give your beer a cleaner taste.

    If you are bottling your beer (as opposed to kegging it), use malt as priming sugar instead of Corn sugar. It will take a little longer to condition, but I find that, depending on the style, malt will usually give a better head to your beer.

    Enjoy!

  • ..for doing alco @ home.

    first of all, i do this because it's cheaper than buying vodka, rum or whiskey. i live in finland so a 0.7l whiskey bottle is easily 26-30$(scotch blended).

    however a nice batch of homewine(that produces about 17liters of drinkable wine) costs about 20$.

    that whiskey bottle lasts for 1 night of partying, whilst that wine lasts couple of days more. this is a serious issue during finnish univ. student partying season, around first of may.

    why i prefer 'quick' (2 or 7 days versions(!)) of home wine? it's _easier_ to get it right, to get a nice alcohol % (~13% usually) and to get it taste drinkable too. and it's quite fun too.(if you think it's impossible to make 13% wine in 2 days, do some research)
    • Details, details.... Please tell us in detail how this is done.... I personally have a great desire to do this, but I would like to hear from an expert rather than look it up and get (possibly bad) information off the net.
      • well, here, you walk into a winebrewing shop and tell the clerk what you desire, and he'll sell you the stuff you need, usually what you need is a either a brewing bottle/plastic barrel(which, is a one time cost of course), some sugar(about ~5.5kg for ~20liters, depending on how strong wine one wishes) and a 'wine box'(or, you can buy the yest and other stuff seperately, but usually there's no point, especially when doing wine, unless one has harvested own berries/something, it's harder to make from them though)

        the quick type of wines are reaaaally simple to do if one does just RTFM(1 page). basically you boil the ingredients(that are for taste) for a while, put them into the barrel, boil some water and mix sugar into it and pour that into the barrel too, add water so that the barrel is full(20l) and the right temperature, then you add couple of bags of enzymes/some other chemicals, in right order(this is the hardest part, the 2d/7d wines skip a bit of the natural process)

        then the bubbling starts and you wait for 2d/7d for the bubbling to stop, it's important to let it use up all the sugar, after that you add the clearing chems(if you leave sugar in it wont get clear, and will look bad/taste bad, sweetening should be done afterwards) after few more phases(taking couple of hours, removing co2 & etc) it's ready to be bottled & drinked. best to bottle it in glass bottles for about a week though, and pour to a glass for drinking if you want to be stylish, one way to improve the taste when drinkin without keeping it in bottle for about a week is to shake it strongly during drinkin, as there still will be lots of co2 in it.

        i've done 30 day homewine too but it didnt turn out as good, and took too long for my impatient mind :). however the timing doesnt have to be as precise in 30d wines as in 2d/7d.
        (oh yeah, about the absolute maximum % is around 15-16%, but i just put enough sugar for ~13-14% because that's an easy way to screw up too, by putting too much sugar)

        the same shops sell ingredients for homebrewn beer, cider & other stuff, no moonshine equipment though(distilling alcohol is illeagal for private people in finland).

        most bigger supermarkets around here carry equipment/ingredients too, but special shops are better because if something goes wrong you can go ask them for help, as it sometimes possible to rescue a batch gone bad(if the process didnt start for example, then there's 'kickstarter'packs).

        overall, it's pretty easy if one can follow instructions. i do it about twice a year or so and cover my costs through friends.
  • Maybe I'm just showing my age, but when I see the word "homebrew" on what's mostly a computer-hobbyist site, I think homebrew electronics and stuff, you know, like building radios and oscillators and things with blinky lights (cf. old Heathkit catalogs, the 1970s Homebrew Computer Club et al). Instead it's just someone looking for beermaking pen-pals.
  • Are Slashdotters becoming Civilized? [google.com] Beer is after all the root of civilization.
  • Since we're doing ads, I have a forum that's dying for participation:

    Brew-Masters.com [brew-masters.com]

    Thanks, slashdot. Next time, I'll post my free ad request as 'news' since the news I submit never gets posted.
  • Your too uptight. kick back and have decent micro brew before posting your "this isn't /. material" drivel

  • Hard Cider (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's not beer, but immigrant settlers of the old west would plant apple trees everywhere both as food and drink. They would also put fermented cider outside in winter and take off the ice that formed on top leaving a very hard drink. See last (before last?) month's Smithsonian magazine.
    • It's called 'applejack' apparently.

      The French have an alternative called Calvados, which is made by mixing horse urine with cider and then cracking it in a still.
  • My best friend and I have almost 40 batches under our belts. (pun intended) We've made some memorably great batches and some memorably aweful batches. Mostly we've had luck with stouts. Very easy and hearty. Easy to make with simple equipment and tough to screw up. We've had bad luck with fruit. One blueberry batch went so wrong we could launch the caps off the bottles 50 feet (that's a lot of pressure.) We've made Lagers (mostly when I had a bachelors refridgerator.) We even brewed a batch to rescue a misbatch by making black-n-tans.

    We've had batches we didn't particularly care for and couldn't rescue so I built a still to harvest the EtOH. Just as a proof of concept mind you. Although I don't see why the BATF fusses with moonshiners. I know a bunch of hillbillies went blind. Actually I had access to GC/MS and found the methanol content to be trace at most. In fact I found more methanol in diet soda.

    My favorite? I think it was the batch of Mead that took a year to ferment. So much time to allow things to go wrong but turned out perfect.

  • OT - In college... (Score:3, Funny)

    by cafebabe ( 151509 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @01:04PM (#4844532)
    When I was in college, some guys tried to brew a vat of beer in our common area. The RA confiscated it and then wrote them up. I'll never forget -- one of the guys was stoned and all he had to say was "Duuude. This is so weak. We're getting busted for intent to ferment."
    • Also, for me, in college, I knew two groups of people that tried to make their own cider. One guy had his explode, spraying apple chunks all over his apartment. The other batch din't blow up, and I got to drink some. It tasted ok, but I felt very strange the rest of the night... I wonder what was in it?

  • Homebrewing resources. (Score:3)

    by TheAwfulTruth ( 325623 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @02:22PM (#4845100) Homepage
    For those of us in the US...

    Homebrewing is a major hobby. There are thousands of home brewing clubs around the nation. It's legal in most (but not all) states.

    My friend and I have done about 35 5 gallon batches and 6 or so 15 gallon batches. About 90% "successful" about 5% dissapointing and tha couple that were hard to drink, but we did anyway. You cannot "save money" by brewing at home if a buzz is all you're looking for, but you can make great beer for less than buying quality beer at the store if an appretiation for the beverage itself is your goal.

    I was going to post some links to the American Homebrewer Association and others places here in a truly karma whoring way, but a simpler way of getting information is to just type "Homebrew" into google. You'll get thousands of hits. Homebrewing is one of those huge subcultures that no one knows exists.

    If you are interested, find a brewstore or a brewclub in your area and check it out. Like all hobbies, prepare to start small and cheap, but have your expenses grow as you get into it :)

  • wine (Score:4, Informative)

    by SKicker ( 27704 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @04:18PM (#4846079)
    Yep i brew beer my top tips would be:

    - sterilise everything with gusto (or sterilising power)
    - after about a weeks fermentation (when its stopped bubbling) syphon it into a barrel and leave it there for at least a month. it will taste much better than the 2 weeks it usually says on the tin.
    - a couple of days before you crack it open make sure its where it needs to be for the drinking thereof and let some of the gas out (unless you are brewing lager - yuck). This preparation ensures the sediment has settled after transit from the shed (and the gas expulsion), and it hasnt got a head the size of Belgium.

    I also make wine.

    'But wine is less macho.'
    'Aha, but its completely free.'
    'Free, you say? Explain.'

    Well, at the moment im brewing a blended wine of blackberry and elderberry (the British grape). I picked them from the side of the road over a warm summers weekend during a pleasant bike ride. It has cost me a packet of yeast (40p) and a bag of sugar (69p). I reckon ive got about 8 bottles (i got tired of picking).

    Hurray for alcohol, bringer of blissfull inattention
  • and it turned out pretty damn good. not perfect, but highly drinkable and super hoppy. yum.

    i highly recommend it as a hobby-- there is something very rewarding about drinking beer you created, and the great thing about the hobby is that for n00bs its a relatively simple operation, but for those really into it, it gets rather technical and involved.

    beer is good. homebrew is better.

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