Saturday, May 16, 2009

The Perfect Home Brewing Setup

Have you ever seen the inside of a commercial brewery or distillery? Or maybe there's a microbrew near your home that you enjoy dropping in on, watching them make what will be next week's product.

Have you noticed how huge the equipment is, and how complicated it all looks? Vats hooked up to pressurized nozzles and rubber tubing going everywhere. Dials, switches, computers, all of these elements can be very overwhelming.

Which may be a reason why some people shy away from home brewing. They look at all those pieces of equipment in that brewery and think that there's no way they could ever understand all of those things, or fit them into their house.

In truth, the equipment you need for home brewing is no where near that complicated, or that large. Never compare the process you'll follow at home with the one you see in these commercial breweries.

For your homemade beer, the equipment is actually very simple and basic. You'll need a large pot or kettle in which to boil your liquid that will eventually turn into beer. You may actually already have one of these in your kitchen, but they are readily available at not only homebrew suppliers but virtually any retailer.

The grains you steep in this liquid need to be held in a mesh bag; this is something like a tea bag that holds tea leaves when you make tea. These mesh bags are very inexpensive and also available at homebrew suppliers. Once you're done preparing the liquid, it sits in large pails with airtight lids so that it can ferment.

You want to use food-grade pails for these, but they're also very inexpensive, and you'll need two since you eventually transfer the liquid from one to another. A device called an airlock fits onto the pail; this keeps air out of the mixture while it ferments. You test your liquid to see if it's turned into alcohol with a food thermometer and a little instrument called a hydrometer, which looks like a thermometer.

And that's it! The only other pieces of equipment you'll need are bottles in which to store your finished beer. A couple of pails, a big boiling pot, and a few small instruments that can fit into a kitchen drawer, and you're all set.

Home brewing is not complicated, it's not expensive, and it doesn't take up more than a few square feet of room in a basement or corner of the kitchen. So don't be overwhelmed, regardless of what you've seen at those big commercial breweries. Homemade beer can be produced by virtually anyone; it's affordable and simple to do. So why not get started with it today?

Obviously the best way to get started is with a copy of:

www.BetterYourBrewing.com

No comments:

Post a Comment