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When it comes to beer, there's no lack of selection—despite Bud and Coors—for most beer-selling stores in the U.S. About 8.6 million barrels of craft beer were sold in 2008, and the number of artisanal beer suppliers in the U.S. is growing. With all this choice, you'd think fewer people would be brewing at home, right? Not exactly. Instead, the opposite seems to be trueestimates show that home brewing is on the rise in the U.S. And with good reason. DIY home brewing (after you get the equipment) is cheap. More than that, brewing your own is more satisfying than paying for another round. Next time you crack open a cold one—strained, heated and brewed by your own hand you'll understand. In this story, we walk through the steps to make a Belgian white ale. Ingredients and steps vary for different kinds of beer, but the basics are all here. Cheers.
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Signing UpStep 1Make the Starter Wort
This instructables was first published in Popular Mechanics.
Yeast is an essential part of the beer process. These fungi feast on sugars, making alcohol as they go. The more yeast cells at work, the better the job they do at making alcohol. In this first step of the beer-making process, the yeast cells get a head start, hungrily dividing and populating as they feast on dry malt extract.
Ingredients:
2 quarts water
6 ounces dry malt extract
1 package instant starter wort
First, heat the water and malt to a boil for 10 minutes and then cool to 60 degrees F. You can check the temperature with a thermometer or by rule of thumb (it should be about room temperature).
Sanitize the gallon container with a no-rinse sterilizer or by following the manufacturer's instructions. Then, pitch the yeast by tossing in around 33 billion yeast cells (numbers depend on your starter kit) into the 60-degree wort. Cover the starter wort and put aside. Make sure the container is not airtight (aluminum foil will do the job).
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Also I would like to see the price per bottle cited in this article, and a source for the "cheap" beer ingredients. I would like to see 20-30 cents per bottle as a goal.
Yes, I know it is "better" beer, but I want it cheap.
Terry.
If you buy an all-grain kit from the same source, it will cost $23, for $0.43/bottle. That's just over half the cost you cite for buying it.
If you follow this recipe, and buy your grains and other ingredients from Midwest, you'd pay $7.50 for 5 lb. of Pilsner malt, $5.50 for 5 lb. of pale wheat malt (and have half a pound left over), $1.25 for a pound of flaked oats, and $0.75 for the caramel malt. Total of $15 for the grain. Add another $2 for the hops and another $3 or so for yeast (depending on the exact variety, which I didn't see specified), and you're at $20 even plus a stick of cinnamon and a half teaspoon of ginger. That comes to $0.37/bottle.
Of course, if you buy in larger quantities (as you suggest), the price per bottle goes down--but even for a 5-gallon batch, it's quite a bit less than buying the beer pre-made, at least if you ignore your time and the cost of equipment.
Brewing requires malted grains, not just regular grains from the feedstore. I've heard of some feedstores being able to order malted barley from their suppliers, but very few if any carry it. Unless you're willing to buy more than 2000 lbs at a time, the cheapest you're going to find malted barley is about $30/ 50lb bag. Unless you live close enough to a malt distributor to be able to pick it up, the shipping costs can be a real killer. Some homebrewing clubs have enough members that they get low rates and cheap freight by buying full pallets of malt.
If you drink mass produced lagers, brewing your own beer won't save you any money. If you drink craft beers at $6-$10 per sixpack, or $3-$10 per 22oz bomber, then brewing could save you a little money. I buy my grains and hops in bulk, and re-pitch my yeast 7-8 times. Most of the beers I brew are higher gravity and highly hopped, so even buying in bulk it costs about $0.75 -$0.95 per 12 oz beer. The rare times I brew more standard beers, it runs about $0.55 per bottle. I really think that's close to as cheap as it gets for brewing at home. It also took me a long time and many batches before I found suppliers and developed a system that allows me to be this cost effective.
If cost is your main concern, the mass produced swill at your local liquor store is cheaper and much less work. The amazing beers and great fun to be had brewing at home are worth the cost and effort for me, but probably not for someone just looking to save some money.
and extands the life
One of my beers ferments for 1 week only and is bottled. It has a LOT of flavor and extending the life is no big deal around my house.
I do have other beers that will use a primary, secondary and a tertiary fermentation and will be in fermentors for up to 5 weeks and then many months aging.
HAPPY BREWWING EVERYBODY ITS FUN
I could probably just make one big batch until the "add hops" step.
Maybe it would be awful, maybe it would be really good. Who knows until you try!
A fermented beverage using all or mostly rice with no hops would be rice wine or Sake.
But if you're definition of beer is the Reinheitsgebot, then I suppose you're right.
Redbridge is amaranth and hops. Its gluten free because amaranth and hops don't have gluten, it's the wheat or barley that contain the gluten. I'd like to try fermenting a Sake like substance weather it's beer or not. Just because.
And, of course, wine is made with fruit.
I did this once for a school project, I got 99%
The author was talking about wit beer, not geuze. Something like "Hoegaarden Wit", where they add coriander and bitter orange peels.
It is fermented with yeast in large amounts and later a lactobacter culture is added. This gives it the refreshing sourness. "Berliner Weisse" is fermented the same way.
Geuze is a blend of lambic beers in different states of maturation.
And you are right, the lambics are fermented with natural airborne yeast / bacteria in the Senne valley near Brussels. (I wouldn't try this at home, except i'd live there.)
I have brewed some 400 batches (50l / 15gal) in the last 10 years. All made with yeast, like the author suggests. (We are using dry yeasts for some beers with very good results, but the selection is much smaller.)
Thank you for your hard work showing people that appreciate your work how to brew beer. I have been considering it for my husband.
Take care and again, thank you!
Just an FYI, it's illegal to copy it over, even though you gave credit.
L