unm1136
WKR
Anyone else here homebrew?
I started about 20 years ago in college. I was too young to buy beer, but I could buy the ingredients for it and was patient, so I started making it. I made two extract batches, before jumping into all grain. I would set aside a bit of each financial aid check to buy equipment that was pricey, but most of it was creatively appropriated. When my eldest daughter was born my wife and I brewed a batch of beer and bottled it, and she labeled the beer with labels colored with crayons, with the baby's name, sex, weight, and length, and we passed those out instead of cigars.
I have gotten away from brewing lately, due to space issues. I have a family of five in less than 1600 square feet, and all of us are notorious packrats. You don't need a lot of space, but when you are buying gadgets and kettles, and kegs, and the like, you start to run out of room. I knew we found the right chuch when the pastor had a self depricating sense of humor, and announced that he would rather make beer than drink it. I later learned that he is a published author and authority on the subject (those you who already brew, he will have an article in next month's Zymergy), and when he was burned out preaching he took a sabbatical and opened a brewery, whose beer I used to purchase and enjoy. For less than $150.00 you can get started, and it takes a 3-4 weeks per batch. The only good thing President Carter did was legalize homebrewing, and it is perfectly legal for one to make 250 gallons a year of beer or wine (distilling is regulated by the BATFE) per year per adult over the age of 21 in the household. Like everything else there is a learning curve, but for the cost of a case of keystone I can make 2.5 cases of really good beer. I am so lazy that I got into kegging early on, and no longer have to wash and fill bottles. Like all my other hobbies if you are a gear queer, it can get expensive, but like all those hobbies it is relatively cheap and easy to get started.
Next spring my wife has agreed to get me a huge shed for the back yard. I will be using it for storage, and as a workshop for reloading, and it will have a refrigerator for my draft keg system and meat curing/cheese making, and a smoker. I plan on getting a propane burner for making stocks, and for brewing.
I prefer dark, sweet english style ales, IPAs, porters and stouts. The pastor has planted an orchard to grow cider apples to make cider, and my peach tree in the back yard has produced so many peaches in the last couple of years I have made several batches of peach wine. If the next batch turns out like the last one, I will be picking up an acetobacter and making peach vinegar.
For those of you that brew, I still have a hard copy of the The Cat's Meow from when before there was a WWW, got started with Charlie Papazain, and think Randy Mosher's was the ultimate in taking the science as far was the brewer wants to, being supremely appliccable to beginners and experienced brewers alike.
pat
I started about 20 years ago in college. I was too young to buy beer, but I could buy the ingredients for it and was patient, so I started making it. I made two extract batches, before jumping into all grain. I would set aside a bit of each financial aid check to buy equipment that was pricey, but most of it was creatively appropriated. When my eldest daughter was born my wife and I brewed a batch of beer and bottled it, and she labeled the beer with labels colored with crayons, with the baby's name, sex, weight, and length, and we passed those out instead of cigars.
I have gotten away from brewing lately, due to space issues. I have a family of five in less than 1600 square feet, and all of us are notorious packrats. You don't need a lot of space, but when you are buying gadgets and kettles, and kegs, and the like, you start to run out of room. I knew we found the right chuch when the pastor had a self depricating sense of humor, and announced that he would rather make beer than drink it. I later learned that he is a published author and authority on the subject (those you who already brew, he will have an article in next month's Zymergy), and when he was burned out preaching he took a sabbatical and opened a brewery, whose beer I used to purchase and enjoy. For less than $150.00 you can get started, and it takes a 3-4 weeks per batch. The only good thing President Carter did was legalize homebrewing, and it is perfectly legal for one to make 250 gallons a year of beer or wine (distilling is regulated by the BATFE) per year per adult over the age of 21 in the household. Like everything else there is a learning curve, but for the cost of a case of keystone I can make 2.5 cases of really good beer. I am so lazy that I got into kegging early on, and no longer have to wash and fill bottles. Like all my other hobbies if you are a gear queer, it can get expensive, but like all those hobbies it is relatively cheap and easy to get started.
Next spring my wife has agreed to get me a huge shed for the back yard. I will be using it for storage, and as a workshop for reloading, and it will have a refrigerator for my draft keg system and meat curing/cheese making, and a smoker. I plan on getting a propane burner for making stocks, and for brewing.
I prefer dark, sweet english style ales, IPAs, porters and stouts. The pastor has planted an orchard to grow cider apples to make cider, and my peach tree in the back yard has produced so many peaches in the last couple of years I have made several batches of peach wine. If the next batch turns out like the last one, I will be picking up an acetobacter and making peach vinegar.
For those of you that brew, I still have a hard copy of the The Cat's Meow from when before there was a WWW, got started with Charlie Papazain, and think Randy Mosher's was the ultimate in taking the science as far was the brewer wants to, being supremely appliccable to beginners and experienced brewers alike.
pat
