Home Brew Society

Welcome to the Homebrew Society

Becoming a Home Beer Maker Is Easy And Fun

When those weekends with your beer drinking buddies become a little bit expensive, but you and your friends would like to keep the beer parties coming. Then you probably have considered becoming a home beer maker at one point. It is really not as complicated as you might think, becoming a home beer maker is in fact a lot of fun. You need some time and some patience but after that you can have a great quality home made beer and can be proud at yourself. If you prefer you can get some friends involved, it is a great activity and you will probably have a lot of fun as a home beer maker. At the end of the day you and your helping buddies will have enough beer to trow a party.

It all starts with a good home brew store

The local home brew supplier will become your best friend in the near future, you can find everything you need in one store and you will have the expertise of an experienced home beer maker. Home brew suppliers are most often home beer makers them self and they can help you to get started. Most of them started their business out of passion for beer and just saw an opportunity and jumped in. Finding yourself a good home brew supplier is your first big step in becoming a home beer maker.

It Takes time to build experience

We said it before, you need some time and some patience, when you brew your first beer it will probably take you two, tree times longer then when you have build some experience. For your first beer making experience make sure that you don't have to do anything else for about four, five hours.

You need to find a space in or around your house, where you can put the fermenter. This means a room without carpeting and where a little spilling can't do any damage, most home beer makers use the basement, garage or some place like that. When an airlock comes out just a little of the fermentation's can leak, for your brew that is no problem, but when you do it in the living room, and you do get some water damage, your partner won't be that happy. So make sure that you set your brewing equipment up where a little mess doesn't matter and is easy to clean. A little mess should not put you of in becoming a home beer maker.

We advised you to let your friends give you a hand, well now is the time you really need them, when your done brewing, you end up with five gallons of beer that needs to ferment, and so it needs to be moved, and five gallons of beer is really heavy. Because you don't wont to spill your not fermented beer, you need to ask a friend to help you.

Becoming a home beer maker is fun, and remember after you are done brewing, you can have a party with your friends. The ones that helped you but of course also the ones that didn't.

About the author - Drew Brown has one hobby and he loves to share it with the world. He just loves to brew his own beverages. brewingyourown.com

Join A Home Brew Club To Learn New Tricks

Those getting into the hobby of home brewing their own alcoholic beverages may want to consider joining a home brew club, geared toward the type of home brew in which they are the most interested. Whether your beverage of choice is beer, wine or grain alcohol and regardless of where in the country you reside, there is going to be a home brew club to match your interest.

Many times people follow directions for so long they tend to ignore the possibility there are other ways of doing things. As people become more experienced in home brewing, they may try different methods or different ingredients and often willingly share these findings with other members of their home brew club. The associations are designed for this type of sharing as well as gathering and sharing their finished products as well as discussing potential legal issues surrounding the home brewing industry.

Many times a home brew club will have local competitions where members can enter their brews to be judged on their zymurgy, or their study of fermentation. Those planning to enter any brewing contest must plan ahead, as it takes about four weeks for beer to properly ferment in the refrigerator before it is ready to drink.

Home Brewing Can Be Fun And Rewarding Hobby

Making your own beer can be fun and challenging at the same time, but it will not take a lot of time or space. Usually one burner on your stove will be enough space, except for storage, and in about two hours, up to five gallons of home brew can be in the keg or ready for bottling. One of the advantages of brewing your own, is you can make your own labels and put them on the bottles, making them easily defined as your own.

By joining a home brew club, you can get many new ideas and can ask questions of your own, finding out if a technique will work before you try it. Others in the home brew club may have already tried and failed and can offer advice on how to do things correctly. It may be better to ask and save a lot of time, ingredients and effort than to fail miserably.

Many members of a home brew club are more than willing to share their knowledge and experience, despite the intense competition of brewing the best. Whether beer, wine or straight alcohol, sharing tips with new brewers are what some of the more experienced brewers do best.

About the Author - Ann Marier has written many articles about the house and garden providing helpful tips and advice. Her latest articles are all about home brewing and the intoxicating fun you can have with this hobby.

Home-brewing for fun ... and custom beer

Basement hobbyists keg and bottle it just the way they want it

Chris Bowen surveys the crowd at the monthly meeting of the Lehigh Valley Homebrewers on a chilly Bethlehem Tuesday and laughs quietly.

''You can always spot a home-brewer,'' Bowen says with a smile. ''We tend to be males, in our 30s or early 40s, a little overweight'' -- here he pauses to rub his modest beer belly, underscoring the fact that he is talking about himself, too -- ''and we have beards,'' he adds, stroking his own facial hair. ''We talk about whether the beer has Centennial hops or two-row malts. We're geeks.''

Bowen, 40, laughs again, but, truth be told, there are few places he would rather be on this early December evening except, perhaps, in the basement of his west Bethlehem home, where's he has fashioned a small-scale, well-organized home brewery, complete with enough custom gadgets and gizmos to satisfy the most fervent technology buff. In an adjacent room, he keeps a stash of mostly home-brewed beers and ales substantial enough to stock a neighborhood bar, some fermenting, some ready to enjoy.

But for now, Bowen is rubbing shoulders with about 45 other kindred spirits, yes, mostly males, bearded and a few slightly overweight, who stand informally around a table containing two open plastic trays filled with ice and unlabeled dark brown 12-ounce bottles of home-brewed beer. Club members pop the gold bottle caps off with an opener and sip samples from small plastic cups, sharing a single bottle among several club members.

The tubs of bottled beer and convivial chatter circling the room suggest it's a fine time to be a home-brewer, and in many ways it is.

The costs involved with starting the hobby are relatively small. For about $100, beginners can buy a kit that includes all the basic tools and ingredients needed to brew beer at home. The kits offer beginners a choice of beer styles and include hardware a home-brewer can reuse to make subsequent beer batches.

The additional costs for each batch vary by recipe, but most batches cost between $30 and $50. At the lower end, the ingredients match the current price for a case of premium, commercially produced beer.

''The best thing about home-brewing is that you can make the beer exactly the way you want it,'' says Homebrewers President Mike Lessa, whose favorite home-brew is a Black Pepper Porter, made with chocolate malts, East Kent Golding hops and an ounce of freshly ground black pepper. But, Lessa avoids disparaging what home-brewers call the commercial brewers. ''I know how hard it is to produce a consistent beer. It's very difficult. My problem is that I just don't like the [commercial] beer.''

The rising price of beer and craft brews in particular may further spur interest in home-brewing. Simply put, the costs of home-brewing a good case of beer have approached the cost of a case of quality, craft-brewed beer. But exact cost comparisons are difficult. Cost comparisons don't include the hours spent over a brewing kettle, time home-brewers consider a labor of love. Most home-brewers keg their brews, rather than taking the additional steps necessary to bottle. But your typical batch of home-brew -- roughly five gallons of beer -- represents about a case and a half of commercially produced beer.

Like most serious home-brewers, Bowen makes his brew using a three-pot, all-grain method. The all-grain process is more expensive and involves more steps. Most beginners use a method referred to as extract, a sort of instant coffee method of making beer. The $100 beginner kits use the extract method.

Read full story [themorningcall]

Home Beer Brewing Success and Why You Should Brew Beer at Home

Home Beer Brewing is becoming an increasingly popular hobby for men and women of all ages. The ever increasing price of drinks at bars and clubs coupled with a greater interest in entertaining at home have made it increasingly popular.

So yes you can start home beer brewing! However it dos not have to be a solitary occupation locked away in the cellar or shed for hour after hour. As well as being a hobby for the individual it can also be a family project through which you introduce members of the family to alcohol and the need to be responsible with it. Some people do not understand why people make their own beer. They wander why they want the all the mess and clutter associated with creating their own brew. They believe that it is far easier to simply go to the store and get what they want when they want beer. However, it is not simply about the convenience or the cost of the beer stores.

The actual reason why a lot of people have started home beer brewing is because they think it is both enjoyable and exciting. This is a way for them to participate in hobby that they like and that keeps them busy. Some people create their own brew just because they have never tried it before and now the proliferation of Home Beer Brewing Kits and other resources provide them with the opportunity relatively cheaply.

It is also a way for individuals to reconnect with their ancestors and family history. There are so many different recipes for beer, not only held by the breweries, but that have also been handed down through different families. They are using the recipes that their ancestors used and seeing if they can do what they did, In the process they are discovering that they can create great tasting beer. Many of the recipes are easy to follow and have an ingredient list that is easy to find. There are different things that people can buy to make their beer making experience more fun.

With the right kit and the best beer-making recipe, it has come within the reach of many more people and anyone can try making great tasting beer. Even if it is a one shot thing, it will be worth seeing if you can create a beer that is just as good as the beer that is purchased in the store. You can create anything with the home beer brewing supplies that you can now find in the store.

Buying the kits to brew your beer is going to make it easier for a lot of people to do. You can get everything that you need with this kit and it will make your beer brewing easier. Finding these kits will make the beer brewing adventure even more fun for someone that has not had the opportunity to try making their own beer yet.

Finding out about making your own beer is easy. You can go online and get all the facts and the tips that you need to get started on making your own beer. There are many tips and pieces of advice that you can use when you start your new hobby of making your own beer and I hope you will enjoy your own beer!

About the Author - Paul Duxbury writes extensively on Home Beer Brewing, Beer and Beer Accessories at www.home-beer-brewing-success.com and pvvf.com

Tasting Beer

Knowing how to taste beer would help you evaluate a beer's taste and flavor and would enable you as well to know what to look for in a beer.

In pouring beer, gently pour it at the side of the glass to minimize the foam. You can judge your speed at pouring based on the head formation. Target two finger heads. For beers that have sediments of yeast visible at the bottom of the bottle that is meant to be drunk with the beer, stop pouring and leave a small amount of beer on the bottle. Swirl the remaining amount of beer before pouring it to lift the yeast.

Observe the appearance of the heads on whether they are thin or dense. Note the head's color which can be white when pilsen and on certain stouts and porters light to medium brown. Examine the beer against the light and note whether it is clear or cloudy in appearance.

Smell the beer on whether it primarily smells of malt or hops. In general, it will smell like hops when it comes to light colored beer and darker colored beer will smell like malt, coffee or roasted chocolate. Ales have a spiciness or fruity flavor smell from the yeasts. Take a few good whiffs or smell of the beer before making your first sip.

During the first sip and as the beer enters your mouth, think about the first sensation that you will feel. You may find it sweet or bitter and the taste can somewhat be complex as you will note a difference of taste between the first and the finish.

Sense the texture of the beer inside your mouth. It can feel dry, thick and chewy or fizzy and thin. A very important characteristic of beer would be its texture.

For the finish, think about the lingering flavors of the beer inside your mouth. It could be bitter as a result of the hops or sweet from the malt.

Varying beers have different styles. It can be different as to whether the yeast should be poured with the beer or left in the bottle or other issues like whether the beer should be cloudy or clear. A few tips would be not to taste new beer with food or right after eating as the flavors of the food can affect your impression on the beer. Drink water to cleanse your palate. Cheese and crackers are good to pair with beer but you have to bear in mind that these can also affect the beer's taste and flavor in your mouth. When tasting a number of beers it is ideal to start with the light colored ones then on to the darker ones.

About the Author - James Brown

How to Make A Beer Lovers Gift Basket

Things to Buy

Galvanised Steel Bucket
Shredded paper
6 + bottles of beer
Bottle opener
Tins of nuts
Cocktail crackers
Selection of cheeses
Selection of meats

How to Make

The galvanised steel bucket is a natural choice for your beer lovers hamper. Long after their birthday or holiday, they'll be able to use it as an ice bucket.

Line bottom of bucket with shredded paper. Make sure you save plenty to pad your bottles. After all, you wouldn't want bottles breaking before you guest gets a chance to sample them!

Choose beers you think your recipient will enjoy. Are they fans of imports? Why not try to provide beers from around the world? A big Bud drinker? Look for the Bud special recipes available.

A bottle opener is always useful for your gift. Depending on your budget, you anything from a basic one to one that practically sings and dances!

Drinking can be hungry business, so be sure to include a range of snacks. Things like nuts, cocktail crackers, cheeses and meats are sure to please.

Enjoy and Happy holidays

Getting Started Making your own Beer - The Fundamentals of Homebrewing

It is no secret that Americans now demand more quality from their beer than ever before. While the large beer brewers and distributors still hold a hefty percentage of the American beer market share, there has been a marked increase in the amount of microbrew and imported beer consumption in the last decade and a half. The early nineteen nineties saw a meteoric rise in the popularity of micro and home brewed beers and, while the growth has slackened somewhat, these custom brews still continue to gain in popularity as American consumers develop more sophisticated beer palates.

Those who are interested in trying their hand at brewing their own beer are often surprised to learn how easy and inexpensive it is to get started. An initial investment of a couple of hundred dollars is all that is required to purchase the necessary homebrew equipment along with the ingredients for the first batch. Many homebrew supply shops sell kits that contain all of the necessary supplies along with enough ingredients to get started.

Before talking about the process of brewing your own beer, it is necessary to introduce the basic equipment. While different kits will come with different supplies, a complete kit should feature at least the following crucial pieces of equipment. The most basic tool required for homebrewing is the brewing kettle. This is a large kettle that is typically constructed from stainless steel that serves to create the wort (the unfermented slurry that contains all of the ingredients except for the yeast). The brewing kettle should be large enough to accommodate both the water and other ingredients as well as to account for bubbling that can occur during the brewing process. A general rule of thumb is to purchase a brewing kettle that can hold at least double the amount of beer you are attempting to brew. Next, any beer kit should contain a fermenting container. This container will serve to hold the brew while the yeast does its job. It should be transparent or semi-transparent so that the brewer can monitor the fermentation process. The fermenting container should be accompanied by an airlock, which is a one-way flow device that lets gases escape the fermenting container without allowing impurities to enter. Another necessary device is a hydrometer. This is a small probe that measures the specific gravity of your wort during and after the fermentation process. Since the homebrew process involves both boiling and cooling steps, it is necessary to have a good liquid thermometer that can measure from approximately sixty degrees Fahrenheit to two hundred and twelve Fahrenheit (the boiling point of water). Many kits come with specialized cleansers that serve to sterilize all of the homebrew equipment. However, a mixture of water and bleach can do the job just as well if your kit does not provide such a cleanser. Finally, any complete homebrew kit should contain a racking cane, associated tubing, and a racking bucket--these devices serve to transfer the fermented beer into a temporary staging base just prior to bottling. Many kits do not include bottles, caps, and a capper, but you will need all of these devices to transfer your homebrew from the racking bucket to your bottles.

Now that you have an understanding of the basic equipment that is required to make your own homebrew, it is time to discuss the brewing process a bit. Please note that this article does not attempt to provide a complete homebrewing guide--rather, it serves to describe the technique at a high level to give you the basic knowledge necessary to start researching on your own.

The homebrewing process can be broken down into four basic steps. The first step is sanitization. Indeed, sanitization is a necessary step before any of the other phases of the brewing process can begin and the overall brewing process will contain a sanitization step before any new container or device is introduced. Since many microorganisms thrive on the ingredients that are in the wort, it is necessary to sanitize all equipment to ensure that only the yeast makes its way into the brew. While these other microorganisms are not harmful to your health, their presence can destroy your beer. Many kits come with sanitizers, but a solution of hot water and bleach works just as well. It is important to thoroughly rinse the sanitized device before use since the sanitizing agents are also harmful to yeast. The next step is the brewing process itself--this involves mixing your malt extracts, hops, and other ingredients with water in your brewing kettle and bringing the solution to a boil. This step requires continuous oversight since the wort has a tendency to boil over. The next step is to add the wort to the fermenting container along with more water and the yeast. It is now time to let the yeast do their job, so simply store the fermenting container in a cool, dark place for a week to ten days. After that time, the homebrew is ready to be bottled. After a period of aging (typically around one month) your homebrew will be ready to enjoy!

Homebrewing is a great hobby for the true beer aficionado. Nothing quite beats the satisfaction of enjoying and sharing your own homebrew. Homebrewing is quite popular, so there are many places, both online and in the real world, that you can go to seek advice and share experiences.

About the Author - Mark Daoust is the owner of BrewingKB brewingkb.com - a place for home brewing enthusiasts to share tips, tricks, recipes, and more.

Home Brewing Beer With Kegs Is Easy And Less Expensive

Home brewing beer with kegs is a lot easier than you may have imagined. If you are ignorant about how to go about this task then you will be missing out on a great opportunity as well as miss out on saving a good deal of money. If you are still in doubt then consider the fact that it only costs six dollars a gallon when you undertake home brewing beer with kegs.

Start by Buying a Kit

The first step you need for home brewing beer with kegs is to go out and buy a kit that contains, among other things, the keg, tap as well as many other tools that will come in handy later on. Also included are the ingredients such as hops as well as containers. These kits that cost a mere twenty dollars will set you on the way to home brewing beer with kegs and once you start you will find it hard to stop.

The cost of the kit depends on how much beer you wish to brew as well as your level of expertise. Home brewing beer with kegs provides you with the opportunity to brew delicious beer that will taste the way that you want it to taste and you will find it to be a hobby worth pursuing. After a long day at the office, home brewing beer with kegs will provide you with a way to unwind with a cool glass of beer that you yourself has made.

After having purchased the kit, it follows that you must then ensure that you follow the instructions to the T and also make sure that you measure the ingredients exactly. If you don’t get the quantities right by even a small margin, the taste can be different from your expectations. There are also home-brew radio stations as well as brew pubs that promote unpasteurized beer which shows how popular home brewing beer with kegs has become.

You will need to follow the basics of converting sugars into ethyl alcohol as well as carbon dioxide by yeast through the process of fermentation. The real difference between home brewing beer with kegs and the commercial means is that of scale, and if you have the right and sophisticated brewing abilities, there is no reason why you should not be able to brew the beer exactly as per you desire.

If you have the right equipment and have a degree of sophistication in your brewing abilities and you put in enough effort, you should also be able to make beer of quality as good as professional beer makers.

About the Author - Ann Marier has written many articles about the house and garden providing helpful tips and advice. Her latest articles are all about home brewing and the intoxicating fun you can have with this hobby

Raise Your Beer Mug To The World Or How To Say Cheers! In Zulu

The Moguls did it. So did the Vikings. “A mouth of a perfectly happy man is filled with beer.” After coining that phrase, you don’t think this anonymous Egyptian from 2200 BC kept it to himself. I can see him raise his drinking vessel to his Nile-side neighbors while repeating the words.

Every country in the world has some sort of traditional drinking toast, often dozens. Usually one or two words, common toasts are not in the same league with toasts to the bride (which can drone on for hours), or to the retiree who’s been with us for 30 years but would rather get to his food while it’s hot. All of these really should be briefer, especially if a meal is being served. The everyday, no black tie, corner pub toasts exist in every culture and the vast majority simply mean ‘I wish you good health’. Not surprisingly it is the English who have strayed from the norm. ‘Cheers’, ‘Down the Hatch’, ‘Bottoms up’ and many more. I always assumed the latter referred to the bottom of the glass, however the Hawaiians have taken this literally. ‘Okole Maluna’ means ‘buttocks up’. I am including a list of multi-national toasts to impress your friends and use as a sign of respect when in the company of people from different cultures.

Here’s a bit of etiquette to go with your cosmopolitan language skills. It is customary to toast the first round, and let the host go first. There is some controversy over the clinking of glasses. It is said that the tradition started as a sly way to test the authenticity of the host’s crystal. Whether the Vikings clinked wooden goblets or not, it is considered more civilized to ‘touch glasses’ rather than bash together in a resounding crash. And while you’re about it, serve on the left and remove from the right!

Toasts From Many Lands

This is just a sampling of simple drinking toasts from around the world. Some are impossible to find in language dictionaries as they are colloquial phrases, slang or in dialect. I apologize in advance for spelling mistakes: I’m no linguist. Meanings have been included when I could find them. Fill in the blanks if you can. Some are just a general ‘cheers’. If you were making a bet on possible translation, you wouldn’t lose money by suggesting that every one of these toasts is wishing the recipient continued health and general well being. My spell check is about to go wild!

za vashe zdorovye (Russian)
slainte duine a ol (Irish) to your health
genatzt (Armenian)
a sua saude (Portuguese) good health
a votre sante (French) to your health
banzai (long life) (Japanese)or
kanpai (dry glass!) (Japanese)
bud mo (Ukranian)
cin cin (chin chin) (cheers) (Italian) or
alla salute (in good health) (Italian)
proost (Dutch) cheers
vivat (Polish) revival, survival
tervist (Estonian) general greeting
skal (Danish) cheers
here’s looking at you (kid, optional) (American/Bogart)
kia ora (Maori) all purpose greeting
egeszsegedre (Hungarian) to your health
Iechyd da (Welsh) good health
I sveikas (Lithuanian) your health
kippis (Finnish) cheers
le’chaim (Jewish) to life
na zdravi (Czech) to your health
noroc (Romanian)
prosit (German) here’s to you (and your health of course)
wen lie (Chinese)
salud (Spanish)
bahkt tu kel (Romany/Gypsy) good luck and health be on you
Here it is folks – oogy wawa (Zulu)
(wawa means ‘fell’, oogy wasn’t listed, any ideas?)

We should all feel well cheered and healthy after all that!

About the Author - Heather Moffat is a contributing writer to Excalibur Communications, the company that created The Beer Home Page visit thebeerhomepage.com

Things To Remember When Home Brewing Beer

Home brewing beer can be very exciting and at the same very challenging. Yes, home brewing beer may take time and effort but once you really get the hang of it, you will have so much fun doing it that you will not really pay much attention to how much time and effort you put into producing a few bottles of beer. Besides, the satisfaction that you get when you finally get your bottles of beer is really something.

Getting Started

When you do decide to brew your own beer, you must make sure that you get the right equipments and ingredients. For your ingredients, you will need water, malt, hops and yeast. If you like you beer to appear light and taste light, you will need to buy some light colored malt and hops with a low alpha number.

Malts and hops with high alpha number gives out stronger flavor, so avoid that one if you have no desire of producing strong beer. On the other hand, if you are interested in getting a more assertive type of beer, go for hops with higher number but use only less than 2 ounces at the beginning of the boiling process otherwise your beer will taste too bitter.

Always remember that timing and proper measurement is very important when home brewing beer. If you put in too much stuff into your concoction, you will ruin the taste of your beer.

The first thing that you will need to do when home brewing beer is to boil your malt extract for 30 minutes. Stir the liquid occasionally and then add the hop pellets 5 to 10 minutes before you finish the boiling process. Make sure that you do not over boil your liquid or else your beer will not really taste as good as it should.

When home brewing beer, it is very important to pay close attention to cleaning and sanitizing of equipments especially the ones that you use for fermenting and storing your beer. Always remember that cleaning is different from sanitizing. Just because you have washed the utensils and containers with soap and water, that doesn’t mean that these things are already sanitized.

After cleaning your utensils and containers, you need to apply some bleaching or sanitizing solutions to your equipments to kill whatever bacteria that may be in them. Don't forget that bleaching agents and sanitizers often leave some odours on the equipment, so you will need to rinse the utensils and containers thoroughly. In case you don’t want to use sanitizers or bleaching agents, you can sterilize your containers and utensils by boiling them for about 15 minutes.

About the Author - Ann Marier has written many articles about the house and garden providing helpful tips and advice. Her latest articles are all about home brewing and the intoxicating fun you can have with this hobby