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Do You Homebrew?
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!"
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..
when the rain comes, they run and hide their heads. they might as well be dead.
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...
In Murphy We Turst
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 and rec.crafts.brewing 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, which dispite it's name it a worldwide organization that promotes homebrewing.
Relax, don't worry, and have a homebrew!
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.
Since we're doing ads, I have a forum that's dying for participation:
Brew-Masters.com
Thanks, slashdot. Next time, I'll post my free ad request as 'news' since the news I submit never gets posted.
The opposite of progress is congress
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.