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Priest Brews in Washing Machine
An anonymous writer sends in this story about a priest who has made a brewery out of his washing machine. See his website for recipes and pictures.
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No, that's an urban legend. Fermentation is a natural process; distillation just speeds that process up. If this is badly done, it will give people a stomachache and/or headache (which may be a typical reaction anyway), but the only way it will cause people to go blind is if there are impurities (read: poisons) in it. Things like methanol (wood alcohol) or solvents like turpentine, will cause blindness, and some people put those.
Now, there's a good probability bleach was in that washing machine at some point, and that is a poison, so it's possible he'll go blind from the bleach, but not from the alcohol component; i.e., what he's trying to make.
Sigs are like bumper stickers.
In himmel das ist keine beir
Ja ja wir trinken hier
Und wann wer sind nicht hier
Unsere freundinen trinken alles bier
or
In heaven there is no beer
That's why we drink it here
And when we are gone from here
All our friends will be drinking all the beer
the no
http://www.beermachine.com/
I'm skeptical, though...
S
You can recirculate the wort during the mash, and I believe most commericial breweries stir the grain and recirculate water during mashing.
This will help keep the temperature more or less constant throughout the grain instead of having hot and cold spots.
German lagers often use a complicated temperature cycle, starting at cool temperatures and having a rest at various different temperatures on the way up, to allow different enzymes to do their work.
This is very difficult to do using some other home brewing methods, and require adding measured amounts of hot water and restirring at various times, or mashing in a mash tun with a thermostatic heater control.
The washing machine would also have the benefit of the drum acting as a grain filter, so just run a controlled rinse cycle to do a good sparge.
I copied this sig from someone else (but where did they get it from?)
Bah, find a local homebrew supply store and walk in and pick up a copy of "The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing," it's really the only book you need. Then you need 1 plastic bucket with an airlock, 1 bottling bucket and a few other misc. items. You may need to pick up a big pot to cook it all in. (Stainless steel is the best)
The beer machine will make beer but if you want high quality beer for just a little more of an investment go to the homebrew supply store. Instead of plastic bottles, you can reuse your other beer bottles. It's fun to do and really isn't that hard. The hardest part is the wait.
I got started brewing my freshman year of college. Mainly because I couldn't bring beer into the dorm room so I decided to bring the ingredients in and make it. Now that I'm out of the dorms, I'm still brewing because I like the taste of homebrew and it's not that expensive.
-Chris
ps. I've got 10 gallons (2 batches ~4 cases) fermenting right now for st. patty's day. (I'm gonna dye it green)