Photo Gallery

---

Getting started on your first batch of beer is not difficult; a large industry has developed around home brewing and getting started has been made easy. The process of cooking and fermenting a batch of beer is not particularly complicated or difficult for a beginner. Supply stores that service the industry and are widely available and easily accessible on the internet to purchase the equipment and ingredients necessary to brew your fist batch. The employees that work in the supply showrooms are knowledgeable and willing to help with any question or brew issues.  Information and help with getting started is easily to find, and the equipment and ingredients the new brewer will need come packaged in kits with easy to follow directions. I have found that fellow Homebrewers are friendly and more than willing to help, give advice and answer any question. You can cook you first batch of beer in your kitchen in about three hours and be drinking it in about 4 weeks. If you have a desire to try new things and you are willing to do some reading you will have no trouble becoming a home brewer.

You will need some basic equipment to brew beer, most of which you may already have. Home brew supply stores also offer kits with all of the necessary equipment you will need for about $100, depending on what you will need. I purchase most of my equipment at the MoreBeer show room, but they also ship orders. I have included the link to MoreBeer http://morebeer.com/ for your convenience so you can look at their online catalog. You will need a pot large enough to safely boil five gallons of liquid, and a stove to cook it on. This stove can be the one in your kitchen or a large burner like the kind used outdoors to deep fry turkeys.  You will need a spoon to stir, a sample cylinder and a hydrometer. You will need two food grade buckets large enough to hold 5 gallons, one of which has an airtight lid. You will need an airlock, flexible tubing and a racking cane. You will need bottles to put your beer in and a bottle capper to apply the lids on the bottles. You will also need a cleaning chemical for your equipment, I wrote and posted an article on this site titled, “Cleanliness and Sanitation” that will help you understand how cleaning and brewing are linked.  

Once you have the necessary equipment, you will need to purchase the ingredients to cook your first batch. Once again, the beer supply stores will have prepared kits for you to purchase complete with directions on how to prepare the batch. These kits can cost as low as $25 for a five gallon recipe and can be picked up at a show room or shipped to you from one of many suppliers.  There are different types of brew processes, and each will have its own ingredients. I brew all grain batches; my kits include grain, hops, yeast. A beginner will typically start brewing with a malt extract kit; these kits will consist of malt extract, yeast, and hops. Brewing malt extract kits is the least complicated brew process and requires less time and equipment. Once you have determined what kind of brew you are going to cook, you can choose from multiple recipes including dozens of ales and lager kits. You simply purchase a kit and follow the directions and before you know it you will be enjoying your first home brew.

I was a little intimidated when I made my first batch because I knew nothing about brewing and I had to make an investment before I would know if I liked it. Fortunately, there is a lot of material available in today’s information medium about the hobby by experienced people which makes it less intimidating to make the investment. The internet is a great place to learn about home brewing; there are numerous websites dedicated to home brewing that can be found with an internet search. I belong to the Brewers Association which publishes a magazine titled “Zymurgy” loaded with information for a home brewer.  http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/The magazine contains articles about home brewing written most often by home brewers explaining their processes, issues they have faced and beer recipes they use.  It is also a great place to read about the different processes fellow brewers use and the innovative equipment they use. The magazine also advertises for many suppliers so you can shop and see all of the equipment available on the market. This is a valuable resource for getting help for a problem you have or getting advice from experts in the field. Another periodical I read is “Brew” The How-to Homebrew Beer Magazine. http://www.byo.com/ These and other periodicals will help you become knowledgeable about the industry and latest trends. These magazines can be found online and usually at supply shops. There are many books on the market that talk about brewing and home brewing. One of my favorites for a new home brewer is Home brewing for Dummies by Marty Nachel. I have read this book from cover to cover several times when I was learning to brew , it is dog eared and covered with notes and highlights, I refer to it often. This book is easy to read and will and take you through the basics of brewing in an easy to understand way. Another book I have found to be very useful for homebrewers is “How to Brew” by John J. Palmer. This book is chocked full if information and also presented in an easy to understand format for a beginner and more advanced brewers. It is helpful to become somewhat familiar with the brewing process before you leap in to avoid common mistakes. Both of these books have introductory sections to get you started so you do not have to read the entire book upfront. As you gain experience and become more advanced you can read further to understand different brewing methods and the chemistry and science of brewing.

Home brewing is an exciting interesting hobby for me because it is much more than cooking beer.  As with anything in life, home brewing can be what you want to make of it. I have learned a great deal about brewing beer and the multitude of different types and styles of beer. I have visit breweries across the country and was surprised at how open they are to sharing and welcoming visitors. It is interesting to me to learn about beers from different countries, and try them. Craft beer is pleasantly different from what you may be accustomed to from a commercial brewery and home brewing is a great way to get exposed to and experience these unique beers. Finally, you are free to create and develop your own beers and brewing processes; there are no rules in home brewing. This is where reading and touring breweries becomes helpful in attempting to achieve a flavor profile or develop a particular taste in a beer.  As you gain experience and try different beers from around the world you will likely be inspired to replicate and create. It is a wonderful journey and you will meet some great people along the way.  

Grainfather G30 Brewing System

 I recently purchased a Grainfather brewing system after listening to a few podcasts by renowned craft beer pioneers from the 1970’s who own this or similar systems. They discussed on the podcast how easy these systems were to use and clean, and how brewing and clean up time was less than sculptured systems. They also indicated it was much easier to experiment with smaller batches of beer using them. My sculpture takes up 15 square feet and the Grainfather and all its attachments takes up 5 square feet and fits in a cabinet. I have a back issues and my sculpture is large, awkward and difficult to move around so I decided to buy one and give it a try. I am glad I did. The pioneers were correct, these type of systems are much easier to brew beer on and more enjoyable to use.  I like the unit because you can assemble it for use quickly, plug it in, log on and begin the brewing process within minutes. It is a simple design and the app automatically runs the brewing process making it easy to use. The unit can also be programmed to have the sparge water prepared in advance of your brew session saving additional time.  This unit is a fraction of the cost of the price I paid for my sculpture.   The units come in various sizes and are available in 220V or 110V. I purchased the G30 8 gallon capacity, 6 gallon brew version with 110v power supply. The unit is stainless steel and  It comes with an extendable grain basket, counter flow wort chiller, pump and is Bluetooth app integrated so the brew can be managed on a phone or iPad. The App can store recipes and has calculators like many of the Apps on the market. The unit comes with all the parts to connect to a sink or hose. It has a 3 year warranty. The unit does not have a sparge water heater. The company does sell them separately, but I use my kitchen stove to heat my sparge water.   I have found the cooling process to be a bit slow, and the trub filters in the unit can easily clog and impair the cooling process. It was convenient having a hot water heater on my big sculpture making it an all in one unit, but this is not a significant impediment with the Grainfather.  This unit also can be converted with a micro distillery kit to make whiskey. This kit is sold separately and I did not purchase this option.  For additional information the Grainfather website is www.grainfather.com   

This is a well written book about the rebirth of the craft beer industry in the U.S. following prohibition and the men who built it.  The book tells the story of the first craft breweries in northern California, Anchor Steam and Albion breweries and the pioneers, Fritz Maytag and Jack McAuliffe. It describes the media influence and research of Michael Jackson and Charlie Papazion that wrote about the movement and helped spread the word. It describes the birth of the Brewers Association and Great American Beer Festival and the influence they had on the growing industry. It describes Michael Lewis’s academic work at U.C. Davis, building the first program to educate a whole generation of brewers. The book describes the emergence of the first large craft breweries, Ken Grossman and Sierra Nevada, Tony Magee and Lagunitas, and Jim Koch and Boston beer. It describes the evolution of bold and different styles of craft beer, Dog fish head, Russian river Breweries. It describes industry shakeouts over the years and heart breaking bankruptcies. Additionally it describes the conflict within the industry itself as it grew; contract brewing pioneered by Boston Beer, and Pete’s Wicking Ale and the rub with brick and mortar breweries. The IPO movement is described and what it did for the movement, a fascinating read!

This is an easy to read, how to book primarily for barbecue teams preparing for the first barbeque competetion. If you are contemplating entering a competetion, this is a must read. The book also covers barbeque basics useful to the backyard cooker and those interested in learning about barbeque. 

The book goes into detail about how a contest is organized, and how it works. It contains detail about the logistics of equipment to bring and a convenient check list, and talks about how to set up the equipment at the cook site. It covers the meat categories that will be cooked, how to prepare them, and a time line for you to follow. The book covers the costs of entering a contest and how to minimize those costs. It covers KCBS rules and judging and gives tips to gaining a comptative egde.

Some basic barbeque principles are covered in the book along with some recipes.   Different types of cookers are described and the importance of heat management, and the different types of wood to use. It talks about the importance of learning your cooker and how to map the temp zones in the cooker. 

By Stan Hieronymus - 2005

Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian tradition - Trappist, Abbey, and Strong Belgian Ales and how to brew them. 

This book describes Belgian beers, and what makes them unique among other beers. The book goes into detail about “Trappist” beers and how they influenced Belgian beers over the centuries. “Authentic Trappist Product” is bestowed by the Vatican, and authentic Trappist beer must be brewed within the walls of a Trappist abbey under the supervision of the monastery community. The author goes inside the walls of these six abbeys, all located in Belgium, and talks to the monks that actually brew the beer using ancient recipes on very modern equipment and provides the reader a bird’s eye view and understanding of the brewing of these beers, and others native to Belgium.

What makes this book interesting for me is its description of how modern visionary craft brewers, like Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing and others, traveled to Belgium, tasted and studied these beers and took these Trappist style beers to a whole new level in America. They changed up portions and variety of hops, and yeast, and introduced lambics, and wine barrels to create unbelievable new styles and interpretations of Belgian beer. This imagination and creativity launched a revolution among craft brewers enabling bold and free thinking outside the traditional “brewing box”. I think this creativity encouraged craft brewers to create and be innovative, and is largely responsible for the explosion of interest in craft beer and home brewing in America that continues today.  

.

.

.