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Check out some of this stuff guys:

• Brew Like A Monk » Blog Archive » Belgian caramelized syrup now … - In the introduction of Brew Like a Monk I wrote there is no “i” in sugar to make the point that when American brewers and Belgian brewers talk about “candi sugar” they aren’t necessarily discussing the same product. …

• home brew for the crew - 20070708140. last night we went to the newly opened sylvis döttrar’s on an irish pub evening. home brew were playing irish music for us and very well too :-). i started to drink irish whisky - what else on an irish evening? …

• » Save Money By Making Your Own Beer - Save Money By Making Your Own Beer A couple of years ago, we started making our own beer. My brother was kind of enough to buy me this beer making kit as a present. My wife and I were eager to.

Technorati Tags: beer making kits, Home brew beer, how to make beer at home

This is one for a cold winter night.     
   
Its only recently that we have actually started to serve our beer cold…since refrigeration became possibe.  There were times in the long history of beer when the preference was for a piping hot brew.
  
This recipe comes from a book called the “Experienced English Housekeeper” by Elizabeth Raffald.

Take a pint of good strong ale(use your favourite home made beer here).

Put it in a saucepan, add three of four cloves.

Add nutmeg and sugar to taste.

Boil, reduce heat and allow to simmer.

Beat the yolks of four eggs really well and pour them into your pan, stirring well.

The end of the recipe calls for you to…pour it in an out of your pan several times, then set it over a slow fire and heat it a little.  Take it off again, and heat it two or three times ’til it is quite hot.  The serve it up with dry toast.

Use your own judgement and substitute your own modern equipment.

By the way, the book was originally from 1769…cool or what!

Basic ingredients for the guinness look alike

11 lbs Pale Malt
1 lb British Crystal Malt
8 oz Black Patent Malt
8 oz Roast Barley
1 oz Clusters Hops
0.5 oz Willamette
0.5 oz EKG
Yeast

When beer making at home, there is no way you can get the Guinness head except by using N2.  Having said that…you can achieve a really good head by storing the beer under serving pressure and serving temperature for at least two full weeks.  A month would be better.

To sour the beer you can go one of two ways…adding lactic acid to taste, or souring Guinness style.

The second method is to take two bottles of Guinness, pour it into a bowl and leave it out for a week or more.  Step 2…freeze it.  Step 3…when your mash is on, thaw the stout and heat to about 190F for 20 minutes.  Step 4…throw it into mash at end boil. 
Simple!

A great drop o stuff.

Technorati Tags: beer making kits, home beer brewing, home beer making, make your own beer

Presenting choc beer

Well it’s not exactly what you’re thinking. 

This beer was named after its place of origin, the Choctaw Nation.  The Choctaw brewed this homemade beer and taught the Italian immigrants, who had come to work in the local mines, how to do the same.

It has been sold legally in a restaurant called Pete’s Place in Krebs, Oklahoma, since 1995. But it was not always so.

Pete Pritchard, born Pietro Piegari, was one of those immigrants that came to America with his family in 1903.  He started working in the coal mines at the age of 11.  He worked the mines for ten years.  Then a mining accident nearly took his life; his leg was crushed, and he was unable to go back to work.

Pritchard started brewing beer from the old Choctaw recipe that used the abundant supply of local golden wheat. He sold it from his home, along with cheese and sausages, to the local miners.  He called the brew Choc in honor of the Choctaw.

In 1925 he opened ‘Pete’s Place’.  He continued brewing and serving during prohibition when he concealed the whole operation in his basement.  He still served the beer in the restaurant.

Then prohibition went, but the illegality of home beer making remained. 

The ‘Pete’s Place’ was passed on to two more generations of Pritchard’s before Choc beer could finally be sold legally in 1995.

The micro brewery produces six bottles of Choc beer to commemorate the life of the original owner.  Each beer tells a different part of Pete Pritchard’s life.

I thought this was a great story about a true icon in the home beer world.  So if you wanna learn more about this great home beer making story go to   http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/petes-place-1919-choc-beer/10441/61281/. 

Pete’s Place is at http://www.petes.org/

Technorati Tags: beer making, Home Brew, Home Made Beer, making beer at home

The Brew Beer Home - The Process

To brew beer at home is a simple process that can take years to fully master.

Basically you cook water, grain (commonly malted barley or wheat), and hops to make the wort.  You pour the wort into a fermenter where it is cooled and add yeast.

Yeast are single cell bacteria that survive by eating sugar.  A chemical process turns the sugar to alcohol, carbon dioxide, and energy for the yeast cell. The yeast cell uses the energy to reproduce, and the whole cycle repeated itself.  This is reproduced over and over until all the yeast has been consumed.
Once the fermentation has been completed, the beer goes through further processing.  Filtering can be done at this stage.

Home beer brewing does not really require filtration.  A lot of the great flavour of a home-made beer is kept because of this.  And the leftover yeast adds to the nutritional value.

Brew Beer Home - The Ingredients

Barley

Barley is the most common form of grain used to make beer.  Barley goes through a malting process which allows for a stronger alcoholic beer that would otherwise be possible.

Barley is deficient in certain key enzymes which malting increases.  These malts produce fermentable sugars during mashing, and nutrients to the yeast.

The grains of barley are steeped to encourage germination to begin, starting the conversion of starch to sugars.  The sugars are rapidly consumed as food by the sprouting seed.  And here is the trick.  We want this sugar.  So the germination is stopped by cooking.  The grains are placed into a kiln where the heat is applied in a controlled way.  Different temperatures, air flows, and lengths of time in the kiln all contribute to the type of malt that is created.

The malted barley is then crushed into flour.  This is so when it is cooked in a kettle to make the wort the sugar is leached out, allowing the yeast to feed and make our beer.

Popular malts include pale malt, crystal malt, chocolate malt, and black malt.  Each malt offers a different character.

These are widely available when you make your own beer.

Hops

Hops, the other main ingredient in beer, are the female flower cones of the hop plant.  The hop plants come in many different varieties, and are used for different styles of beer.  The flowers are rich in oils which contribute to the aroma of the beer.  They also help in preservation.

They are possibly the most versatile ingredient available in home beer brewing.  They add the essential character.  You can add a single hop or a variety of hops to turn the same malt profile into a variety of beers.  This is where the home brewer can really put his own mark onto his beers.

Before being used in the brewing process, the hops are dried in the oast house.

The two main types of hops are aroma and bittering.  Aroma hops are the primary contributors of hop aroma and (non-bitter) flavour.  Bittering hops have a higher concentration of alpha acids, and are responsible for much of the bitter taste of beer.

You would add these hops at different times during the boil depending on the bitterness level or aroma level you are seeking.  There are also dual use hops available.

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