Even though I have another blog devoted entirely to the pastime of drinking alcohol, I always reserve the right to drop a little alco-wisdom on Gastronomical Odds. In this case, it is because I am MAKING, not drinking, some fine ale. Okay, okay, so I consumed a couple over the 6+ hours it took to brew a batch...I mean, c'mon.
Now, there are different ways to brew beer. Some avenues are more problematic than others, but some, are really not that difficult at all. My brewing partner Fitz has the basic equipment and I have all of the less-basic technique and know how, so we created an intermediate-level process for our offering.
The easiest method of brewing involves boiling 2.5 gallons of H2O with anywhere from 5-12lbs of dried malt extract, and hops. After an hour of boiling, the wort is diluted with 2.5 gallons of cold water, cooled to a temperature that is safe for yeast (below 80 deg.), the yeast is added, it ferments/conditions for about 2-4 weeks and then beer is born.
In breweries the malt extract is left out in favor of the sweet liquor mashed out of a variety of malted barleys and other grains. Without some specialized equipment, it is pretty difficult to mash enough grain to produce enough runnings for a substantial amount of beer. Mashing is basically soaking the ground barley in water at a specific temp.(150-160 deg.), to convert the starches to sugars for fermenting. With the gear we had at our disposal we decided to do the easy technique compounded with a buckled-down version of the mashing technique.
