Birth Of Cirrhosis
Birth Of Cirrhosis
“Brewing Beer for Beginners”
Part 1. Location, location, location
Michael Goodwin
It has long been said that education is a lifelong process, and that a person never truly ceases learning new skills nor perfecting ones already known. With this eye towards self-betterment in mind, why not consider an ages old profession that always is in demand (no, not that one, that’s an entirely different article, possibly a felony as well.) Therefore, in the interests of history, I shall walk you through the process of setting up a home brewery of your very own (just like the 1920’s, but with less diphtheria.)
Besides being a nice afternoon hobby, beer brewing is certainly a unique way to ensure that when civilization collapses, you will be able to earn the favor of the local warlord by making crude ale from old mushrooms and squirrel teeth. So learning this new hobby is not only educational and interesting, but also valuable. Who knows, one day you too could command vast armies of drunken cannibals by filling them with intoxicants (can’t get those results from learning gardening or investing in gold coins.) So let us begin.
A simple online search will provide you with all the equipment needed to allow you to complicate this rather easy task to “Bond Villain” levels of intricacy. In fact, entire books have been written focusing on the exact pairings of hops with grains to make the perfect pint. There are brewing kettles machined to tolerances and standards to rival the space program and devices to measure the exact alcohol content using prisms held up to the light. Couple that with custom made bottles and even your own labels, and suddenly you have your own brand of professional level beer, as well as an anxiety disorder. It’s beer and you’re a beginner, let’s just try something easy, shall we?
First off, you’ll need an area to birth your bubbling offspring. Ventilation is a good idea, but not in an “open air hillbilly distillery” sort of way (bugs, there will be an ungodly amount of bugs involved in this process if you aren’t careful, so patch those screen door holes with some duct tape, Cleetus.) Fresh air will be needed as you will be running a burner of some sort. You could use a stove top, but as you will be dealing with gallons of water, beer and everything in between, there are likely to be spills and all manner of property value lowering hijinks. If you have a garage, you can get by with just setting up in a corner about the size of an average cubicle where you may work (which would explain why you may want a drink.)
An old desk or card table will come in handy (gravity will be needed when transferring liquids) as well as a chair (standing over a boiling cauldron for two hours is the behavior of a psychopath.) Keeping in mind that brewing beer is essentially making a giant vat of tea (then throwing living organisms into it like a ghoul) it goes without saying (and yet I still did) that any surface you will be using should be resistant to water damage. An already stained and abused concrete garage floor will not only fit that bill, but also be easy to clean when (notice how I didn’t say “if”) spills occur. So all things being equal, the garage or creepy shed that nobody goes near will work fine.
Now the equipment needed will vary on which route you want to go. If say, you want to keep things bare bones and easy you will only need a few plastic buckets (no rusty old pail stolen from the local high school janitor), a brewing kettle (fancy way of saying “Big Metal Pot With Lid”), a racking cane and tubing (fancier way of saying “Fluid Mover”), spray bottle (you’re going to be sanitizing everything constantly) a heat source (a variety of propane burners are available though you can try stove top on batches under 5 gallons) a thermometer, and a giant spoon (to mercilessly beat neighborhood children and stir a giant vat of boiling water.)
More intricate equipment for “All Grain Brewing” includes a grain mill, hot water tanks for extracting sugars from crushed grains, a wort chiller (copper coil that cold water is piped through to cool large amounts of liquid) and carboys (giant glass jugs that for some reason people used to store change in.) There are also quality control items like a hydrometer and refractometer (used to measure the alcohol content of your finished product.) Now, seeing as how I’m merely suggesting you try brewing as simply as possible to see if you enjoy it, you will not need any of these. Frankly, the idea of scrawling down calculations with the end result of doing algebra defeats the purpose of beer drinking. Furthermore, if you see someone in a backyard shack measuring liquids and writing feverishly writing on a notebook, stay away from that man. Do not get into his van. Certainly don’t look in his crawlspace (I’m betting a lot of sad stories ended there.)
Next up is ingredients. Believe it or not, there are several companies that make starter kits, that contain all the equipment and ingredients as well as in depth instructions. These are range from $100-$200 and produce a five gallons. Ingredients from these kits (known as extract brewing) have a bag of grains, several kinds of hops and a container of sludge known as malt extract. This is all that is needed for the easier, extract brewing. All grain brewing is more complex and leaves out the malt extract, adds more equipment and requires a more substantial investment in your home setup.
Finally, you will need bottles and caps. For a regular, five gallon batch of beer, you’ll get around 48 bottles (12oz) which can be ordered online or bought from a brewing supply store. I suppose you could go Dumpster diving and wrestle old bottles from racoons, but they aren’t that expensive, and rabies is unpleasant. Throw in some bottle caps and a crimper (painful looking thing that bends the cap around the lip of the bottle for you) and you’re all set up. You are now part of an ancient brotherhood spanning ages and continents with the singular goal of making this torturous, yet all too brief life just a tad easier to stomach. Welcome.
That is all you need. A room, fire, something in which to boil water, some buckets to let it ferment and bottles to put it in later. For a relatively small investment of time and resources, you have the ability to make beer, wine, mead and many other rudimentary alcoholic beverages (not hard liquor, the government gets a little testy about that.)
If everything above sounds too arduous a task, then feel free to find another hobby. After all, I’m sure bird watching will be invaluable when the cannibals come. And they will.
