What’s one of the most popular drinks in the world? You’ve guessed it, Beer. Why is that so? I remember when I first drank it I almost spewed. Much the same when I smoked my first cigarette, I felt as sick as a dog. So why did we do it? Peer pressure I suppose, but still, I think it tastes great now and that’s what got me into home made beer. It is almost a cult for some people now. They even have clubs where they can take their latest brew for sampling and of course showing off.

Unfortunately not all home made beers are equal as some of you may have found out when your mate proudly presented you with a mug of his home brew. UGG. Much the same as some home made wine fanatics. So why do people make home brew beer? Well maybe because it’s cheaper that buying the stuff, maybe it’s their great hobby.

Whatever it is there are some great home beer makers out there and I have tasted a few. Whatever the reason it is a great relaxing hobby with a great supping reward. It’s not expensive as some hobbies go and it’s great fun. It is no wonder that it’s very popular as you get a great feeling of achievement when you pour your drop of home made beer. (no matter how horrible it tastes when you first start off). Let’s face it any new hobby has a learning phase when you first start.

One of the great things about home made beer is that you can drink it without any of the additives that are put into the commercial beers. Just about every beer you buy has been pasteurized this means the beer is ‘cooked’ which kills the yeast whereas home made beer contains live yeast which gives your home brew a more natural taste.

The initial cost of buying the equipment you need to start making your own beer is quickly recovered after your first couple of batches of brewing. Most people who start home brewing are fed up with paying the bills for their beer. Home made beer brewing can fix up the cost of beer. Buying  the ingredients for a 5 gallon batch can range from $25 to $45 depending on the type of beer you wish to make. Other costs such as bottles are around $12 for a case of 24 12 oz bottles. Of course these can be reused time and time again.

Home made beer brewing is catching on fast and is not really difficult to start you just have to follow the steps and not attempt to experiment until you have got the basics off pat. It is usually best to start of with a kit. Essentially there are only six basic steps to making your home made beer.

1. Making wort or must.

2. Fermentation.

3. Clarifying.

4. Conditioning

5. Packaging.

6. Drinking.

Brewing can take from two weeks to several months depending on the type of beer you wish to make. Usually you will have several batches going starting at different times especially for the longer brewing styles of beer.

Home made beer is not difficult, especially if you first start with a brewing kit. So go ahead and make your own beer and enjoy.

If you really want to get ahead fast I recommend a couple of e-books that will help you enormously. You can preview them by going to my blog.

Thanks for stopping by! Please share with us your home brewing experiences, ideas and tips.

If you are over the age of twenty-one and are not adamantly against drinking alcohol, then chances are pretty good that you have been exposed to beer sometime in your life. It may be in the form of a local microbrew.

It could be from a large beer making manufacturer. There is nothing quite like a cold beer when the mood hits. But how much do you know about the brewing process? It takes skill and knowledge to brew a beer. Every beer drinker needs to know the basics of the process.

beer brewing
There is a big similarity to making bread and making beer. Both have water, starch and yeast involved. The ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians discovered this process and left it as a great legacy for everyone. How popular is beer?

Polls show that beer is the most popular beverage after water and tea. Just imagine how many people like a nice, frosty beverage after a hard day at work. One of the most popular beers in the US is Bud Light, regardless of whether it is in beer can.

If you have never tried a good beer, then you may want to consider taking a trip to a brewing plant. You will get to learn about how the beer is made and get to learn the history of the manufacturer. There are many big manufacturers located here in the United States.

You can visit St. Louis, Missouri for a trip through the Bud Light factory or you can take a trip up to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to see how Old Milwaukee is made. It is sure to be an exciting visit no matter where you go.

Real aficionados will suggest you take a trip overseas to see how real Belgian beer is produced. Is it a great vacation idea? If it is imports you love then you may want to consider visiting Belgium or Germany to see how their process differs from American breweries.

cold beer
Get in touch with history by drinking a glass of your favorite ale or lager. You will be taking part of a long tradition that has touched virtually everyone’s life. You can consider it a journey into the history of the brewing process. So what can you expect?

You can expect to have a great time while learning how different breweries make their own special brews. You will be able to taste your favorite beverage and may even learn a thing or two about homebrewing.

Thanks for stopping by! Please share with us your home brewing experiences, ideas and tips.

When someone mentions going to a baseball game, many times the first images that come to mind are beer can and a hot dog. It is somewhat of a tradition to drink beer with certain sports or activities. No backyard football game is complete without having some cold brews in the ice chest.

You get hot and sweaty from the game and cool down with your friends over a few beers. Even watching some sports necessitates having a couple of pints. It does not matter if you prefer a Bud Light over a Canadian beer or German beer. Many people around the world finish up a long, hard day at work by having a few cold ones with their friends. It is a great way to relax and just kick back.

draft beer
Learning to make your own cold beer at home does require some skill and some knowledge. Homebrewing is very much the same process that manufacturers and professional brewers use all over the world.

Before you even begin, you will need to learn the terminology. You will need to learn the terms for the different stages in the brewing process, as well as learning all about the different types of equipment that you will need to make your own tasty beverage.

When it comes to homebrewing equipment there are some standard items that breweries use every day. They have large scale operations that allow the hops, barley, rice or wheat to bloom. You should also know that you may not have the capability to use some of the standard equipment, such as a large oak barrel or a keg.

Most home setups operate with limited space. One of the first decisions you will have to make is what type of brew you intend to make. Is it going to be a cold brewed beverage or a warm brewed beverage? The temperature refers to what the final product will be. Most lagers are cold brewed, meaning that the temperature of the beverage is kept at a low temperature throughout the brewing process.

beer brewing
Many people find that it is really easy to get into the brewing process when they purchase a pre-assembled beer making kit. The kit will contain everything needed, with regard to the ingredients that will make the brew. Before you leave the store you will want to read all of the information on the box to ensure that everything you need is in the kit.

If you need additional supplies, such as beer bottles or buckets, then you can check the store to see if they carry these items. If there is no local store that has the supplies, then you can always check Ebay or a specialty website.

Thanks for stopping by! Please share with us your home brewing experiences, ideas and tips.

For extensive links and additional information visit: SimpleHomeBrewing.com

Making beer at home couldn’t be easier than with the Mr. Beer kits . It takes 21 days total to finish a batch. That only entails about 20 minutes of actual work though.

If you can boil water, you can make beer, guaranteed. It tastes great too! If you don’t believe me, watch the video linked below. I ordered my own kit to try it out for myself. Let nobody say I don’t practice what I preach

Starting your Batch:

1) Sanitize everything with the easy to use 1 step no-rinse sanitizer
2) Fill the keg with a measured amount of water to the line.
3) Pour out a few cups of the water and boil it, adding the Booster package to the boil. Take the pot off the boil
4) Stir in the can of concentrated extract and add the boiled batch back into the keg.
5) Add the yeast and close the lit. Wait 14 days and then go to the bottling step.

Easy Bottling:

6) Add a small measured amount of sugar to each bottle that came in your kit and fill with beer from the keg.
7) Wait 7 more days for the beer to carbonate. Store in the fridge and enjoy your new brew at your leisure. Be sure to save at least 1 bottle to show off to your friends!

Why should you make your own beer

• SAVE MONEY! Make your own WINE / BEER FOR PENNIES ON THE DOLLAR! ($1/bottle of wine 25 cents/bottle of beer)
• CUSTOMIZE YOUR WINE / BEER to your taste. You take FULL CONTROL OF THE TASTE!
• IT’S EASY! - Anyone can do this stuff. Just watch the videos below to see for yourself how simple it really is.
• FRIENDS AND FAMILY LOVE IT. I gave my mom a couple of bottles bottles of spiced elderberry wine for xmas 2 years in a row and she was genuinely disappointed when she didn’t get any the next year. I thought I was being cheap, but she loved it! I even made custom labels and made it look professional and bought very nice velvet wine gift bags for $1/each at the dollar store!

Which Kit to buy?

There are a range of kits available starting at about $49. That’s not bad at all considering it makes 2 gallons of beer and the kits are completely reusable. Refill kits are considerably cheaper because you’re re-using the same bottles and keg over and over. Considering a refill pack for the kit costs $9.95 and makes 2 GALLONS of beer, you’re making beer for pennies on the dollar after your first batch.

There are a variety of beer flavor/styles available. If you can imagine it they probably have a kit pretty close to what you’re looking for. For more info on Mr Beer or to check out their available kits visit the Mr Beer website.

You might also enjoy this youtube video on how to use the Mr. Beer Kits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZBZ86ZS1uI

James enjoys a myriad of hobbies from computer gaming, paranormal research, web design, teaching & adult training, natural healing & herbalism to making his own wine and beer. He is an avid home brewer and has been for many years specializing in traditional honey and fruit based wines. More recently he has begun serious study into beer recipes and methods and plans on producing a series of beer videos on youtube to match his “super simple winemaking” videos that are so popular on the site.

Project websites include:

http://simplehomebrewing.com

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/home-brewing-articles/easy-beer-brewing-with-mr-beer-822671.html

Thanks for stopping by! Please share with us your home brewing experiences, ideas and tips.

Leaving Your Beer Alone to Become Great

To become a real “master” of brewing beer, you have to understand every aspect of what happens during the brewing process.  When you get home from the beer brewing supply store with your kit or your little baggies with the supplies to make a fresh batch of beer, it is sometimes hard to imagine that those raw materials will result in a delicious batch of beer that you made yourself.  But by understanding each step, you can become quite adept at making beer at home.

The cycles of making beer are each important as you take them order.  From sterilizing your equipment, to purchasing the supplies and then on to boiling and brewing and fermentation, each step is important.  But that last step, fermentation and aging is unique from the rest because it is the step that calls for you to not be interacting with your beer, adjusting the equipment or preparing the brewing ingredients.  It is the step that calls for you to use patience and tender loving care to leave your beer alone as it ferments.  But the fermentation process is just as crucial if not more important than any of the preparation steps.  That is because it is fermentation that genuinely turns the mixture you have cooked up on the kitchen stove into a wonderful tasting beer you will be proud to serve to friends and family.

There are two phases of fermentation which is the primary stage and the secondary stage. Both are important. During primary fermentation, the yeast and the sugars that are in the wort you so carefully prepared go through a long chemical interaction which releases carbon dioxide as a byproduct.  Now during this phase, you want to get that CO2 out of those fermentation bottles because if you leave them in there, the bottles will explode.

The need to get that carbon dioxide out of the fermentation bottle without opening up the fermentation to outside air entirely is one good reason to buy specialized fermentation equipment because they will come with air release devices that will utilize an airlock system to release the CO2 buildup but keep a level of separation between the outside environment and your fermenting beer.

Once you have the bottles prepared and the wort in place, its time to find a cool dark place in the house to place the fermenting bottles.  Don’t give in to the urge to put them in the refrigerator because that will just stop the fermentation in its tracks.  A room that sustains a constant 65-75 degree temperature is good.  Now that the fermentation process is underway, you do what is often the most difficult maneuver for any home beer zealot.  You leave the beer alone and let the ingredients make magic in those bottles for about two weeks.

Secondary fermentation is the next and final phase except if you choose to age your beer to enhance the flavor.  But the second fermentation is where you add some additional sugar and you strain out the sediments from the primary fermentation and trap the mixture in sealed bottles this time.  The CO2 build up is not as extreme so the danger of exploding beer bottles is gone and the carbon dioxide creates that bubbly attribute to your beer that will give it a wonderful head and taste.  Both phases are necessary and you will give your beer another couple of weeks in this stage before it will be ready to drink.  But after you have a little taste, if you want to let the beer continue to process and age, maybe even in wood containers to add a rich flavor to the brew, this is just you being the Brewmeister that will result in wonderful tasting beer to serve to your friends and family.

Thanks for stopping by! Please share with us your home brewing experiences, ideas and tips.