BEER – Everything I (and you) need to know…

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December 7, 2012 by aubreykloppers

Links:

http://www.thebeerkeg.co.za/firstbrew.html

https://aubreykloppers.wordpress.com/beer-everything-i-and-you-need-to-know/ – HOW TO BREW your first beer

http://www.rosestad.co.za/gemmer-en-pynappelbier/

http://www.brewery.org/

YEAST:

http://www.diybeer.co.za/beer-homebrewing/123-brewers-yeast-profiles-and-properties.html

http://www.southyeasters.co.za – South African

http://homebrewmanual.com/ – Best knowledge

http://hopville.com – Recipes

Beer at R2 a litre – mmm

11 June 2012, 08:45

Beer at R2 a litre

Did you know: In South Africa it is “Legal for home brewed beers in unlimited quantities for personal use only, not for sale or barter, without any required permits or licenses.” When I read this I felt intrigued and wondered how difficult it would be to brew my own beer, you see were I stay in Port Elisabeth there is no hobby shops selling those home brewing kits you see in the when you Google home brewing , and I knew  if I was gong to attempt it I would have to find the ingredients

Now when you look on the side of a bottle of beer ,produced by sa’s finest  you will read the beer contains barley hops and water and yeast , and some of the beers also use maze  or rice , I figured mmm cant be that hard, So off I went , I found a place that sold palletized hops , and now the only thing that was left was barley ,witch I got from the supermarket,  did some reading and discovered that I needed to make a extract from the barley, this way took ages , later , a health shop specially ordered ,a sweet barley extract for me 500mm for about  25 sa rand not bad the hops cost 15 sa rant for  250 grams

Now this was the easy part , the next step would be too cook wart , I looked at techniques on Google and discovered that mmm the different ways guys was making beer but then I remembered my grand mother making ginger beer at home and bob was your uncle , here I go

So I boiled 25 liters of water and put it an my plastic bucket ,I cleaned with bi -carb of soda

And I let it cool down , now all my pots , and tools like spoons I also cleaned with bi -carb before hand making sure every thing is clean, In put my barley extract into boiling water about 2 l on the pot I added 4 cups of sugar and started to stir this went on for about half an hour  and then the extract broke down nicely in the water  as soon as it was less sticky I took two table spoons of the hops and put it in panty hose and make like a tea bag that I added to the wart , I the slowly boiled it for an hour and kept stirring, the wart was now smelling like warm beer , I took the pot of the stove and then .put it in the sink filled with ice to cool it off fast , I did put the lid back on the pot to make sure no germs got in the wart.

While that cooled down, I took some of the water from the bucket and  put my yeast packet in there and left it to brake down the yeast granules, it made a nice foam

When every thing was room temperature I added my wart to the water and added the yeast leaving my hops tea bag in there, I put the lid on and then put the beer in a room with constant temp, the only alteration I did to the, lid was a one way air valve , in the middle of the lid cause, while fermenting in the bucket the beer gives off gas, I left it in a room ,for a week and a half , now and then I walked past and smelt the mmmmmm beer  not a heavy smell just  a little

After the week and a half I had to bottle the beer , I cleaned plastic 2 lieter bottles and the pipe I would use with bi-carb of soda and boiled water, and then put one tea spoon of sugar in every bottle  and proceeded to fill the bottles from the bottom of the bottle  with the pipe inside the bottle to prevent foaming. the reason for the sugar in the bottle was to carbonate the beer in the bottle

I left the beer for another week in a room with constant temperature and then I chilled a bottle and opened it . mmmmmmmm it was delicious, it tasted better than anything store bought

So why did I tell you how I make beer , because  beer at    2 rand a liter and a bit of your time mite be worth wile

You could save a lot of money ,and it is a grate hobby   also with every week the beer aged, it tasted better and better

I have brewed  about 180liters in a year and have  it with my friends and family and have not had a store brewed beer since !!!!

From: http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Beer-at-R2-a-litre-mmm-20120608