Home Brewing

Santa treated me right this year. My wife got me a great home brewing kit. I started my first batch of beer last night (True Brew IPA). I have to say that when I peeked in at my fermenter this morning and saw the bubbling in the fermentation trap I experienced a little perk of pride similar to when your child says its first word or takes its first step.

I really enjoyed the process of brewing. Ninety percent of the work is done up front, for those who know even less about brewing beer than I do. The output of this upfront work is called wort. My wife seemed to think the smell was weird, but I liked it. You could definately tell I was brewing an IPA. The smell of hops was pretty strong.

I still have a while to go before I can actually drink the beer. After placing the wort in the carboy for fermentation, you let it sit for a week to ferment. After this you bottle it and wait for another 2-3 weeks before you drink.

This will be a nice skill to have, should TSHTF. Of course I'll have to advance my skills beyond using kits if I plan to brew post-gridcrash. I am currently looking into hops cultivation, as well. It would be nice to have fresh hops for brewing (gridcrash or no), so I plan to grow enough hops for my own personal brewing uses.

Another point of interest is the water source I use for brewing. While the city water at my house is good, excellent compared to other municipally sourced water I've had, the water from my parents' well is outstanding. I may brew another batch soon with the well water and see if there's a noticeable difference in the taste of the final product. If there is, my Mom will get to see me a bit more often as I come out to her house to get water!

And the best part is that this will save me a lot of money. I am a big fan of the beer (so is the wife), but I won't drink crap beer. Budweiser? Hell, no! Headache in a bottle, is more like it.

No, the beers I like tend to be in the $8-$12 range per six-pack. With this IPA kit coming in at $30 and yielding 48-50 bottles I am looking at roughly $50 in beer saving each batch I brew (8 store-bought six packs at about $10 each being $80).