What’s Brewing?

Post: The First

 
So myself (aka Hot Chocolate), the Ginger Wonder (otherwise known as Matt K), and Captain Underpants have decided to document out attempts to brew homemade beer. Now we're not talking about this U-Brew stuff where someone else does most of the work, we're talking about doing almost everything ourselves. We've bought all the individual ingredients and turned our respective kitchens into New Westminster's newest micro breweries. In the interest of full disclosure thee three of us do not claim to be experts, brew masters, or even good at this. We're just a bunch of bored, broke engineers looking for something to do on a lazy dog dangling Sunday afternoon.

So Matt and I have done this a few times before. We've used the Cooper's beer kits (which are fall off a log easy), and intermediate kits which use malt extract and some grains. The latter type take a little more care to make and I think are a more rewarding experience. Plus it offers more opportunities to customize your beer for your tastes.

So now you're saying to yourself "I like beer and if these chumps can brew their own then I can too. Now for the love of butter where do I begin???" Don't worry your pretty little head; the New West Crew is going to walk you through this as best we can. You're going to need the following things:

1. A fermenter tub. It's a large plastic tub, with a tight fitting lid that has a small round hole in it. It'll hold about 23L and it should be easy to find. Just Google for a local beer or wine making joint and they'll have tons of these.
   
2. A carboy. It's like a fermeter tub, but it's big and made of glass.
   
3. An airlock and a bung. Don't worry there are pictures coming and I've got nice labels on them so you'll see what's what.
   
4. A siphon
   
5. Rinse free sanitizer
   
6. A big plastic spoon for stirring and a smaller plastic spoon for stirring
   
7. A big plastic strainer or colander that fits the mouth of your fermenter tub (only if you're using a recipe that calls for grains)
   
8. A thermometer (a dollar store meat thermometer will work great)
   

Once you have all that you call follow us on our beer making adventures. So sit tight and stay tuned for our first batch of beer. The Bear Brown and Barking Double IPA.