Make Your Own Beer - Homebrewing For Women

Make Your Own Beer - Homebrewing For Women By Sandy Dee

Have you tried to make your own beer yet? I love brewing my own beer and so do some of my female friends. Men might think that brewing beer is a male prerogative , but that is simply not true. There are a growing number of women who now brew their own beer. We love drinking it as well and that includes my 80 year old mother.

I started my rather unusual hobby when I moved to a country that does not permit alcohol at all. Admittedly my first batch was not all that wonderful, but that soon changed. Bearing in mind that normal ingredients and equipment were not available, a certain amount of experimenting had to be done. Whilst certainly not as good as what I now brew, my beer proved to be very popular - and yes the recipe was shared with everyone who wanted it.

Although I still spend a fair amount of time in a certain Arabian country and have to rely on cannibalized beer making equipment along with somewhat unusual beer brewing ingredients, it is a pleasure when I am able to go home and brew a huge batch of really good beer using one or more of the 13 free recipes that I am offering to give to you (see below), so that you can also make your own beer.

What a pleasure it is to spread a blanket under the trees in my garden on a beautiful sunny day, have a wonderful picnic lunch with three or four friends whilst sipping cool, exquisitely flavored beer from tall glasses.

There is no way that you should let the guys have all the fun - homebrewing is as much for women as it is for men. Men are most definitely not the sole masters of the game. We women make excellent beer and we are not afraid to experiment and create subtle new flavors.

By the way a bottle of homebrew and a pair of attractive glasses make a wonderful and interesting gift, especially if you provide the recipe as well.

The next time a bunch of beer guzzling men come round to your house for a barbecue or to watch a game on TV, why don't you quietly serve them one of your own special homebrew recipes (without telling them what beer it is) and just see how they react. They will be begging you for the name so that they can buy their own.

Did you know that back in the middle ages, the brewing of beer was mainly women's work? These ladies were known as ale-wives. Over the years this eventually proved so lucrative, especially in Scotland where 300 women dominated the market, that eventually in late 1600 laws were passed preventing them from brewing, though it is believed they carried on in secret for another 100 years or more. Eventually, when the First World War started and women were charged with keeping the home fires burning, many ladies once again started up the old tradition of brewing beer.

If you haven't yet attempted to brew your own beer then it is long past time you did. Join me and all the other homebrewing ale-wives out there. It is a fun and inexpensive hobby which will have the men in your life begging for more.

Why Homebrewing is Always Fun!

Why Homebrewing is Always Fun! By Mike D Hayden

As anyone who likes to frequent the types of restaurants who display the brass brewing equipment they create their own "house beer" in will tell you, making your own beer the way these establishments do is both simple and a lot of fun.

Obviously it's not possible to fit the the sort of equipment the restaurants use into an apartment or most homes, let alone afford the sort of huge expense that comes with producing large quantities of beer, but worry not - home brewing requires only a fraction of the equipment. Indeed, you'll be amazed at how easy it actually is to create a delicious brew with the minimum of equipment.

To make a start all that is actually needed is some ready-made malt with hops and a fermenter jar with an airlock (six gallons in size). Malting grains was a previously difficult and messy process but with the advent of malt extract in cans it's now extremely straight forward.

It's honestly as easy as this:

Mix.
Brew.
Bottle.
Enjoy!

The actual mixing is done in the fermenter we mentioned before - hot water, malt kit, add cold water and then the yeast. It's similar to a bread machine but even easier. The brewing itself is done by the yeast so no extra work for you followed by simply bottling the result and enjoying the results!

The other benefit to home brewing over buying commercial beers other than the sense of achievement and the fun of it, is the huge money savings you can make. Six gallons of your favourite recipe will cost you between twenty and thirty dollars. Compare that to the big brands and tell me which is most cost efficient!

Last but most definitely not least comes the taste! Home brewed beer just tastes better - why else do the restaurants who brew their own do so much better than the places who just churn out the mass produced stuff you can buy at the gas station? It's because their beer is freshly made, crisp tasting and refreshing.

You can make that beer yourself and taste the difference.

Mr Beer Review - Good Beginner Brewing Kit

Mr Beer Review - Good Beginner Brewing Kit By Drew Vics Drew Vics Level: Platinum Drew Vics is an artist, musician and songwriter who writes short articles on a variety of topics including life, music, beer, home brewing, belief and ... ...

So you want to brew your own beer? It's easier than you think with a Mr. Beer Brewing Kit. The main requirements are clean working conditions (very important), following directions, and patience, Patience, PATIENCE!!

The first two requirements are critical, but if you want a good, clean, tasty beer after spending the time to brew it, you need to exercise patience. Yes, you can have home brewed beer in two weeks, but I HIGHLY RECOMMEND You wait Four Weeks. Well, at least three and a half, that's how long I waited to try mine. :)

First, let's run through the brewing process and check out the ingredients, instructions and equipment provided by Mr. Beer.

My first Mr. Beer batch was the West Coast Pale Ale, one of their Standard Brew Packs. It included a can of hopped liquid malt extract, a pouch of Booster™ (they can trademark Booster?) and a packet of dry brewing yeast. Don't panic like I did when you discover that the yeast packets are not in the shipping carton, they're conveniently stowed under the plastic lid on each can of malt extract.

The Boil...

The Mr. Beer brewing process will last approximately 15 minutes once the water is up to temp. Begin heating the water and as it warms stir in and dissolve the Booster™, once it reaches a boil you can turn off the heat and begin stirring in the malt extract (what they call the "beer mix") until it is fully dissolved.

Why such a short boil? In extract brewing where raw hops are added a full 60 minute boil is required so the brewer can introduce specific amounts of hops along the way to achieve the desired result. In the case of the hopped malt extracts included with the Mr. Beer ingredient kit this step is already done for us, there is no need to do anything but fully dissolve the fermentables so the yeast has something to munch on to produce the alcohol.

Once the sugars are all dissolved what you have is called the wort, pronounced "wert." Next you will add your wort to the 4 quarts of cool water already in the keg fermenter (follow the Mr. Beer directions). Add more cool water to bring it to the 8.5 quart mark. I suggest filtered tap water that has been cooled in the fridge, stir it up good. I put the cap on and sloshed it a bit back and forth too, but be careful, the cap is not air tight. Which brings us to...

Fermenting Mr. Beer... No Airlock?

Why is there no airlock on the Mr. Beer fermenter? I'd like to address this because it may raise concerns among home brewers as an open door to contamination. Two small notches in the lip of the fermenter allow carbon dioxide gas to escape, which creates a positive flow of of gas outward from beneath the lid, for most of the fermentation process. The big lid which screws onto the lip of the fermenter provides adequate protection from foreign material and any microorganisms that could potentially take up residence in the fermenting brew.

Microorganisms don't fly around looking for stuff, and they aren't going to slither up the side of your fermenter looking for a way in. If you're work area is clean, the fermenter is clean, you didn't get any nasties onto the lip of the fermenter, AND you leave it covered for the duration of fermentation, you'll be fine. NO PEEKING!

If you want to see what's going on in the fermenter, scale up and buy a glass carboy. The Mr. Brew fermenting keg is dark brown for a reason, yeast works better in the dark. To make your yeast happier yet, keep the fermenter in a dark location, and at a relatively consistent temperature, between 68-76 degrees F according to the Mr. Beer directions. Though I have successfully fermented brews at 65°, right around 70° is the standard. A slight drift high or low, by a couple of degrees, will not mess things up.

Bottling...

Leaving your beer alone for at least two weeks in the fermenter is critical to allow as much settling as possible. You will bottle a clear beer, but there will still be enough yeast remaining to produce sufficient carbonation.

As a result, after two weeks in the bottle you will see a very light layer of sediment. The sediment was so miniscule in my final brews, literally just a dusting, that I was able to enjoy a beer right out of the bottle! Of course, to fully appreciate your home brewed ale you should pour it into the proper glass.

Brewing with liquid extracts in general results in a very clear beer, with a fine layer of sediment at the bottom. If you're seeing a thick bed of white schmutz on the bottom of your bottle, wait longer before bottling next time.

I used standard 12 oz. pop-top bottles that I save when I buy my favorite micro-brewed ales, but you can pick up a Mr. Beer Deluxe Bottling System for about $15. That system includes 8, 20 oz. plastic bottles, so you'll have to buy two sets in order to bottle your whole batch. You'd probably get about 10-12 of those 20 oz. bottles filled, and have a few extras just in case (no pun intended). I got about 18 12 oz. bottles out of my batch.

The Result...

My final beer weighed in at around 3.3% just prior to bottling. At first I thought something had gone wrong but Mr. Beer states that the final ABV should be around 3.7%, under optimum conditions. So I was close enough.

The beer pours a nice pale golden color, has a nice malty nose and a smooth mouthfeel before giving way to a pleasant hop bitterness at the end. As it sat in the glass it became a little fuller in flavor, given some time to "breathe."

It did have that mild homebrewiness to it, but I find that maximum time in the fermenter keeps that to a minimum by reducing the amount of trub the beer will sit on in the bottle.

One disappointment was the rather short lived head. I had to pour rather aggressively to acheive one in the first place, and it only lasted about 15 seconds. The carbonation is a bit inconsistent due to the addition of priming sugar to each bottle, in dry form, prior to bottling.

A typical priming situation involves dissolving dry malt extract or corn sugar into a small amount of water and stirring that solution thoroughly into the fermented beer before bottling, which results in more consistent carbonation.

One suggestion for priming with a Mr. Beer set up would be to dissolve no more than 3/8 of a cup of priming sugar (you can use confectioner's corn sugar) into 1 pint of hot water. Let it cool then divide evenly among the bottles before bottling the beer, just about 1/2 ounce per bottle should do it. This will help you get an even amount of priming sugar into each one, resulting in even carbonation. Better this than adding the dry sugar to each bottle and hoping it all dissolves into the cool wort.

You can estimate how much to add by measuring a 1/2 ounce of water and seeing how far up it goes in the bottle, then just add this much of the sugar mix to each bottle before adding the wort. It will mix as the wort flows in, but feel free to swirl it a bit as it fills. By the way, you can trust my measurements, I did the math. :)

In Conclusion...

I titled this post "Mr. Beer - Good Beginner Brewing Kit" but in fact it is a great kit to keep around and reuse, even for the more advanced brewer. The Mr. Beer kit offers a quick, convenient, and virtually hassle-free way to make very good tasting beer over and over again. I highly recommend it for anyone who'd like to give home brewing a try, but doesn't know where to start. This is a great way to get your feet wet, and learn the basics of the home brewing process.

Happy Brewing!

beer making kit

Beer Making Kit - The Best Way to Homebrew? By Dave Dee N

OK! So you're thinking of joining the thousands who partake in this fine, rewarding and delicious hobby of making their own beer... But, you might ask, is using a beer making kit the best way to homebrew? Well, here are the key points that should help you decide.

Kits Are Easy To Use

No question, if you are just starting out then using kits is certainly the easy way to go. But a great many people also choose to stay with them, and no surprise. They are very straightforward to use -- no mess and difficulty of malting your own grains as in the traditional way.

Instead, everything comes ready prepared and it's just a matter of mixing those ingredients with water, letting the yeast do the fermenting, and then bottling. Nice and easy, and before long you can be sipping your delicious brew.

But Do You Lose Quality?

Now, if it's so easy with a kit what about the quality? Doesn't that suffer? Somehow one feels that the amount of work that goes into the long traditional way of homebrewing should pay off in better quality and taste. But ... that's not so. With the excellent kits available nowadays there is no loss of quality. You can achieve the truly delicious flavors and quality of homebrew, but with ease.

What is more, using kits is reliable. With the traditional method, any little mistake in the procedure can spell disaster or certainly compromise the quality. With kits nowadays you can confidently brew the best tasting beers, relax and enjoy the process -- instead of worrying over how it will turn out.

What About the Cost of Kits?

A good microbrewery kit will cost about $90 but that gives you all the equipment you need, and it's completely reusable. Then the individual malt kits, for whatever type of beer you currently fancy, will cost $20-30 and give you six gallons.

Remember, any type of homebrewing requires equipment and buying ingredients, and traditional brewing generally requires more of everything because there are more processes. So on balance kits really offer great value.
All the more so when you factor in the reliability of these simple-to-use kits, and the cost of a failed brew using the traditional method. And of course, kits also save you considerable time.

What Varieties Can You Brew with Kits?

You know, there is nothing to match the delicious taste of homebrewed beer -- the commercial brands don't come close. But with kits nowadays you also have all the variety to choose from -- ales, lager, stout, all the classics -- and you can also have fun creating your own original blends and flavors. Try honey beers, or spiced ales, or experiment with the famous Goat Scrotum Ale (actually, it's delicious).

The variety and sheer quality of beers you can homebrew these days is enough to tempt any beer lover, and using kits just makes it easier and all the more enjoyable.

calcium chloride cacl2

The Many Uses For Calcium Chloride By Matthew McKernan

There are many uses for calcium chloride. It can be used in the industry, food, and can also be used in medicine. It is as basic salt. There are very common uses for CaCl2. It is used in the brine for refrigeration plants it is also used for ice and dust control for the roads and it is also in concrete.

Because it is able to absorb the water materials from its surroundings it has to be kept in a container with a lid. But because of its ability to absorb the water molecules it works great in the industry. The industry uses the CaCl2 to remove moisture. It is commonly used to pack drying tubes, because it excludes atmospheric moisture from a reaction set-up while still allowing gases to escape. The CaCl2 cannot be used to dry alkaline gases like ammonia because it forms addition things. It also added to liquids to remove delayed or dissolved water. This is just some of the uses that the industry uses it for.

The CaCl2 is also helpful in the food industry. The food industry uses it for many things but we going to go over a few. It is allowed by the European Union for additives to food. The US Food and Drug Administration also generally recognize the CaCl2 as safe.

It is used as an electrolyte in sports drinks. It also helps to keep canned vegetables firm. With the CaCl2 in the canned veggies it helps keep it firm without raising the sodium level. When it is used for brewing beer the calcium chloride is sometimes used to fix the mineral deficiencies in the brewing water. It also affects the flavor and the chemical reactions during the brewing process and it also affects the yeast function during the fermentation.

Now for the pharmaceutical industry it does help with many things. The calcium chloride can help with insect bites for example it can help with the bite from a Black Widow Spider. It also helps hypocalcaemia, which is a low serum calcium level in the blood. They can inject the calcium chloride intravenous therapy.

It can be used to quickly treat Calcium Channel Blocker toxicity, from the side effects of some drugs. The water form of calcium chloride is used in the genetic transformation of cells. It does this by increasing the membrane permeability; influence the competence for the DNA uptake. Allowing DNA fragments to enter the cell more readily.

There are so many uses for calcium chloride it is used in just about every field.

Beer in Texas - The History of Texas Breweries and Their German Influences

Beer in Texas - The History of Texas Breweries and Their German Influences By Billy Bristol

In the 1840's, German immigrants began to come to Texas in large numbers, and because of that, beer in Texas was not far behind. Texas beer has become a favorite of beer lovers in and out of the state.

When Charles Nimitz, who was the grandfather of Admiral Chester Nimitz, acquired his frontier hotel in Fredericksburg, Texas in 1855, he felt it was natural to have his own beer brewery. Residents of Fredericksburg, as well as noted guests such as Robert E. Lee, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Ulysses S. Grant thought the brewery was a great idea. This establishment became the focal point for the town, and to this day is considered the beginning of Texas beer history.

Scholz's Garden, the old watering hole in Austin Texas, has been serving beer since 1866. About that same time, City Brewery of San Antonio, under owner Otto Koehler, built a small plant that became the headquarters for Pearl Beer in 1885. Pearl later became the first beer of Texas to be distributed outside its immediate area. Pearl purchased its formula from a brewery in Bremen, Germany that called its beer "Perle" because of the bubbles that would rise in the glass when the beer is poured.

German and Czech farmers near the small town of Shiner, Texas started another Old World brewery back in 1909. To make the kind of beer they wanted, the founders of this brewery hired Kosmos Spoetzl, a Bavarian whose family had a beer recipe that dated back several generations. To this day, the Spoetzl Brewery makes its Shiner and Shiner Bock beers using the same formula. And most tasks of the brewing process are still done by hand, using one of the smallest commercial brew kettles in the United States.

Both Pearl and Shiner survived Prohibition, at a time when most breweries did not. This was because they sold other products temporarily, such as "near beer" and ice. After Otto Koehler's death, his wife Emma guided Pearl through those tough times. In 1933, and just 15 minutes after the repeal of Prohibition, more than 100 trucks and 25 boxcars loaded with beer rolled out of the Pearl plant to destinations throughout the state.

Within 10 years, the Lone Star Brewery joined Pearl in San Antonio, and became the third of the major breweries in Texas, and continue to produce and distribute beer which Texans enjoy today.

These were not the only breweries in Texas coming from German influences, however. In recent years, the Dallas Brewing Company, a new microbrewery, began to release a series of barley-malt beers made under the traditional German Purity Law of 1516. The German brewing heritage is still very strong in Texas after 150 years, and appears likely to thrive for many more years to come.

beer labels

DIY Homebrewed Labels For Your Homebrew - Make Cheap, Professional, Short Run & Custom Bottle Labels By Mike R Edwards

If you're giving a bottle of your best homemade beer or wine as a gift, you want a professional looking personalized homebrewed label. These DIY custom label making instructions will show you how to make the perfect label for any occasion.

Here is the beauty of this custom label making process:

• Multiple yet individual custom labels. For example you could setup your word processor to print 10 labels per page and print a unique bottle number on each custom label (6 of 24).
• The base label material can be any color or texture you printer can handle.
• Cut your homebrewed label to any shape or use specialty scissors for a decorative border.
• Use photos, artwork, birthday or greeting cards as custom labels.
• Hand or machine stitch cloth labels for special gift bottles.

In my opinion, the perfect homebrewed label(s) should relay two messages to the recipient.

• The bottle contents, maker, year, storage requirements, expiration dates, etc. That information found on that piece of masking tape on the bottle and the info in your head.
• Facts of interest concerning this unique bottle, e.g. grapes from your garden or hops imported form Germany or brewed for the 2008 Milwaukee Brewer's Festival.

I prefer the two label approach. The first label passes along all the necessary information allowing full artistic license for the second label.

For example, you could make the second label a birthday card. Using our carpet tape label making method, you could attach a purchased birthday card to your bottle. Or better yet make a homemade birthday message. If you are the creative artistic type, make your own custom label. It doesn't even have to be paper, e.g. needlepoint or embroider your message on the bottle. Use your computer and an internet card generator to make a personalized message.

The birthday example is just one idea for the second label. There are countless reasons why you would give your homebrew as a gift. Now you have a method of customizing a label for that occasion. Use our imagination! It's a Girl cigars lack imagination. How about, It's a Girl! Cathy Jo, May 28, 2008 bottle of strawberry wine bottled just for that occasion.

Homemade Beer & wine have become very popular in recent years. Giving a bottle of your finest homebrew as a gift is a very unique personalized gift. But that masking tape identifier label on the bottle just won't cut it. You need to make it more personal and add some class.

The whole process of making a homebrewed label is quite simple.

• Start with a page of printed custom labels or craft project to be used as a label.
• Apply double sided tape to the back to make a homemade label.
• If desired apply a clear acrylic coat for longevity.
• Cut the label to the desired shape and size.
• Peel the backing off your new homebrewed label and place it on your wine or beer bottle.
• That's it! You're done!

How simple and cheap can a personalize homebrewed label be for your bottle of homebrew? The most difficult part of this project is designing the custom label.

I have several tips to aid you in making a professional looking custom label. The most important tip is that when making a long label for a curved surface; use several pieces of tape parallel to the curve to avoid buckling. Remember to experiment first on an old bottle and unwanted or blank label material.

I am Mike Edwards author of How2stickers.com where you can learn how to make DIY custom stickers. Find FREE Layout and design tips, pitfalls to avoid, dozens of project ideas, and 3 step-by-step tutorials.
1) Magnetic emergency escape plan
2) Photo magnets or photo fridge magnets
3) Student ID stickers.
This information is TOTALLY FREE, no sign-ups, no pop-ups, just straight to the point cheap DIY sticker making instructions. http://how2stickers.com is available in 42 languages.