Growing Hops....

So My mom is a Real Estate Agent and one of her clients grew hops for his home brews. He gave me some rihzomes to plant but they didnt survive the winter so I might look into planting some next year. But here is some cool videos but Hops Direct on how to grow and manage hops, check it out. http://www.youtube.com/user/hopsdirect#p/a

How to get started...

Ok so some of you might want to know how to get started on making your own home brew. Well its pretty easy, and once you have all the equipment then making 5 gallons of beer, yes I did type that correctly making 5 gallons of beer will only cost you around $30 - $40. Also I like to point out that it is not illegal to make your own beer or wine, just your own spirits ie. Moonshine.

Ok now that thats out of the way, lets talk about brewing.

1) You will need to buy a starter kit so you can brew your own beer. I found my kit from midwestsupplies there you can find kits that they have already made up that will give you all the equipment you need! They also sale rookie beer kits to help you get started on your own home brew. You will probably want to start out bottling your home brew. I bottled my beer 4 times then decided to go to kegging. I suggest start with bottling 1) so you will know the process and 2) so you will appreciate kegging lol. There are a couple of kits that you can get with bottles, this would be a good idea.

2) Get a kit. Get a beer that you know you will like. If you like brown ales get a brown, if you like hoppy beers get an IPA if you like light beers go with a blonde ale, the choice is yours just make sure its easy. You do not want to start off with a high gravity beer or something that will take you 3 months to brew. Also I should add unless you have an extra fridge lying around you will be making ales, because Ales are top fermenting beers and the yeast can like in the 60-70 degrees rang. Lagers cannot and would have to be refrigerated at all times.

3) Once you get your equipment and brewing kit then happy brewing, if you have any questions please post and I will try to help you out. I will from time to time post my beers that I am working on. Also a good useful website with a ton of information and tons of people to answer questions for you would be HomeBrewTalk I am a member and everyone who is a member is dedicated to making home brews and helping out the noobs.

HAPPY BREWING!

Been away....

I haven't been around in a while. I need to make another beer sometime soon, I just don't know what I want to make.

On deck, my Scottish Ale...

Here is a pic of me brewing my Scottish ale, my starting gravity was 1.054 so I should be looking at about 5.5% ABV. We'll see how it turns out.

Completed Blonde

Here is a picture of my completed Blonde. As you can see it seems their is too much head. So I cut the CO2 down to 8 PSI and it seems to be getting better.

Kegging Day....

Ok so today is my first time kegging, I started off with an OG of 1.051 and ended up at 1.01 so from what BrewCalcs says my Blonde should be around 5.5% ABV. Since its a Blonde I set it at 11 psi and im cooling it down to 40-42 degrees, in about a week it should carbonated and ready to serve.

A week later....

So here is a picture of my Blonde about a week after transferring it to the secondary. As you can see it has cleared up very nicely, I am going to keg this beer sometime next week. This will be my first time kegging so we'll see how it goes.