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Beer is one of the most popular drinks in the world. Frosty cold mugs are enjoyed by millions everyday. The brewing industry is one of the largest businesses in the world supplying those millions of glasses. But more and more people are discovering the joys of making beer at home.
Home brewing has quickly become a favorite pastime for millions and there are thousands of sites online and hundreds of catalog companies devoted to providing the right equipment for their hobby. There are even slick newsstand magazines that are devoted to nothing but the brewing and enjoyment of beer!
And the art of home brewing could be the perfect hobby for you — if you love beer, you love to cook, you are a bit creative, a bit experimental – and very, very patient.
Is Home Brewing Expensive?
The cost of making your own beer, buying all the home brewing equipment, supplies and ingredients you need to start with this great hobby is probably one of the first concerns for most people. After all, you may have toured or seen pictures of the inside a commercial brewery and know that they use huge cooking apparatus and vats. That’s true and their fermentation containers probably cost as much as your home. But for you to make your own beer, home brewing is actually a very affordable and even cost efficient hobby. As a matter of fact, depending on how much beer you and your family drink, it may save you money in the long run from buying it commercially.
Most of the standard kits you can buy for beer home brewing are much less than a hundred dollars and these kits are meant to last you a lifetime — though many, many batches of homebrew. You might consider it an investment in your family’s grocery bill if it means cutting down on the beer you buy from the store! Of course each batch of home brewed beer requires a new set of ingredients including the malt and yeast that you use and anything else you might put into your beer such as fruit or honey. But these additives are generally very reasonably priced and a large jar of some additives can last you for several dozen batches of beer.
Is Home Brewing Difficult?
Believe it or not making beer is actually one of the easiest things you might do in the kitchen! You might compare it to making a very easy batch of soup. When making beer home brewing does require some measuring and boiling and a few other steps but, for the most part, virtually anyone can do it. There are many different “levels” of home brewing. You can start out by buying a “kit” of measured and packaged ingredients and graduate to experimenting with you own flavors and mixtures as you get more experience and feel more comfortable. Many who begin with kits find that later the most fun they have is experimenting with different additives, fruits and flavors.
So if you really love beer home brewing may be for you. And even if you don’t particularly love beer, you might want to consider this as a great hobby or as a way to make personal gifts for others who do love beer. Home brewing is economical, easy and a great way for anyone to experiment with making something in their own kitchen.
Great Way to Meet People
Beer is one of the best ways to meet people ever invented. That’s the whole idea behind bars. Home brewed beer is no exception. In almost every good sized town in the world you are sure to find at least one, usually more, clubs devoted to the craft and art of home brewing. These men and women love nothing better than getting together once a week or so and hoisting a frosty mug while talking about beer. How can you go wrong with that.
If you love beer, good friends and life, home brewing may be the hobby for you.
Mark Hester runs the Drink Up website devoted to Home Brewing. You can read about everything from the best kits to buy to the legalities of Home Brewing Beer at http://myeverydaylife.net/homebrewing/ If you are new to Home Brewing, drop by and sign up for the 10 part email course we offer to learn all about this fantastic hobby.
If you are an old hand, stop by and leave a comment or a recipe at http://myeverydaylife.net/homebrewing/
Author: Mark Hester
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Cooking with beer has been a Belgian tradition for a number of years. The craze is now spreading worldwide. Here are a few beer recipes, including the famous Belgian Carbonnade a la Flamande.
Carbonnade a la Flamande
Ingredients:
1 ¼ pounds lean ground beef chuck
3 tbsp unsalted butter or margarine
¼ cup all-purpose flour
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 cups fresh or frozen chopped onions
2 3-inch springs fresh lemon thyme or ½ tsp dried thyme, crumbled
¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 ½ lbs red-skin potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 1 ½ inch chunks (not peeled)
1 can beef consommé – 10 ½ ounces
1 package frozen asparagus cut (do not thaw)
12 ounce can beer blended with 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
Salt and pepper
Instructions:
Shape ground chuck into large flat patty – dredge both sides in flour.
Heat butter in medium-sized Dutch oven over high for 1 minute.
Add ground chuck patty – brown 3 minutes on each side
Place patty in plate and set aside.
Lower heat to moderate temperature.
Add onions, garlic, thyme, and nutmeg to drippings and sauté (about 3 minutes).
Add potatoes and consommé.
Bring to a gentle boil.
Place lid on askew and cook for 15 minutes.
Add beer mixture and cook until liquid thickens (about 3-5 minutes).
Add meat, breaking into large clumps.
Cover and cook 10 more minutes.
Add asparagus and cook, breaking up frozen clumps, until potatoes are tender and meat shows no signs of pink (7-10 minutes).
Remove thyme sprigs.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Serve in heated soup bowls.
Chocolate Stout Cake
Ingredients:
¼ cup cocoa powder to dust the baking pans
2 sticks butter or margarine
1 cup stout or porter
2/3 scant cup Dutch-process dark cocoa powder
1 scant tsp salt
2 cups unbleached flour
2 cups sugar
1 ¼ tsp baking soda
2 extra-large eggs
½ cup sour cream
Instructions:
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Lightly dust 2 greased 8-inch pans with cocoa powder.
In a heavy saucepan or microwave oven, heat butter, beer, and cocoa powder until butter melts. Cool.
Sift dry ingredients together, add the beer-cocoa mixture and beat thoroughly on medium speed for 1 minute.
Add eggs and sour cream and beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.
Pour batter into prepared pans and bake at 350 degrees for 24 to 30 minutes.
Place pans on wire rack to cool.
Spread each layer with a thin coat of chocolate frosting.
Stack the layers and cover the sides with frosting.
Serve.
Citrus Lager Marinade (Perfect for fish or chicken)
Ingredients:
1 ½ cup lager
1 tsp cracked black pepper
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 stalk lemon grass
Pinch of salt
Instructions:
Slice lemongrass length-wise and remove center stalk and discard outer, fibrous husk.
Coarsely chop stalk and place in food processor with ingredients.
Blend well.
When settled, marinate fish or chicken up to two hours – no longer for fish because the citric acids will cure the fish.
These delicious recipes – crock pot stout ham and beef and beer stew should help you get more from your beer!
Author: Lisa Paterson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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If you enjoy drinking beer, but don’t enjoy the high prices of going to a bar or restaurant for a decent brew, you can brew your own beer in your kitchen. If you are tired of paying a lot of money for beer that you think tastes like cat piss, you should consider brewing it yourself.
Beer brewing is not really a difficult thing to do, if you have a bit of patience, you can really get a great tasting beer the first time you brew. If you want to do a bit of home brewing for the first time, you are probably going to want to get a kit that will help you. Then, invite a few friends to come over and give you a hand. Don’t forget that brewing beer isn’t an instant process, so you will have to buy a couple of six packs to tide you over until it is ready.
If you can boil water, you can make a delicious beer (and if you can’t boil water, don’t worry, there are several kits that you can buy, which you don’t even need to boil water to make). Don’t worry; you don’t really need a lot of equipment to get a great tasting beer. You will need at least one large container to store the beer in while it is fermenting (impress your friends by calling it a ‘carboy’), a large pan (to boil water and mix ingredients in), a siphon tube, and a hydrometer (which will tell you whether the beer is done or not).
To make your first batch of beer, you are going to follow three basic steps: clean, brew and bottle. If this is your first time brewing, it may take a bit longer, but once you have the hang of it, the cleaning and brewing part of the beer making process should take about 90 minutes for each batch.
If you want great tasting beer, you need to make sure that you have the best water and clean equipment. If your containers are dirty, it is definitely going to affect the way that your beer tastes. If you don’t want to sanitize your stuff, make sure that you delegate the task to someone who will.
Brewing is about as easy as boiling water and stirring in the ingredients. The amount of each ingredient is going to change depending on the type of beer you are brewing, but all you have to do is boil some of the water and add the grains. Follow the instructions for the particular type of beer that you are making. The last step is to add the yeast, which will start the fermentation process.
Then the hard part begins: waiting. It takes at least five days for the beer to be ready for bottling, and depending on the type of beer, it can take a lot more time (which is why you are now glad that you took the advice of buying a couple of six packs to tide you over).
If you want your beer to look as great as it will taste, you can put them in glass bottles. This is the final step, and one that every brew master will like, because the sooner you put the last cap on the bottle, the sooner you can get out the bottle opener and pop open one of your handcrafted beers.
Author: William Swan
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Brewing your own beer from home can prove to be a great and fun hobby. If cooking is a hobby, then why can’t beer brewing? They are pretty much the same when it comes to procedure and convenience. Just like in cooking or baking, brewers also use homebrew beer recipes in creating their “finished products.”
These recipes for brewing beer are available in print and online. If you are not very familiar with this hobby, you may be surprised to know that several monthly magazines are released to cater for the avid beer brewers out there. They give out free recipes and techniques on how home brewing of beer could be more exciting and tasty. They also promote beer brewing contests that every home beer brewer could join! Home beer brewers are quite a friendly bunch and you would get amazed at how very willing and enthusiastic they are when it comes to sharing their own brewing experiences. They also gladly share recipes with each other just like moms who exchange notes when it comes to planning the family’s menu.
If you are interested in trying this unique hobby, you can resort to going online and finding beer brewer communities aside from checking the magazines published for them. They would surely willingly coach you as you start. A lot of recipes are also out there free to be tried. However, bear in mind that whatever homebrew beer recipes you feel like trying, there are basic pointers you should always follow:
Use only fresh and high quality ingredients – Just like in cooking, your ingredients are better fresh and with high quality. For instance, instead of using dry yeast, go for the liquid one. You can store it up in the fridge to make sure that it keeps its good quality. Also opt for extracts that are fresh and not the canned ones. Some of them may have been packed years ago and this affects the quality of your liquor.
Keep your beer sterile – After your beer has cooled, it must be kept in clean containers. Like foods, your beer can also accumulate bacteria and other infectious organisms.
Always boil your ingredients for at least an hour – Boiling your wort can do many things. First, your mixture gets sterilized. Second, many undesirable compounds get vaporized through the process. Thirdly, bitter oils and tannins from grains fall out during the boiling procedure which is essential in making your beer drinkable. Some recipes will require you to boil for more than an hour. As a standard procedure though, heat your mixture for at least 60 minutes.
Remember that although homebrew beer recipes are widely available, the most important thing you should consider in making your own beer is your own taste. No recipe could satisfy your taste more than your own. The great thing about home brewing of beer is you get to adjust the taste, color, and texture of your drink as long and as much as you please. Take advantage of the opportunity and come up with something original, something reflective of who you are.
Author: Luke D Porter
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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How does $0,40 cent per bottle of excellent home brewed beer sound to you? With an average of beer prices being over $1, per bottle, brewing your own beer is cheap and can save you a lot of money. You need to be smart in this time of financial crisis and if you like making things yourself then the beer price of your own product will amaze you. You do something you like, you save some money and have a great batch of beer to enjoy, what more do you want?
To brew a large amount of beer (six gallons) and pay a good price for your beer you better buy a proper beer brewing kit. This will be your biggest investment and will cost you about $100,- to $120,- this also includes the ingredients for your first batch. But this investment will start making you money before you know it.
The beer costs of your own homemade beer depend on the ingredients you will use for the next batches. You can go to your local home brew store and buy everything separate but you can also buy a so called beer kit packages. These kind of packages contain everything you need to make a new batch of beer and they are available in many of your favorite flavors. The price of these beer kit packages for 6 gallons are between $25 to $30. Your per-bottle cost will run around $0.40 inclusive write down cost for the kit.
Cost of ingredients can vary
In 2000 the price of hop was about 2 dollar a pound, in 2007 the price was extreme and went up to 26 dollar a pound, this was because of a bad growing season. So if you can grow your own hop in your area we advise you to do so. This means the price of beer varies also over the years and that is also true for your own beer. But still in all those years brewing your own beer has been cheaper than buying it. Although it might be saving you just a little bit of money.
Beer prices do not depend on the equipment
Well of course you need to make much more beer to pay your beer brewing equipment of over $300,- then you do when you buy a kit from around $100,- but the prices of equipment have not increased much over the years, this means that the cost of investment have remained fairly constant. So the best you can do is keep the investment as low as you can.
You can also save money by loosing the cost of bottles and caps and to put your finished beer in a keg. You do need to invest in a couple of kegs and a tap but you can get better prices if you divided these cost up among the number of times you can use these kegs and taps. This way you can actually reduce the beer price per gallon even further. But at a price of less than 0.50 cents per bottle of excellent homemade beer who needs to?
Author: Drew Brown
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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St Patrick’s Day is a feast day on witch people from all over the globe traditionally proclaim themselves as “Irish for a day” and usually do that with the consumption of Irish alcoholic beverages like St Patrick’s Day Beer and by wearing green-colored clothing. You can now create your own St Patrick’s Day Beer and in this article we will tell you how to start.
Who celebrates St Patrick’s Day?
Saint Patrick’s Day or St. Paddy’s Day is a feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick who was the patron saints of Ireland. St Patrick’s Day is generally celebrated on March 17 and is a feast that is widely celebrated all over the world and not just in Ireland, countries like Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and United States also celebrate this day.
What is good St Patrick’s Day Beer?
People usually drink Irish Stout or Guinness as a traditionally St Patrick’s Day Beer. The key ingredient of Irish beer is Roasted Barley like in the classic Irish Stout. This gives the St Patrick’s Day Beer a dry coffee like taste, a very dark color but still a white foam. You also see some green beer in the pups but this is usually not very nice to drink for people who like a good quality beer.
Make your own St Patrick’s Day Beer
Making your own beer is not difficult at all and with Irish beer this is no different. A lot of people received a beer brewing kit for Christmas or as a special Valentine’s day beer gift and are now testing a lot of different recipes. Beer brewing kits are a great way to make your own beer, it’s a nice hobby and the end result is a batch of the best beer you have ever tasted. You can drink it with your family or with your friends. If you are interested to buy beer brewing kits you can look at the website at the end of this article. But if you already own such great equipment you can now start brewing your own St Patrick’s Day Beer and have it ready in time, although Irish stout can be appreciated not just at St Patrick’s day only. It is a great beer all year round.
Ingredients
The best thing you can do is buy a Complete Irish Stout Package, this contains all the ingredients you need to make a tasty beer. The package contains an Irish Stout beer kit, 500 gm Light Dry Malt Extract, Dextrose and Carbonation drops. Follow the enclosed instructions and we are sure you can brew a great St Patrick’s day beer.
Celebrate in style
Do you know a better way to celebrate this feast day, almost the beginning of spring, all the people wearing green, everybody is happy and you are surrounded by your family and friends who are enjoying your own home brewed beer. Is there anything more rewarding than brewing your own St Patrick’s day beer? A Irish stout dark brew displaying coffee, chocolate and licorice aromatics, roasty bitter notes with a dry finish. Mmmm, I can’t wait until the batch in my garage is ready to drink.
Author: Drew Brown
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Brewing your own beer can be a fun and interesting hobby. It can also save you money. There are many reasons you may want to brew your own beer.
Save Money
You can save a substantial amount of money if you brew your own beer. You may not save a lot on your first couple of batches. But, as you progress in learning more about making beer you will find that you can save money. Once you have made the initial purchase by investing in the equipment needed, you will save money with each batch you make going forward.
Hobby
Beer making is a good hobby. It is something that can be done at home and does not take a substantial amount of money to get started. There are also various local and online organizations that you can get involved with. Here you will find many others with the same hobby who are willing to share information and stories about beer making. Because there are many types of beer that you can make, the hobby can progress and not become boring.
Make Beer That You Like
There are literally thousands of ways to brew beer. Different ingredients used in varying amounts will produce different types of beer. You can experiment with the ingredients and brewing methods until you find the recipe that you like the best. You will also find that fresh beer is better tasting than beer that has been sitting on a shelf for a long time and will therefore want to make your own beer.
Fun
Beer making can be a fun pastime. There is enough to it to make it interesting yet it is easy to learn how to do. Most people start brewing beer by using a beer making kit, which allows them to try the hobby without too great of an investment. From there, if you like it, you can reuse the equipment you already have and get additional ingredients as needed. Since there are many types of beer you can make there is a lot of information you can find. Trying to make new types of beer can be fun.
Gifts
Home brewed beer makes a good gift for friends and family members. It is especially fun to give a gift you have made yourself, particularly when it is something you are proud of. Once you get good at beer making you will enjoy trying new and different beers and giving them to friends. You may even want to pursue beer making for profit.
Author: Graham Williams
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Home brewing is a big industry in Europe and elsewhere, but it seems that it is just in huge demand in England. There people began to brew their own wine and beer pretty early on, until it turned into a boom in the early eighties. Everybody jumped on the bandwagon and England turned into a country full of specialist on how to make your own alcoholic beverages at home. Everywhere stores went up that sold equipment and kits for brewing your own beer.
It doesn’t really surprise when one takes into account the pub opening hours, which were very much restricted until the mid – nineties. Back in the days of the World War I, the House of Parliament decided to do something about the high casualty rates on the home front. Too many people who worked in the armament industries blew themselves and their colleagues up by accident, not working with the required care when building hand grenades because they were either under the influence of alcohol or suffering from a hangover. The only thing the politicians could think of at the time was to limit severely the opening hours of bars, clubs and restaurants. So if people wanted to have a drink after 11:00 p.m., they had to be inventive. That’s why it seemed that everybody had a barrel with some kind of fermenting liquid at home, waiting patiently for the beer to be ready.
It requires very little money, not much time and a little space to make some superb beer at home. Most people start the process in their kitchens and once they have mixed all the ingredients into the barrel they put it in some quiet corner to let it ferment.
Beer is made, in its purest form, from only 4 ingredients: water, malt, hops and yeast. In fact, Germany had a so called purity law which the government had to scrap in order to align local laws with European laws, which generally allowed breweries to add chemical components to the beer, some for preservation, some for coloring.
It’s not necessary to use some extra clean or purified water to make beer, any tap water will actually do as long as it doesn’t have a high mineral content.
The next of the four ingredients is what is called the ‘heart of beer’, the malt. It is the product of grains like wheat or rye germinating. In itself it is the catalyst for the yeast, but more importantly in provides the flavor and the color for the beer.
In the south of England, particularly in Kent, there are huge hop farms. Hops are bitter tasting flowers that give the beer its herbal aroma. Consider these small flowers as the seasoning for the beer, as oregano might be the seasoning for a spaghetti sauce.
People are obviously familiar with yeast, which is used in making bread. It is a single cell organism that needs sugar in order to exist. Mixing it in with the dough for bread for example, this organism looks for and finds the sugar, eats it and multiplies in the process. As a by product there is alcohol and carbon dioxide, which makes the dough rise. In the beer brewing process it is the special kind of yeast which each brand uses that gives it its particular taste.
After having mixed all the ingredients together comes the difficult part, the waiting. The brew has to go through its fermentation process and before that is finished people are not supposed to drink it or else they get sick.
Author: Michael Russell
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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One would think that combining natural ingredients into a boiling pot in your kitchen is a recipe for catastrophic explosions galore, but it’s actually a recipe for having a good time brewing beer at home.
So how does one go about brewing beer at home? Simple. You can purchase a home brew kit from a hobby store and get to work creating your own tasty homemade brew from the comfort of your own kitchen. Where’s the fun in that?
Why not invite the friends over and create individual brews based on which each person likes? This should be a time of fun, creativity, daring and brew making. When you decide to make beer at home you are investing in an evening or even a couple of evenings of good old fashioned fun.
Here are a few tips on how to truly find the joy of home brewing.
Visit a Hobby Shop
There is a hobby shop in almost every town. Take a trip to the one closest to you and find a home brewing kit. These kits will come with the beginner needs to enjoy brewing beer at home. If you have no clue how to get started, you’ll be glad to know that most home brewing kits come with guides on how to start the home brewing process. You don’t have to go this alone- chances are the hobby shop owner knows a few things about brewing beer at home. He’ll answer any question you have as long as it guarantees a sale.
Gathering the Supplies
Once you get your home brewing kit home, you’ll need to look through the included guide for a list of all the ingredients and tools you need to get started. Chances are you’ll need hops, water, seasonings and sugar- but you’ll also want to get creative with your ingredients. Remember that this is home brewing, which means you make beer how you want to make it.
Have Fun with Home Beer Brewing
The joy of home beer brewing is within reach. Buy your kit, gather your ingredients and get to beer making. Have fun experimenting with different flavors and levels of body- with home brewing you can be as creative as you want, or you can just stay with the tried and true and make something everyone will like.
Make beer at home, everyone should!
Author: Alex Ottis
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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These days there is trend in light or low calorie beers and to be sure that the beer you buy is of that kind you only need to check the label to see if the calorie count is around the 150 mark. If you are brewing your own beer at home it is a bit harder to find out what the amount of calories are that is contained in your brew. There are just to many factors you need to take in account, things like how much sugar you have used or the carbohydrates you got from the malt and hobs and, this may sound strange, your brewing method are all things that can greatly influence how much calories are present.
When you want to brew your own beer you need to know the principal of it and that is that there needs to be a fermenting of the hops, malt and sugar. And you will also see that the different brews come with their own amount of sugar that is needed, and this is apart from what the taste of the brew master says. There are people who, wrongly, think that you can use something else to take the place of the sugar, things like vegetable-based sweeteners or other sugar substitutes. These people are wrong because this will affect the process of fermentation and also the temperature that is required for this process to even start.
Maybe this is the first time you want to start brewing your own beer then you probably bought a kit so you only need to use the ready made ingredients. If this is the case then the best thing you could do for home brewing low calorie beer is to buy a beer brewing kit that was specifically arranged for this purpose.
It all adds up
If you want to know the exact amount of all the calories in your brew then there are special mathematical formulas with which you could calculate them, you would also need to know the precise weight of all the ingredients. The next best thing is just to add up all the calories you read on the labels of the ingredients you put in to the brew. You need to keep in mind that the numbers on the labels are probably per serving and this is normally per 12 ounce of beer served.
If adding up the calories in the ingredients keeps you above the 150 mark then you could consider using an artificial sweetener but you need to keep in mind the facts we stated above. Also the taste will be drastically different in respect to the recipe with the original ingredients. Think to yourself if keeping the calories low is worth this difference in taste. Maybe drinking a bit less, and this way enjoying your batches longer, is a better way of watching your weight then drastically changing a beer recipe.
Enjoy brewing your home made low calorie beer, or maybe just buy some and enjoy your normal home brew beer when you want to.
Author: Drew Brown
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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