Nov. 2, 2012
The only thing better than enjoying a delicious, frosty brew
is enjoying a delicious, frosty brew that you made yourself. Saturday, Nov. 3,
is the American Homebrewers Association’s official Learn to Homebrew Day. This
epic holiday is celebrated by breweries and homebrew shops across the country
and is a great excuse to get off your butt and start dabbling in the wonderful
world of brewing.
To give you that first shove, Wine or Wort Home Brew Supply
is hosting a free brew day on Nov. 2 at the store near Costco in Gypsum.
“We’re opening up our cookers to anyone who wants to come
down and start a batch and walk them through the cooking process,” said Beth
Reed, co-owner of Wine or Wort. “The first step in the process is to boil the
wort for about an hour and add the ingredients through the process and then
chill the wort down and put it into a fermenter. We’re going to be doing that
with anyone who is interested.”
Brewing can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be,
Reed said. At its most elementary level, there are only a few steps in the
process: boil the ingredients to make wort, the liquid base of your beer; chill
the wort slightly and allow it to ferment; add priming sugar to the fermented
wort and bottle it; stuff the bottles in a cool, dark place to allow the yeast
to turn the sugar into alcohol and carbonation; and then pop the bottles into
the fridge to savor the satisfying culmination of your work.
“If you want it to be that simple, you follow the directions
in the ingredient kits and do the step by step,” Reed said. “If you want to get
very involved in the science of it all, people go to school for four years to
learn how to brew.”
Most homebrewers fall somewhere in between, Reed said, but
almost all of them got started with the same basic equipment setup. Ryan
Stelzer is a purchasing agent and brand manager for L.D. Carlson Co., a
wholesale brewing equipment company that supplies some of the gear found at
Wine or Wort. Stelzer said anyone can start brewing, even those with very
little space to devote to the hobby.
“For brewing, you don’t need a lot of room,” he said. “Condo
brewers delegate only a few square feet to the brewing process. It doesn’t take
any more room than a 5-gallon bucket.”
Equipment and ingredient kits can range in price, but both
Reed and Stelzer said a new brewer can buy everything needed to brew his or her
first batch of beer for around $200. Stelzer said starter kits contain two 6
1/2-gallon buckets, siphon hoses for transferring the beer, a racking cane to
help with siphoning, an air lock that allows carbon dioxide to escape during
fermentation but keeps oxygen away from the beer and a hydrometer to monitor
gravity readings throughout the brewing process.
The hydrometer is used to test the amount of sugar in the
water, Reed said. It also tells you when the beer is done, how much alcohol it
contains and whether you’re making the beer you think you’re making, based on
the starting and ending sugar levels in the wort. If your sugar levels start in
the right place and end in the right place, you can make good beer, Reed said.
“The hydrometer is very important as far as knowing what is
going on with your beer,” Stelzer said. “It provides gravity readings
throughout the brewing process, starting with the starting gravity. You’re
trying to hit a certain number once you add your yeast.”
The kit also includes a bottling spigot that attaches to one
of the buckets when you’re ready to bottle your beer and a capper to cap the
beers after you fill them. Each ingredient kit sold at Wine or Wort contains
enough bottle caps for a standard 5-gallon batch of beer, or about 52 bottles
per batch. The store sells new bottles, or homebrewers can save and clean used
bottles from their favorite commercial beers and re-cap them.
Other useful tools you might want to pick up are an
oxygenated cleanser to help clean your system between batches of beer, a
thermometer to keep an eye on fermentation temperatures, a cook pot for boiling
the wort and a book to learn more about the process. Advanced homebrewers can
customize their systems by adding a second fermentation tank or gear to keg
their beer instead of putting it in bottles.
Homebrewing takes some time and is quite a bit more work
than going to the store and picking up a six-pack, but it’s worth it the first
time you take your beer to a party and can proudly declare it as your own.
“It’s the art of crafting something yourself,” Stelzer.
“When I started here six years ago, I told myself, ‘I don’t know who would brew
beer, who would take the time when you could buy it.’ A year after that, I
started brewing. It’s an addiction to be able to change something, tweak
something — you start recording that stuff and tuning into how to make that
beer better and better.”
So if you’ve ever felt the itch to try your hand at wheats
or brown ales, porters or stouts, join the ranks of the beer-brewing masses in
a celebration of suds on Learn to Homebrew Day.
“Don’t hesitate,” Stelzer said. “People are hesitant in
getting into the hobby because they feel they won’t do a good job. It’s like no
other hobby that’s out there. Everybody is really accepting and willing to
help.”
To reserve your spot
for the brew day on Nov. 2, or for more information on equipment,
ingredients or other upcoming brewing events, call Wine or Wort at
970-524-BEER.
Krista Driscoll
Hophead
