How to make beer

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 11/03/09 at 10:03:33 am

I gave a talk last night on how to make beer. It was in the place that I live, Bristol (U.K) and I gave the talk as part of the Freeskilling evening program. Freeskilling is the brainchild of that bloke who is living for a year without spending any money – Mark Boyle. Whatever you think of him doing this it has to be said that (at least in Bristol), he has got people talking.

Anyway, freeskilling is exactly what it says on the tin. It is people teaching others some skills for free. So I did not make any money out of my talk last night and did it just for the love of it.

What I was aiming to get across last night is just how easy it is to make your own beer and to really take control of what you are drinking.

The average hop farmer sprays 14 times a year uding 15 different pesticides and only 0.04% of the UK hop production is organic. When I found this out it made me wonder about my hangovers, could I be realing from an actue pesticide poisioning? Ok I am being alarmist, but I do try to eat organic food whenever possible so why should I make a comprimise on a Saturday night.

I opened the talk with a statement, “I want you all to leave here knowing how to make Ale”. Hopefully, everyone did. I tried to keep it as simple as possible and broke it down to 12 steps.

Step by step

Step one: Decide on size of batch, is it for a party or at home. So do you make 10 pints or 100 pints?

Step two: Choose your ingredients. What flavours do you like, perhaps try some yarrow or just a hopped beer.

Step three: Steralize at your equipment due to all the airborne yeasts and other nasties that can cause a brew to be mouldy.

Step four: Pour in malt extract.

Step five: Pour in sugar or sugar equivalent – ie molasses, golden syrup, honey or whatever. If you want to use just malt extract then use 1.5 times the amount you would sugar.

Step five: Boil up your ingredient. (hops, rosemary, yarrow or whatever)

Step six: strain using a muslin cloth or jelly bag. Pour over malt and sugar in fementation bin

Step seven: top up with cold water. To make the right amount.

Step eight: If not cool enough allow to cool until hand hot.

Step nine: Sprinkle over yeast

Step ten: leave to ferment (a week to be on the safe side)

Step eleven: Pour sugar into bottles [or honey] (prime) then siphon.

Step twelve: leave for about a week then drink.

At the moment I am experimenting with loads of different ingredients instead of hops, thyme, rosemary, sage, dandelion, pine needles to name but a few. I replace the same weight in herbs for what I would use in hops and I wash and dry all the herbs I use.

Like the talk I want you to leave this blog knowing how to make Ale. So to reiterate and add some numbers and ingredients  you might want to try  this recipe below my simple and cheap beer recipe.

Ingredients

• 1kg (2lb) of Malt Extract
• 55g dried hops (2oz)
• 750g (1.5 lb) Sugar (brewing sugar preferably, otherwise granulated)
• 20g (1oz) Ale yeast
• 13 litres (3 gallons) of water

Other Equipment needed

• Massive Saucepan/cauldron or two big pans
• Muslin cloth or Jelly bag
• Fermentation bin (at least 13 litres)
• Big plastic spoon
• Empty Beer bottles and caps.
• Syphoning tube
• Optional – Hydrometer and thermometer

Method

Get a really big pan/cauldron or if you don have that then two pretty big saucepans will do. Bring 7 litres of water to the boil then throw in the hops and keep boiling for 25-30 mins. The water should change colour and should taste bitter.

Steralise the fermentation bin, rinse and pour in the malt extract and Sugar.

Strain the hop liquid through the jelly bag. The hops should then be added to the compost heap as they are highly beneficial. Stir the wort to ensure that the sugar is all dissolved.

Pour over 6 liters of cold water and ensuring the temperature is below about 18c or 65f sprinkle on your yeast. The gravity (if using a hydrometer) should be roughly 1030.

Now put the top on the bin and seal it for a week or until fermenation stops.

Place a level teaspoon of sugar into each bottle and syphon the liquid into the bottles ensuring that you don’t syphon in any of the sediment.

Leave the bottles for 10 days then they are ready to drink.

The beer should be about 4.5% and the cost will vary depening on ingredients. It make approx 25 pints and my ingredients were £5 as they were all the best, a cost of  about 20p a pint for a locally brewed organic beer you can’t buy cheaper than that.

I sort of own a shop called the little co-op in Bristol

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 14/02/09 at 02:02:05 pm

Over the last few weeks I have taken over the running of a shop. I say I and really I mean we as there is a group of around 10 like minded good people also on board. So where is it I hear you shout, well it is 156 Church road, Bristol, BS5 9HX. It is all quite exciting and there is a real buzz about the place and although I love working on selfsufficientish and writing articles it is good to be involved doing something that you can touch and visibly see people enjoying. Especially at this time of year when the allotment is not doing much and we are not conducting our forages.

If you live in Bristol or are thinking of visiting then do pop in for a natter and a selection of teas and coffees and cakes or even CD’s, DVD’s and videos. We also have a good selection of books starting at 10p. We are open from Monday to Saturday 10am-5ish pm.

The aim of the place is not like most businesses we aim simply to be an asset to the community. Next week we will be selling wholefoods too. We are also open to suggestions about running the shop in the evening and have our first poetry night on 25th February at 7.30pm – 9.30pm all welcome as long as you buy one cup of tea!

I know that I have not blogged for a while and when I do it is a big advert for our new shop, but well as I said I am very excited. It also fits in with the buy nothing new 2009 considering that all the stock we sell is second hand! Well apart from the drinks.

I have to say once a again a massive thank you to everyone who donated. Your donations have been put to good use and you all helped us secure our shop.

Happy nothing new year

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 01/01/09 at 12:01:34 pm

Last year, that is way back in 2008, I did my best not buy anything new unless it was really necessary. This year I intend to do one better and buy nothing new at all, seems I am not alone and many of the people on the selfsufficientish forum are doing the same.

I seriously do think that we have manufactured enough not to warrant making anything more for quite a while longer, think of how much damage is done by making a load of old tat that we don’t need, vast swathes of China no longer see daylight due to our apparent need for dancing fish or the third new mobile phone in a year.

It might sound like I want to do without stuff and perhaps whip myself with birch twigs but that misses the point. I think it will actually make me happier not to be bothered with a load of stuff I don’t need at all, besides I prefer second hand stuff.

As I said last year I started this, it was a bit of a half arsed effort to honest and I still bought (new) loads of books, hard drive, memory card, bike trailer, jeans, shirt, power lead, demi johns, potato peeler and well I think that was it. Not loads as I am certainly not much of a shopper, but all stuff that I thought I needed at the time. Did I really?? I did want a digital camera so I bought a second hand one, I wanted a new desk that came second hand but that was about it.

So I am perhaps way more prepared than someone like Paris Hilton, Posh Spice or Gary Coleman would be. Still I can already think of things that I want like a cider press, more demijohns and what about presents for other people?

There are going to have to be exceptions as I won’t be able to do without food. Yes I do produce a lot of my own food and for that matter I will still need to buy seeds, of course I will still have to buy some food. Especially at the moment as I had a poor harvest last year.  So this starts the exceptions..

• Seeds
• Food and drink
• Cycle parts (although I will do my best to get second hand stuff)
• My own book (but no others)
• Medicine and dentistry (If I need a new tooth I am not doing without
• Anything the landlord decides needs doing on the house (Will try and source second hand stuff whenever I can and give him it)

It might sound like I am cheating as I am not going the whole hog and giving up money like Mark Boyle. I wish him all the luck in the world with this one, don’t get me wrong; in fact Mark is a good friend of mine. It’s just this one is not for me, I live in an urban house with my girlfriend and I think it would put too much of a strain on our relationship if I was to give up money and moreover, I like being able to nip down the pub now and then or to tuck into some really nice food.   You can see Marks progress on his blog if you do want to read about a no money idea.

I am sure that now the recession has us well and truly within it’s grasp there will be many people not buying much new for 2009, alas not for the same reasons. Whatever happens I wish you all a very happy nothing new year and I hope that you all get what you really need this year.

Merry Ishmas

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 09/12/08 at 07:12:59 pm

We created a word with “selfsufficientish” and so what’s to stop us creating another one with Ishmas? So what is ishmas? What does it mean? Well it’s like Christmas; in fact it really is what Christmas future will have to be as it is sustainable and thoughtful.

Ishmas is celebrated on the 25th December and has one message and one alone and that is to really think before you do anything for Ishmas day. Think about what you buy and think about your loved ones, don’t allow any of them to go hungry and don’t get tricked into thinking that the more money you spend on them the happier they will be.

So many people tend to forget their morals and consuming habits at Christmas time, this was very apparent when I went to a Christmas market in Bath at the weekend; hundreds of people were trying to push through the narrow streets, ladened with arms full of wrapping paper, decorations and presents. All things that I am cutting back on buying this year. In fact the only presents I am buying are copies of my own book, and I am only giving out one of those. So think ishmas, think don’t spend money.

I might sound like a humbug, but I think I am giving people far more thoughtful and individual presents than I could get was I too trudge around an out of town shopping monstrosity. My shop is the local common, the wood and well I do also need to buy the odd ingredient from a health food shop. Oh and I think, like James Strawbridge of It’s not easy being green fame, there is no harm in buying just one book – The Selfsufficientish Bible.

Decorations and trees

Ishmas starts with decorations, we still have some left from Christmas past the odd bit of tinsle and the plastic tree but as ever bits get broken and go missing and there always seems to be half as much as the year before. So for decorations for Ishmas this year I decided that we would weed our friends allotment, he has a holly tree and having the corner plot he has ivy growing all over the surrounding walls. We filled up to bags with this holly and ivy and it now adorns our living room, it really does make the room feel cosy too. According to the Druids by bringing in evergreens we are giving the natural spirits somewhere safe to stay, nice one always good to have spirits at Christmas.

If our “normal” decorations start to fall apart next year then they will be totally replaced with holly, ivy and other evergreens that I will get from the local area. Thus being a carbon free and highly sustainable way of decorating the house. I will have to point out that you should be careful with this approach if you have small children or animals as many everygreen berries are poisonus.

I will keep the plastic tree though as I don’t see any need of growing one when a fake one does the job. This tree on the left belongs to an old lady in Chippenham and it is thought to be the oldest christmas tree in use. It is still being used after 120 christmases. I am not sure if ours will last that long. This must be the most sustainable christmas tree in the world too as only one tree has been used instead of 120, imagine if every tree was fake and lasted this long we would all save a fortune on the yearly cost of trees which stands at £20 million just here in the UK.

Presents

I have to be careful with what I write here about presents as I know that some of the recipents read my blog, so no clues here Mum! Needless to say it the thought that counts with presents. I had to start to make some of my presents months ago and so they will have lots of thought put into them. One that I can talk about is my hop pillow, for my insomniac friend. I cut up a very tatty old white shirt into one big square. Then I sewed up each side of it leaving a big gap. I filled it with hops from my allotment, a few sprigs of lavender and the rest of the shirt to pad it out a little. Then I sowed up the final side to make a pillow.

I have also dug up feverfew from my allotment to give to a friend who gets a lot of migranes. For other friends I have a big barrel of beer on the brew and they are going to get a bottle each with a personalised label. For example, “blue moon ale” will be written on the label of a mate who only drinks every few months.

Lastly I am putting together herbal kits including ointments made from ingredients I have foraged and dried herbs that I have foraged. These are for the people that you would normally buy soap for as you don’t have a clue what to get them.

I hope that everyone will be happy with what they are given and I am very thankful that I don’t have any teenagers to but for. Well I guess I would just give them booze and I am sure they would be happy. Not so sure their parents would be though.

Wrapping paper

So what do you use for ishmas wrapping paper? Last year I used old magazines, but I used these wisely only using pages that I thought relivant to the recipent of the gift. So my big mouthed friend got pictures of Jade goody, my political friend got picture of MP’s and Dave got pictures of dog’s playing cards.

I will also be making paper this year from mushrooms but if I said more it might spoil the surprise of one of my gifts.

Transport

I decided too that I might not spend any money on transport this year either and am seriously contemplating cycling home. Home is up in Northampton which is about 102 according to google maps. This I could be done in a day if I was feeling very fit, in reality 2 days would mean I could do it all in daylight which does sound like a better plan. I would stay at a mates house, certainly would mean that I would not have to worry about the crowds at the train and bus stations.

If the weather is bad though I will scrub this idea and try for a liftshare.

Ishmas

So that would be an ishmas, I hope you agree that instead of a Christmas full of stress and spending it is one full of joy and love. Merry Ishmas everyone.

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