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.

Preperations for the free feast

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 28/11/08 at 11:11:08 am

It’s been a pretty busy few days as preparations for the free economy feast step up. I was getting rather worried that the yarrow beer I brewed for it would not quite be ready in time but it is starting to settle and it looks ok. I did try some after the first fermentation and it was palatable although full of sediment, so fingers crossed it is ok now.

The free feast is open to anyone who turns up and will be held at Cafe Midnimo in Bristol starting at 4.30pm on Saturday 29th Nov in Bristol. The feast will be served around 4.30pm in Café Midnimo, 163 Ashley Rd, St. Paul’s, Bristol BS6 5NX.

The Yarrow Ale won’t be served up at Cafe Midnimo as it has a no alcohol policy the local of serving it is as yet undisclosed. I did make an extra gallon for myself, which I am going to give a lot more time to mature just to judge the difference in taste, I have no other ulterior motive with making my own brew, honest.

SO WHAT ABOUT FOOD?? Well we did manage to find a massive haul of wax caps yesterday. Enough to feed at least 20 people as a soup or starter anyway. I say we as Dave and I were joined by another forager called Fergus who is desperately trying to rid himself of his TV name “the roadkill chef“. So I am sure he won’t thank me for mentioning it again.  He is trying to rebrand himself as Fergus the Forager and I think it seems to be working. It was good to talk to him about foraging courses especially finding out how he sells them as Christmas presents. As this is to be Dave and I’s wage next year we really do have to learn how to sell them. We were also joined by a local helper called Dan who seemed to enjoy just spending the day out. It is always good to go out picking with good people.

Good people carried on as a theme this morning as a bloke from BBC radio Bristol turned up with his radio car. I asked where the crew was and apparently they don’t need them for these live links. This was a bit of promotion for the free feast, I basically had to do a live talk about foraging. It might be on the listen again thing, for another week. I was on at about 8.40-8.50 ish so right at the end of the 3 hour show, about 2.50 hrs. It was unfortuantely cut short as there was a big fight near where I used to live in Bath, off the London Road. Quite odd as if I had taken a different course in life I would have been there.

So this afternoon we are now going to be off around Bristol looking for more foraged food for the feast. I will have to get on to that now.

Brewing 100 pints of Yarrow Beer, free Economy and new desk

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 19/11/08 at 03:11:24 pm

Brewing 100 pints of Yarrow Beer for the Free Economy

Last week I turned up to a meeting in a pub regarding the free economy. More on that later. The free economy lot are throwing a party offering free food and drink to anyone that turns up at the end of the month to celebrate the founders experiment of living without spending money for a year and of course buy nothing day. The party is to be held in just over a week on buy nothing day (29th November) and I agreed to supply some home brew. Having never brewed anything over 40 pints before this was indeed to be a challenge. The ingredients were no problem being just Yarrow, Malt Extract, Sugar, Water and Yeast - I wrote up the recipe and a brief introduction just here.

The interesting thing I found out about Yarrow is that it contains Thujone an ingredient also found in Absinthe. So I am going to assume that Yarrow ale/beer could be slightly psychedelic. Well as I am brewing 100 pints of it for over 100 people I am doubtful that it will really matter as I can’t see anyone having enough of it to have any effect.

Yarrow has been used by humans for the last 60 000 years and apart from being used to brew a psychedelic beer it has had many other medicinal uses including treating toothache, kidney disorders, toothache, piles and to stem the flow of blood. In fact soldiers throughout the ages have gone into battle with a pocket full of yarrow for this very reason. Indeed, in some circles it has been called the warriors herb. I love it as it grows everywhere and I tend to take an infusion of the stuff when I am feeling a bit run down, it seems to help.

Making the beer itself was a bit tricky to say the least, I got my 100 litre (22 gallon) water butt (see below) and filled it with steralizing solution and warm water. This involved getting the hose out or I could have been there for hours; as I had no tap attachment I had to tape the hose to the tap and flooded the kitchen a little as it kept firing off. I then rinsed it out with colder water and had much the same experience.

Now knee high in water I added the malt and sugar to the brew bin which I then moved to a warmer room – The dining room. My girlfriend seems to be grinning and bearing it as my home brew collection starts to take over, I have not told her that I intend on having something brewing constantly now for ever more. She does make the odd comment that makes me think she might disapprove such as, “if that f*****ng thing bubbles one more time”, or “I can’t come into the kitchen I am going to heave”.

Boiling the yarrow did smell a little and it had to be done in two large pans that I have for home brewing, one 7 litre and one 4.  Picking the yarrow was easier than I thought as I found a spot with loads of it, I would suggest doing the same if you are to make this as you when there are only a couple of plants in one area they are best left totally alone to give them the best chance for survival; you need about 1 pannier bag or roughly one carrier bag full so you will need a lot. I later found that trying to measure out almost 2 kilograms of yarrow is not the easiest in a small kitchen with tiny scales. So to add to the water there are now bits of yarrow, grass and clover all over the kitchen.

Anyway, if you want to recreate this then here are the ingredients and the full recipe is over here.

Ingredients

• 3.4kg organic Barley malt extract (10 jars)
• 2.7 kg Brewing Sugar
• 1.75 kg Fresh Yarrow leaves
• 56 litres of water
• 1 cup of good ale yeast
• a small jar of honey (for priming)

You may ask what on earth is going on in that picture, the thing on the far right is my water butt  wrapped with a fleecy sleeping bag to keep the brew to a regular temperature without having to have the heating on all night. It is being propped up by a few bricks so that when it comes to draining out the brew into its beer barrel the job will be slightly easier. No need for siphoning tubes with this set up. I am slightly concerned that if the bricks get cold they will radiate coldness and cause the brew to cool down this is why the local paper has been pushed under as an after thought.

Free Economy

….Which according to it’s founder Mark Boyle, “It’s about making the transition from a money-based communityless society to a community-based moneyless society”. You might have heard about Mark in the past as he was the bloke who gave up everything he owned and decided to walk to India.

Dave and I have got involved with them on and off over the last few months, mostly offering free forages. What happens in short is rather like freecycle but with your skills instead. People list what they can do anyting from house building to scrabble playing. You sign up, putting in your address and it tells you who is nearby so if you need a head massage, want to borrow a drill or need help with your dahlias then it is worth a look.

New Desk

On Saturday we popped into the Bristol branch of Emmaus a big warehouse type shop full of second hand furniture. Everything there is donated and all the procedes go to help desitute people in need of a home, work and support. It is one of my favorite shops as I love second hand furniture. I saw a massive desk and immediately wanted it, my old one although it has served me well is just too small, once I have a couple of books on it, it is filled.

So I excepted delivery of my Edwardian second hand desk yesterday. Great I thought it is perfect so big that I could sleep on it. Then I awoke in the middle of Sunday night; the day before delivery. I realised that it was so big that it would not fit in the house. I measured up the staircase and the front door and indeed I felt sure it would not fit.

So all credit to the three blokes from Emmaus who worked out that by taking it around the back, through the french doors then, taking apart the bannister we could fit it in.  It was odd but I think there was a real sense of winning in the face of adversity when we eventually go it in.

Part one of the Cycle Adventure and this weekends home brew

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 10/11/08 at 02:11:29 pm

Part One of the 677 mile journey Bristol to Swindon October 20th 2008

I got up early in the morning and walked Emma part way into work so that I could say my goodbyes to her and drop my bike off at a bike shop in Clifton (posh bit of Bristol). It was a very sunny day and rather warm too despite the forecast of rain in the morning clearning for the afternoon.

I was informed at the bike shop that it would be ready by 5pm, I asked if it could be ready sooner as

previously disscussed and proudly announced that I would be cycling to Aberdeenshire that day. Instead of sharing my excitment as I thought they would I got a small lecture about leaving things to the last moment. Which had only happened as this bike shop would not take my bike the week before. I bit my tounge and left them to it and was informed that my bike would be ready by 1.30pm and not a moment sooner.

When I picked it up I got another lecture and was told that I needed to know some basic cycle mechanics as my bike was more likely to fail after a service (I wondered why I bothered) and I would have to bring it back to that shop should this happen. “but I am cycling to Aberdeenshire this afternoon”.

“You should leave tomorrow”. – I did not like the owner one bit, it was more than just this attitude towards me the owner of the shop was just a conceited ass, he did not seem to have much respect for his workers either. In hindsight I should have gone to the Kebele cooperative just up the road from me. Next time I will, that bloke is never getting a penny of my cash again. I won’t be petty and mention the name of the shop as others might have a better experience. But there are not many bike shops opposite the BRI and close to the Christmas steps on the edge of Clifton.

I left the shop grumbling to myself for a second, then the task ahead hit me. I was to cycle to Scotland, I grinned to myself and forgot the pettiness of some people (including myself). a little feeling inside my chest reminded my that this was to be exciting, hard work and potentially dangerous. Fantastic!

As soon as I got on my bike the heavens opened, so much for the forecast. I took the Bristol – Bath Cycle path turning off onto route 17 the Avon Link. I knew I had to come off this path at some point, unfortunately the map holder that I had on the front of my bike that I assumed was waterproof was not. In fact worse than not being waterproof it seemed to collect water turning the map I was using into a soggy mess of papier mache.

I cycled around some of the villages between Bristol and Swindon for the next couple of hours looking for signs to Swindon and a bus shelter to read my maps, the rain was far too heavy to do this any other way. But, just like buses, there is never a bus shelter around when you need one. By the time I eventually found a shelter my map was way beyond any use other than an emergency water supply or a modern art sculpture. Luckily I had picked up a very crude cycle map from Sustrains (who were very helpful incidently), it basically stated that I had to get to Marlmsbury and then stick to a B road straight for Swindon.

Night was beginning to fall, my soggy socks reminded me that my shoes were not water proof  and I was shivering but at least now I knew where I was going.  I had invested in some puncture proof tyres before leaving they were twice the price of normal tyres but I thought worth it. I noticed my back tyre kept deflating, I kept pumping it back up and due to the prospect of taking off the back wheel in all that rain I was deluding myself that it was not a slow puncture and the valve was just playing up.  After nearly swerving into an artic due to my flat tyre I decided that I could delude myself no longer and had to fix a puncture. I stood by the side of this busy B road and proceeded to take off my back wheel. My hands were numb with cold, it was hammering with rain and night had not just fallen by was refusing to get up; this simple repair was to be harder than changing them in the living room as I was used to.

The camber of the road had caused some puddles to form and it seemed that every BMW driver thought it hilarious to splash me. After about the 7th time I thought to myself I can get no colder or wetter than this and it became pretty funny after that with each splash. In hindsight I am guessing that I was laughing to stop myself crying.

So now aching, cold, hungry and tired I arrived at my first stop for the trip Lower Shaw Farm, Matt Holland met me on the path on the way there and it was so great to see a friendly face. It was 8.20pm so everyone had already eaten but some of the shepherds pie was left for me and some pasta. I had three portions, a scone and one the nicest tasting cups of tea known to man. Granted a cup of warm urine could have tasted good at that time, well a cup of Dave’s tea anyway which is not always distinguishable from warm urine.

Rather Zombie like I sat up for a bit before retiring for bed and a thoroughly deserved nights sleep.

Part two – I wish I had learnt some basic bike repairs will follow very soon (today or tomorrow depending on how long I spend up the allotment).

Home Brew Beer (From this Weekend)

Just before I left on my cycle ride I brewed some beer using the hops I have grown on my allotment the recipe I used can be found here. We invited our friends John and Garth over to sample some and they loved it so much we finished off a batch between us that evening. I was feeling somewhat happy about this until Garth drank a bottle of Cherry Lambrini that had been given to me by a neighbour with equally the same relish that he gave the beer. I wondered if it was just the alcohol content that was getting the thumbs up.

In the beers defence Dave and his new girlfriend also liked the beer and I know that they are not Cherry Lambrini drinkers, so I do hope I have grown a good brew. The trick I think is using just the best ingredients, I used youngs brewers sugar, fresh home grown organic hops and an organic malted barley. I would have liked to use spring water too and in fact might for the next brew as I plan a trip to Bath fairly soon and I know of a spring over there.

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