Brewing Some Booze - June 9, 2008

Ahhhh…nothing’s tastier than reaping what you sow, especially if it gets you a little tipsy.

This past weekend I spent a good part of Saturday afternoon brewing beer with Johnny D of the Jo-Tel and Shannon, adjunct professor to the Jo-Tel. Johnny D and Shannon are avid amateur brewers, so they were the perfect people to tag along with for this experience.

Brewing first kicked off with a trip to San Francisco Brew Craft off of Clement Street in the Richmond district so we could pick up the grains, barley, malt, and yeast. The store was great, and the brew master, Griz, was happy to write recipes on the spot, as well as claim that technologies like cell phones and digital cameras were ruining the intellectual capital of the world.

We then headed back to Shannon’s joint to concoct a brew called “Lawnmower.” The brewing process took about 3 or 4 hours, so we made sure we had plenty of snacks and other home brew to drink. We also threw back a couple of Underbergs to make sure our tummies didn’t get upset.

The brewing process isn’t as complicated as I initially thought. Here are the steps (in pictures and words) that we followed:

Step #1 - Get your supplies

Step #2 - Bring the water to an almost boil and insert the grain bag into the hot water.

Step #3 - Let the grain bag soak in the hot water for 45 minutes

Step #4 - Remove the grains, and bring water to an almost boil, at which point you’ll then add the malt

Step #5 - Bring the brew to a boil with the malt in it, and add the hops intermittently throughout the boiling.

Step #6 - Cool down the beer using a copper coil

Step #7 - Pour beer into plastic container, and add yeast halfway through

Step #8 - Let sit in container for x number of days, then transfer to glass container for final fermenting process which will also take x number of days depending on the brew

I'll post the bottling of the beer once we get to that phase.