Homebrewing

"Here's to alcohol, the cause of? and solution to? all life's problems." (Homer Simpson)

I have been thinking about doing a batch of homebrew beer for a while now. It is about 3 years since I have done any brewing. At one stage I was making beer and wine at the same time. I also grew a beer baby which I haven't been able to get rid of since. So, I gave it up and now I am getting back into it. With everything getting more and more expensive, homebrew is a cheap and effective way to keep the booze shelf full.

Jo and I have been drinking a lot of Corona recently so I thought I would start again with a Mexican beer mix. The syrup is a New Zealand brand which used to be one of my favourites. Lets hope it is still as good as it was in the past. The fellow in the homebrew shop nearly fell over when I told him I was going to bottle it in used plastic Coke bottles. "Beer comes in glass", he said. I disagree. I have drunk from plastic bottles before and still found it to be quite drinkable.

This is going to give me a number of blip opportunities over the next few weeks while it ferments. Unfortunately I cracked the handle of the fermenter as I hauled it up onto the bench in the garage so I suspect that it might be brewing its last batch of beer. I taped up the cracks with gaffer tape. Hopefully that will last till this batch it done. It has had a good run and I will give it a good send off when the time comes.

BTW the 1038 I have scrawled on the wrapper is the original gravity of the beer as measured with a hydrometre before adding the yeast. Laymans terms: The thickness of the liquid. As the beer ferments, the original gravity comes down. When it reaches around 1005 the sugars have all fermented out of the beer and it is pretty much ready to bottle. There is a little calculation I them make using those 2 figures to come up with the alcohol content of the beer. Usually about 4.5% abv.

It is raining outside.