Home brewing beer is economical with both time and ingredients
The long Easter weekend saw us trek a little further up the self-sufficiency road, as we started to brew beer at home. We’d thought about it for a while, and bought the necessary equipment a few weeks ago, but it wasn’t until Sunday that we got the ball rolling.
The starter kit included a five-gallon plastic tub for fermenting, a hydrometer for testing alcohol content, a pot of steriliser, a packet of yeast, a syphon tube for transferring the fermented beer into bottles, and a pot of malt extract, which will form the basis of the beer itself.
After cleaning the container thoroughly, we emptied the syrupy malt extract into the bottom, and added sugar and water, stirring to dissolve the sugar into the mixture. We then topped up to the five-gallon mark with cold water, and sprinkled on the yeast, keeping it warm by placing the container in front of the hallway radiator.
It’s not still there now, though. Adding the yeast starts the fermenting process, and we soon had to move it, as overnight on Sunday there was already enough gas being released to make the snap-on lid tight. Having to release the pressure every hour, we soon had plenty of frothy head, with the smell a mixture of syrup, tar, and best bitter.
That was Sunday, and at the rate it was fermenting, the beer should be ready for bottling tomorrow, beating the 5 to 10-day period suggested by the leaflet which came with the home brewing kit. We then realised we had a bit of a crisis.
With local branches of Wilkinson sold out of glass bottles (we bought the kit from there, too), we have to find more bottles, and quick, to meet our bottling deadline. Otherwise, the capper and crown caps are ready and waiting to quite literally, put the lid on the brown stuff.
The rest of the four-day weekend passed in a Mexican meal eating, domino playing, cycle riding, blur. On Good Friday we spent the evening in Basildon eating Mexican with the traditional Good Friday meal gang, while the Essex’s yoof element raced around the car park in their tyre-burning Saxos.
Washing cars and greenhouses while dodging wintry showers was what Saturday afternoon was all about, and on Sunday, a short walk in the cold was rewarded with a pint in the pub, as we brushed up our domino scoring etiquette. I lost. Again (and even from a 30-point lead!). A cycle ride into town finished off the four-day break nicely, making us feel relaxed, rested, and ready for the short week ahead.