Further adventures in homebrewing - Actually, that should say home schooling...

[little_carrot]

(Note to Self: Eldest Daughter is not to read this until after we break the horrible news about the truth in re: Santa.)*

So, Eldest Daughter and Eldest Daughter's friend are currently working their way through a curriculum about housing and feeding traditions. I'm not doing the curriculum myself, so I'm not entirely sure how it works, but they're

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[hapaxnym]

hapaxspouse has been brewing his own beer for (counts on fingers) my goodness, over twenty years now. He makes me a lovely porter, based on Samuel Smith's Taddy Porter, and usually makes a very hoppy pale ale for himself, sort of like McEwans. But he's experimented with everything from stouts to fruit-flavored ales.

The brew kit stuff is ... okay... but if you find you like doing it, graduate to your own as quickly as possible. The ingredients are MUCH cheaper, too; it works out to less than a nickel a bottle.

It really isn't hard -- if you can make oatmeal, you can brew your own beer -- nor does it call for any complicated equipment (unless you're into lagers or similar cold brews). spouse makes do with a huge spaghetti pot for mashing; a big ol' bucket with a lid and a pressure valve, for fermenting; and a plastic tube, lots of leftover beer bottles, a capper, and some wooden crates, for bottling.

Most of the mystique about brewing is hogwash. The only thing that really matters is keeping everything scrupulously clean -- I mean operating room, server room, clean.