Make Beer At Home

In order to begin brewing your own beer at home you will first need to have a taste for good beer. If you enjoy drinking Bud, Coors or Miller ad nausea you probably won't care much for homebrew. However, if you have already acquired a taste for a variety of micro-brews and enjoy trying new and different beers then you are a prime candidate for brewing your own beer.

The homebrewer has two types of yeast to choose from; liquid yeasts or dry yeasts. For some this argument is similar to a "taste-great less filling" debate or "Ford versus Chevy" discussion and is just a matter of preference while others are very passionate about their preference. Good beer can be made from both dry and liquid yeast and both have their advantages and disadvantages. While many homebrew enthusiast claim that dry yeasts are a poor fermenter and can produce undesired flavors since they are not as pure a culture as a liquid yeast others favor the convenience and lower cost that dry yeast offers.

That is the question most home brewers eventually ask soon after getting hooked on brewing their own beer. Most home brew enthusiasts see it as a natural progression from novice to expert, much like going from extract to all-grain. However, even with all the positives of kegging your home made beer there are a few things you need to understand. First off, and probably the most important for many is the cost of kegging equipment.

If you don't have enough room or cash for a keg system but are tired of all the washing, sterilizing and time required to bottle your beer you can choose a product that is "in-between" bottling and kegging. A simple and affordable introduction to kegging is called the TAP-A-DRAFT® system made by Sturman BG, LLC. The system is comprised of a screw-on plastic tap and three 1.5 gallon blue plastic bottles (the same type of plastic bottle that soda comes in) and 8-gram CO2 cartridges. The CO2 cartridges are standard 8-gram food grade disposable CO2 cartridges used to regulate the pressure inside the 1.5 gallon bottle and keeps the beer carbonated.

Have you ever thought how many of our senses cooperate when we decide to consume a cooling bottle of beer? Well, just consider that we touch the cold bottle from the fridge or over the bar counter, we listen to the carbon dioxide that is released while the beer's foam develops, we see the amber color of the beer poured into our glass, we smell the aromatic substances that come from the snatch block and of course we taste the distinct bitter beer taste that is associated with the contained acids and wooden taste of tannins.The experience is enough to make me forget about the Medifast diet just to enjoy without guilt.