Learn to Brew Beer - American Homebrewer's Association
homebrewersassociation.org
homebrewersassociation.org
I thought it might be something that some people around here might be interested in, and might not see otherwise. It is fantastically geeky in all the right ways.
P.S. I'm not endorsing drinking more beer, I'm endorsing drinking better beer. Brew exactly the beer you would want to drink, even if it would never be commercially viable to sell.
That said, it is def. appropriate for HN. Beer brewing is on my short-list of "telling hobbies" that is most certainly hacker-tastic. It just seems to be the kind of thing that good devs are drawn to, I could only make an educated guess as to why. I told my brother he needs to put it on his resume, somewhere at the bottom, because if I saw it on a resume, I'd give mental bonus points.
1) Keg your beer, or bottle in larger containers. I brew 5-6 gallons at a time. Putting that in 12oz beer bottles requires sanitizing and capping more than 50 bottles. Screw that. Use 1-2 liter bottles, or even better, keg your beer. Kegging tastes better, is less work, but more expensive (because you need a CO2 tank, a regulator, and a keg).
2) Don't kegerator. Kegerating is problematic because your beer line runs from the cold to room temperature. Germs can crawl up the tap, causing the beer to taste skanky. Kegerating requires cleaning the tap frequently.
Instead, put your whole keg inside the fridge, tap and all. Doing this, I've had a batch last 6 months, with no skankiness.
The brother of a friend is in a local brew club. Also very technical and (selectively) a perfectionist. That's how he/they do it.
Just be ready to take a few shelves out of the refrigerator. He has a second one in the basement devoted to this.
Once a year, they have a big Oktoberfest fund-raiser for charity. Everyone gets to bring and share their brews with the crowd, and it all goes to a good cause.
I can't think of too many hands-on knowledge investments that have such a quick, broad return with such a low monetary cost. [I've been building a spare brewing kit from more-or-less rummage sources, just to see how cheap I can go. Half-way finished and I've literally spent only $5.]
To anyone who says they don't have patience, don't worry. Beginning with extract brewing, a very simplified approach is boiling a large pot of water for about 2 hours and then tossing it in a bucket for a week. Don't worry, the first batch will be garbage. Learn why it failed (it was because you weren't clean enough), and try again.
Like programming language communities, hobby communities can also add or detract from the experience. In general, I have found homebrewers to be pretty laid back. You don't want to do the fancy processes and equipment? No problem, you brew the beer you want the way you want to do it. There's no right way, do what makes you happy.
That recipe though is part of a friends business plan so I can't share it I can share this older one though:
10 gallon batch:
16lbs english pale
4 lbs green chile
2 lbs biscuit malt
2 lbs crystal 10L
2 lbs white wheat
1 lbs german wheat
1 lbs melanoidin
1 lbs carapils
1 lbs munich 10L
Sparge with 9.5 gallons
60 minute Boil time with:
1.25 oz Pioneer 8.5% at T-60
0.75 oz Wilamette 4.1 at T-30
1 tsp irish moss
1 tsp gypsum at T-25
0.75 oz Saaz 5.9% at T-15
0.75 oz Cascade 5.9% at T-5
Let hang in primary for a 10 days then transferred to secondary and added 4lbs Green Chile.
It's been a while since I've lived in New Mexico so I haven't made this in a couple years, but aside from the quantity of chiles it should work pretty well for any pepper. Though I'd use more cascade and less pioneer if it was a citrus-y pepper like a habanero.