Category Archives: The Barley
Almost Brew Time!
Beer bottles: a key component of brewing your own beer, unless you’re kegging, then the picture makes no sense. But I’m bottling, so it does make sense. Aye.
I now have stocked up over 50 bottles. That means I have enough for my first batch of beer. I was planning on helping a fellow homebrewer brew a batch so that I could learn by watching, but I think I’ll probably learn better by just getting my hands dirty. So over the course of a month I have been able to obtain the necessary number of bottles from the board game nights that my group has.
My first beer will be an Amber Ale. I chose it because I’ve heard Ambers are easy to brew. I also chose it because an Amber ale is something my wife would drink. I am only missing two things before I can brew:
Turkey Fryer
A turkey fryer will let me boil wort outside and not stink up the house.
A friend recommended I pick up a turkey fryer. He said his wife doesn’t appreciate the smell of boiling beer. And since you often have to boil for over an hour, this seems like it would be a good investment. I had forgotten to purchase a 5 gallon stock pot when I picked up my homebrew kit. That might have turned out to be a blessing in disguise. These turkey fryers typically come with a large pot, since they have to hold a turkey. You can get just the burner, but the all-in-one seems like a better way to go. The pots often have a drain spout, which could also come in handy.
A 7.5 gallon (30 quart) unit runs about $65 at the large home improvement stores, not including the propane tank. I have been looking for one secondhand without much luck so I might just buy one new.
Plus, I could use it when I’m not brewing beer to make deep-fried anything. And we all know that deep-fried anything is good! Though we can’t make deep-fried twinkies anymore. Bummer.
Wort Chiller
Wort Chiller sounds like a bad sci-fi character name.
Another item that seems like a good investment is a wort chiller. Why? Because a wort chiller can save you a lot of time. After boiling the wort you have to let it cool down. Using a wort chiller can cool the wort much faster, cutting hours off your brewing time.
A wort chiller works by running cool water through the copper coils. The cool water pulls the heat from the wort much faster than simply losing heat to the air.
You can buy these for $40 and up, but I think I may make one. All you need is some copper tubing, couplings, and a hose to connect with your water supply. Here’s a video I found of a guy named Fo building his own:
That looks pretty easy, and much cheaper than buying a word chiller.
Timeline
My goal is to be brewing when the weather gets nice sometime in March. There are usually a few warm days in Wisconsin in March, so I hope to have my wort chiller made by then. This is gonna be fun!
House of Brews Board Game Night
House of Brews is one of Madison’s rising stars of brewing!
Last night I had the opportunity to check out House of Brews off of Stoughton road in the Madison area. Brett Myers (twitter: @brettspiel) was hosting a board game night there, so I decided to join him. Brett is a published board game designer, gardener, and hombrewer. You can learn more about his game, Nanuk, at the BoardGameGeek page or the page at the Steven Jackson Games website. He is also a co-designer of the forthcoming Lord of the Rings Dice Building Game by Wizkid Games. So, as an aspiring designer it was great to be able to meet Brett in person.
I arrived around 7pm and the group was finishing up a game of For Sale. This is a really fun filler-type game. The game is broken into two halves. In the first, players use coins to bid for properties valued from 1 to 30. In the second half of the game players use their properties to earn income. Income cards are values from VOID to 15,000, with two of each value. At the end of the game players add any leftover coins from the first half of the game to the value of their income cards. The player with the most money wins.
After they finished we joined the table next to us and a few more people showed up. Brett got out the game Dixit by French publisher Libellud. Dixit is a party game that is very similar to Balderdash, but rather than making a definition you’re telling a story. I’ll review it in a different post, but here is a picture of the game:
Dixit Odyssey on the table (image from BoardGameGeek.com)
With ten people it was a really fun game. I imagine that it could be a lot more fun with people you know. Then you’ve got all those inside jokes with people and could have an easier time getting other people to guess your card.
During the game night I had the privilege to try two different brews. I first had the Snug Oatmeal Stout and then the Standing Stones Scotch Ale. Both of these beers were very delicious. The Oatmeal Stout was perfect for a night where temperatures dropped to about 7 below (F). And the Scotch Ale was a perfect beer for playing Dixit with ten people.
House of Brews has another really cool feature. Many of you are probably familiar with CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture). Those are where you sign up and get fresh vegetables and fruits. Well, House of Brews has a CSB. Of course the “B” stands for “Brewery.” Customers can subscribe to receive beer by paying up front for either a 6 month or one year term. You can find out more on their CSB Info page. Sounds pretty cool to me. I would consider signing up if I weren’t about to dive into the world of home brewing.
Overall I had a fun night. It was great to meet Brett and learn from him. He and I may try to set up a play-testing night prior to Protospiel-Milwaukee in March. That would be a great opportunity to get some final tuning done based on his feedback prior to the convention. It was also very nice to meet some other people who share an interest in boards and barley! They’ll be having another Board Game Night at House of Brews two Tuesdays from now from 6:30-9:30. You should join them!
Brew or Brew Not – There is no “Try”
First, welcome to my blog. Thanks for visiting!
I like beer. Let me expound. I like good beer. I like craft beer. I like homebrews. I like microbrews. I love touring a brewery, soaking in all the smelly goodness of malt and hops and barley. I love adding a new pint glass to my collection.
I didn’t always like beer. My family drinks one of the mega-market mass production beers. I used to. Now I politely drink one if offered, but I usually don’t take a second. Does that make me a beer-snob? Perhaps. That’s okay with me. If I’m gonna drink beer I’d prefer it be good.
I purchase about three 6-packs a month (moderation counts, people!). But at $8-$9 per 6-pack that adds up. I can’t spend $25 a month on beer anymore. So rather than continuing with that spending rate I have decided to drop a bunch of cash upfront and hope to save money over the long haul by becoming a home brewer!
So much potential…
So after dropping about $140 I am almost ready to go. I still want to pick up a turkey fryer so I can boil the wort in the garage. My wife will likely appreciate that. And then the brewing can begin.
Doing a little math I have determined that my breakeven point, financially, will come after about 5 batches of beer. Each batch can produce 48 beers (eight 6-packs). So 5 batches would be forty 6-packs. If I were paying full price of $8.50 for forty 6-packs my cost would be $340. Since a brewing kit costs $200 (fryer included) and the beer materials cost about $25 each that means 5 batches will cost $325. Therefore after brewing 5 batches I can call it quits and still have come out ahead.
Okay, so that assumes that I can get the bottles for free. It also assumes that I don’t cave in and have special labels printed. Either way, I am joining a fun group of people who have chosen to brew their own beer. This will be interesting.
Boards and Barley 