Make Beer at Home

Make Beer at Home with a Couple of Buckets

Who loves beer? Who loves beer?
I love beer!!

As I mentioned in the 20 Million Dollar Dream Cottage article brewing beer is a weekend hobby of mine.

For anyone that has gone to a U-Brew shop to make beer you probably thought you would get a lot of beer for a cheap price.

Then you found out that you got a lot of cheap beer!

The most common recipe in U-Brew shops requires a malt extract. This looks like a dark thick syrup and provides the sugar needed to create alcohol. The problem with malt extracts is that they usually don’t provide the best flavour and always leaves the finished beer way too sweet. I like to compare malt extracts to concentrated orange juice. They provide a cheap alternative to the real thing, but never taste nearly as good.

Recently products have come on the market that are called Ready Brew kits and let home brewers make professional quality beer from home. Magnotta, a brewery in Ontario, won the Canadian Brewer of the Year for 2006 and produces a ready brew kit called Festa Brew. The Festa Brew kit consists of 23L of wort (unfermented beer), a pouch of dry yeast and instructions. The wort is the same stuff that is sold to the public in their award winning beers. All the home brewer has to do is put the wort in a bucket with the yeast, let it sit for 5 days, transfer it to another bucket, and 10 days later transfer it to bottles or a keg. That’s about it. The end result is professional quality beer made right at home for about $10 per 24 bottles.

If you are interested at all in picking up this hobby I would suggest starting with one of these ready brew kits and simply follow the instructions.

Happy Brewing!