James Brown | Activity | MSU School of Journalism

Have you had the chance to make your very own beer yet? I am just getting into the hobby (way of life) and I’ve found that it seems a lot less complicated than I thought it would be.

I started looking at those home brewing kits for beginners and made a discovery. I actually have some of the supplies needed to brew my own beer right in my own kitchen. The rest will come from the home brewing kit that I have, and of course I already have my thirst for drinking the finished product already.

5-Gallon Beer Cooking Pots:

Making beer is fairly straight-forward but since it takes some time I see no reason to not make enough the first time around. I have some 2 gallon pots here at home already, but to make a really large batch of my first beer, I will need some 5-gallon pots to really beef up the batch.

Beer Buckets:

Like the pots, there isn’t any good reason to use only 1 bucket. The job calls for two of them so it makes sense to have two 5 gallon buckets for transfer. If you go to one of the many beer supply outfits you can easily pick up things like the buckets and pots you need for brewing.

Some Kind Of Straining Method:

When you make beer you end up with something that is called ”wort”. If you want your beer to be delicious, you will want to strain all of that out so you end up with pure liquid. Some people use panty hose or types of cheese cloth to strain the wort, but it’s easier to just get a good strainer since you may want to use it again anyway.

Caps & Bottles:

If you plan to actually enjoy your beer you will want some good beer bottles and beer caps to make it look authentic and keep the air out. You don’t want it to end up like my friend’s beer which he bottled in an empty plastic 2-litre soda bottle!

And you can’t forget the hops and the yeast which are essential for how your beer is going to come out in the end.

Sure, this is going to take you some time to make your own beer but think of the alternative. If you went to the store and bought some of the traditional stuff it’s just not going to taste half as good.

The biggest problem that I see in the whole process is going to be keeping my hands off of the finished product actually. I really love the way beer tastes and no matter what time of day it is, I can find a good reason to drink some most of the time. It really doesn’t matter how I feel, I can drink it under almost any condition.

Even if it makes me a bit fat for a short time I know that having my own home brewed beer at home is going to really make me a happy person! When you try to brew your own beer like I am, just be sure to not flake out on the ingredients and end up with cheap beer. If you want to taste some boring, watered-down beer you can get that stuff at the liquor store anytime you want.

via news.jrn.msu.edu