Let's make some beer

"Good morning Mr President. It's time to wake up Mr President. The Libyan ambassador is here and he needs to speak with you straight away".

I woke with a start, the dying remnants of the 6o'clock news still fresh in my subconscious mind. "Sorry, what did you say?" I replied, a little blearily, rubbing my eyes and stretching my legs and slowly realizing that I'd fallen asleep in front of the telly after yet another long hard day in the garden.

"I said, there's Richard on the phone and he'd like to speak to you straight away. I did tell him that you'd fallen asleep in front of the news but he said that he'd only take up a  minute of your time", said my clearly exasperated wife

"Oh right, I'm with you now, did you just call me Mr President?"

"No Ernie, and as I keep telling you, I'm not going to call you that and quite frankly, the more times that you ask me the stronger my conviction becomes", replied Jacquie as I stumbled, half-awake, towards the telephone.

I was appointed President of Caistor in Bloom at one of their committee meetings last week and I've been joking with Jacquie ever since about my new title.

It was briefly reported on by the Grimsby Telegraph, in a small box, on a side column of page 37, but if you blinked you could easily have missed it.

'As joint founder, with his wife Jacquie, former Grimsby in Bloom chairman, Ernie Brown has been instrumental in advising and guiding Caistor in Bloom', read the article in the Telegraph. 'Chairperson Deborah Barker said "Caistor in Bloom has a strong volunteer force and we are delighted to have Jacquie and Ernie as consultants. By making Ernie President, it rubber stamps the respect and gratitude the committee wanted to demonstrate, as a reward for his innovation and the fact that it was indeed his own brain child, nurtured from inception to our current silver status".

As you can probably tell, I was very pleased with the article which went on to say a lot more nice things about us both, it was indeed a very nice way of having our efforts recognised.

It'll work both ways of course, I will be able to wallow in the reflection of their forthcoming glory in this years regional competition and they will get my undivided attention throughout the run-up. Of course, I'd really like Caistor to win their category this year and hopefully win a gold award. Anyway, enough of that Bloom stuff, last week I told you that I'd explain the mysteries of beer making, so here we go.

 I've been making my own beer, off and on, for at least a quarter of a century now, but it's only been since the advent of the new millennium that it has become my 'staple' alcoholic drink of choice.

The basic equipment to start your own teeny-tiny-micro brewery is not expensive and because you can use it over and over again you'll more than recoup any initial cost. For example, my plastic brewing bin only cost about a tenner back in the mid 1990's and I can't see me ever having to buy a new one. The same goes for the funnel and the syphon tubing, I just wash it all properly between uses, swoosh it all down with some sterilizing fluid and it's as good as new again. . When you're working with yeast, everything has to be sterilized. A little bit of dirt will multiply and grow and you'll end up with loose bowels the next morning if you've not cleaned everything properly, so make cleanliness your priority.

Now, you'd have thought having mentioned to you  last week that I was going to be explaining how to make beer, that I would have gone out and bought a kit so that I could explain my method with pictures as well as with words. But, you'll have to wait a few days for the first stage pictures as I haven't had the chance to pop in to town to buy a kit this week.

So, why should you want to make your own beer? Well, with me it has to be the price. At only 20p a pint it helps maintain the family budget and I don't feel as though I'm spending a big chunk of our meagre income on ale. Imagine, if I went out to the pub and bought myself four pints of real ale, it would cost me over a tenner. I really couldn't afford to do that for many nights. Whereas, the same amount of home brewed beer would cost only 80p. Y'know I can't even go into pubs happily now, I begrudge them every penny knowing how much of my hard earned cash goes straight into the governments coffers through alcohol tax.

Apart from the money side of things, it's so easy to brew your own that it's actually quicker to make beer than to go out and buy it. From start to finish, it'll take about 3 weeks from opening your beer kit to pouring your first glass but, in real time, only about 1/2 an hour of that is actual work, the rest of the 3 weeks is spent waiting. So, it takes 30 minutes to make 40 pints, less than 90 seconds per pint. I live across the road from the brand new Lincolnshire Co-operative store in Caistor town centre and I couldn't get across the road and back and make a purchase in 90 seconds, even if I could, it would cost me a lot more than 20p a pint.

Anyway, enough of my babbling and on with the instructions. As I said earlier, look again at this blog in a few days time, when I'll have all the photos to go along with the first half of this process.

You can quite easily make your own beer using sugar, water, hops, malt and yeast and mixing and matching the quantities to blend your own perfect brew, but take my word for it, buy a kit, it's so much quicker, easier and cheaper.

I buy my beer kits from Wilko's on Bull Ring Lane. They used to sell them in all of the local Wilko stores and all the Boots outlets too but, due to lack of demand I suppose, you can only buy it at the Bull Ring Lane store now or at a slightly higher price, but with a much bigger choice from the Home Brew Centre on Freeman Street. Of course, being a bit of a skinflint I generally buy the cheapest Wilko's brand called 'Definitive' which costs £6.99 a tin.

I prefer the 'Definitive Bitter' myself, but do try the others as well and find one that suits your palette. I've split the task of making it into separate two parts, to make it even easier for you.

Tools and ingredients for beer making stage 1

5 gallon brewing bin with lid
measuring jug
plastic spoon
large saucepan
sterilizing solution
1 tin Wilko's 'Definitive bitter'
1kg granulated sugar
water

Take the label from your tin and remove the plastic lid and yeast sachet. Fill your washing up bowl with hot tap water and place the tin into the bowl to warm it up. This will loosen the contents in readiness for emptying it into the brewing bin later on.

Dilute some sterilizing solution. I put two caps full, of a brand more commonly used to sterilize babies bottles, into a measuring jug containing 1pt of cold water. Pour this solution into the empty brewing bin and with the lid tightly fitted, thoroughly shake the bin to cover every surface before returning the solution to the jug. Put your plastic mixing spoon into the jug of sterilizing solution and now all of your equipment is clean and free from germs.

Boil 5 litres of cold water in a large saucepan and empty the contents of a 1kg bag of sugar into the empty brewing bin.

Pour the pre-warmed tin of wort (brewing mixture) into the brewing bin along with the sugar and swoosh out the rest of the contents of the tin with some of the boiling water. Add the remainder of the boiling water to the contents of the bin and stir vigorously with your sterilized plastic spoon until the contents have dissolved.....mmm this bit smells great!

Top up the brewing bin to the 5 gallon mark with cold water and then sprinkle the contents of the yeast sachet  onto the surface.

Stir gently and leave in a warm place for 10 days, until the majority of bubbles have disappeared.from the surface.

As you can see, the first stage of brewing only takes about10/15 minutes

Tools and ingredients for beer making stage 2
syphon tubing
11, two litre plastic lemonade bottles or a brewing barrel
tea spoon
funnel
sterilizing solution
measuring jug
granulated sugar

I prefer to use 2 litre plastic lemonade bottles to store my beer in. Fizzy pop bottles are all pressurized containers, developed to withstand the build up of gases, especially when they get dropped. They're perfect for the job and can easily be cleaned, sterilized and re-used over and over again. In fact, it would be cheaper to buy yourself 11 bottles of 20p own brand value pop and throw away the contents, rather than buy an expensive beer barrel and the necessary co2 injectors to go with it. Our family tend to drink a lot of fizzy pop so we always have a few empty bottles laying about.

Clean your bottles and lids with sterilizing solution using a shaking motion, similar to the one you used in stage one with the brewing bin, then pour the sterilizing solution back into the measuring jug.

Using a plastic funnel to prevent spillage, put 4 teaspoons of granulated sugar into each bottle.

Put your brewing bin, full of once-brewed beer onto a table or work surface and put the bottles containing sugar on the floor below them, (it's a good idea to stand the bottles on a towel, that way you won't make a mess on the floor).

Using your sterilized syphon tube and with the wondrous powers of gravity, syphon your beer into the bottles leaving about an inch or two of air at the top of each bottle.

Tightly screw the lids back on to the bottles and shake vigorously to to dissolve any sugar that might have accumulated at the bottom of the bottles and leave in a warm place for 4 days so that your beer can brew again for a second time.

After 4 days, move the bottles of beer to a cold place (I put mine on the concrete floor of our garage). This will kill the yeast, finish the brewing process and encourage the sediment (lees) to sink to the bottom of the bottles.

After three more days it is ready to drink. Decant a bottle of homemade beer into a large jug before pouring into your glass and drink in moderation.......it will be strong!

Once you've got into a routine of brewing beer regularly, you'll find it so quick and easy to make a fresh brewing bin full of delicious beer, straight after emptying the previous bin into bottles. That way you'll have a never ending  supply of cheap, strong and extremely tasty beer, an essential prerequisite for any presidential beer cellar.