DU Homebrewers:

[Earth_First]

So who's homebrewing what?

Beer, wine, mead, cider...

I picked up Charles Papazian's Joy of Homebrewing this past winter, and it's been downhill from there!

Currently I have a Nut Brown and a Red Ale in conditioning...

This weekend I plan on brewing a double batch, a UFO hefe (Harpoon) clone and a Liberty Ale (Anchor Steam) clone...

[Phentex]

1. That sounds like fun. I can't do that here...

or I'd never see my husband sober. :)

What equipment do you use use? I know nothing of the process except what I've seen on tv.

[Earth_First]

4. I brew in the kitchen in a 5 gallon stainless stock pot...

I ferment in a 6.5 gallon glass carboys (the old water cooler jugs, but glass).

It takes anwhere from 60-90 minutes of boiling the wort (the beer) and anywhere from a week to a ten days to finish fermenting (a lot depends on the type of beer you are going for...) I rack my beer in a secondary for three weeks to over a month (again, depending on the type) and bottle condition for another couple of weeks.

It's definately not one of those instant gratification hobbies, but the gratification is by far well worth the time spent knowing that you crafted what you drink.

[Denninmi]

2. Does vinegar count?

I don't drink, so I have no use for alcohol in that form. But, I finished 7 and 1/4 gallons of vinegar today. I actually started with cider and perry (pear cider) in the fall of 2009, and was hoping that it would go to vinegar all by itself, but it didn't, just stayed alcoholic and several of the bottles actually became highly carbonated at one point, extremely fizzy.

I finally figured out that I had to give it more oxygen and put in the proper starter culture, so I dumped it all into a big plastic tub and added a pint of raw natural vinegar with live cultures. This was back in late March. It worked, and became extremely strong. Although not scientific, in tasting it side by side with commercial white and cider vinegar, I would say mine was at least as strong as the white vinegar.

This morning, I removed the large mat of "mother" that formed on the top (cut that into pieces and froze them with the hope of a good apple crop this fall so I can make more vinegar), then strained, Pasteurized, and bottled it.

[Earth_First]

3. Interesting...

I was not aware that folks made vinegar.

Thanks for the information, I'll have some reading to do now!