Growing your own barley is like growing your own hops at home – not necessarily the most cost effective way of doing things, but highly rewarding. Garden to pint would be a proud achievement of any homebrewer! Here’s how to malt your own (or bought) barley.
You quite like homebrewing and you have your own set-up at home that you are very proud of. You can only drink a certain amount of beer so you only brew maybe once a month or two. You talk to your friends about brewing and they are vaguely interested, but it’s something that you do and they don’t. They might have joined you a couple of times to brew together and have enjoyed the experience but aren’t taking it further.
This recipe uses wet hops, which you’ll need to use shortly after harvesting. Read how Steve (one of our awesome Brew Crew) grew his own hops for this brew here.
Once you feel you have mastered All Grain brewing, using additions is a great way to advance your brew and introduce new elements and flavours. But much like ice cream it’s still essential to get your base correct before adding your rocky road or raspberry ripple. I have a couple of trusty base recipes for APA, IPA and pilsner which I use when experimenting with additions. Once I smash it, I then play around with the grain bill to tweak and perfect the recipe.
“What is civilisation if it isn’t people talking to each other over a goddamned beer?” wrote James S.A. Corey in his science fiction novel, Cibola Burn. We couldn’t agree more!
There’s no escaping it: all grain brewing is time consuming. It’s bloody good fun and the results are (usually) well worth the effort, but it can sometimes be a challenge to find a 4+ hour time slot to get it done.
Oddly enough, even the fun things in life need a bit of attention to make happen. But we’re always glad when we do prioritise the stuff that makes us smile.
Intimidated by All Grain brewing? Feel like it’s a legend that’s out of your comfort zone; the unicorn of homebrewing?
We ask pro brewers and homebrewers for their top homebrewing tips to help you with your own mash ups.
Not all of us are able to – or wants to – grow a beard but one thing we can do to improve our homebrewing achievements is to get to know the lingo that unlocks the secrets to understanding brew recipes, brewing methods and the discussions amongst the brewing community.
Ten steps may sound a lot at first, and I guess this I why a lot of people choose extract brewing, but we’re here to help prove that all grain homebrewing is just as easy and a lot more fun. An experienced brewer once said “whatever the result, right or wrong, beer is beer”.