Homebrewing

(Rudely stolen from http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/7/1/31030/24474)Many people like to have some sort of pet, perhaps a dog or a cat. Some people, like me, like to keep their critters in little jars in a cabinet or the fridge. No, I'm not talking about bonsai kittens. I'm talking about yeast. These little critters can make everything you'll ever need, from bread to beer. Or maybe that's all it can make. In any case, we've seen how to make a fine sourdough bread already. My aim is to show you how to make your very own cold ones. Or, if you prefer, room temp-a-ture ones. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Theory The idea behind brewing your own beer is simple, really. You need to take some barley and ferment it. Of course, it's never really that simple. See, fermentation is caused by the little critters we call yeast. They eat up the sugars present in your wort (unfermented beer, pronounced wert) and release alcohol. The problem is that barley isn't something that's digestible by the yeasts. There are too many starches that need to be broken down into simpler sugars. The way this is done is through malting. Barley is sprayed with water in a controlled environment until it barely sprouts. The sprouting barley is then dried out, resulting in malted barley. The sprouts can't survive on the starches inside the grain either, so they start to break them down, giving you a suitable base for your brewski. Coincidentally, if you grind malt really fine, you get the ...

One of my hobbies is brewing beer at home. I am contantly on a quest for the ultimate wheat ale! I have been able to nearly clone the taste of Boulevard Wheat in the bottle. Too bad Boulevard is best out of a keg: I have to get kegging equipment before I can make sure it taste as good as kegged Boulevard! They have the best tasting yeast I have found. Wyeast's American Ale yeast seems to very similar to whatever Boulevard uses. I have been using it lately to brew my wheat ales.Anyone have any luck getting the yeast in the bottom of a store-bought bottle of Boulevard Wheat to come back to life? I've tried a couple of times and have not been able to get anything to happen with it.