Make Real Beer in your Mr. Beer

A few days ago I talked about using the Mr. Beer kit. I should have mentioned that you can use the Mr. Beer fermenter to make your own beer recipe, without using one of their kits. You simply make a 2 gallon batch of beer and use the Mr. Beer keg for fermenting it. This is a safe way to move into "legitimate" beer brewing, with much less expense. I have a recipe for a very basic Hefeweizen that I love to make, and I have scaled it to a 2 gallon recipe. Enjoy!

2 Gallon Hefeweizen

• 2.2 pounds Dry Wheat Extract (Here)
• 1/2 ounce German Hallertau Whole Hops (Here)
• WLP300 Hefeweizen Yeast (Here)

1. Boil 1/4 c. of Dry Extract in 2 gallons of water with all of the hops for 45 min.
2. After 45 minutes, add the rest of the malt extract and boil for the remaining 15 minutes
3. Remove from the heat and cool
4. Add to the fermenter, top up to 2 gallons in the fermenter with spring water
5. Pour in Yeast vial, and seal up the fermenter

Once fermentation is finished, prime with 3.3 oz. of sugar. The easiest way is to use something like Munton's CarbTabs, which has pre-measured tablets, with dextrose, spray-dried extract, and heading powder. You can find more information here. You can buy the CarbTabs at any brewers supply store or website. If you use CarbTabs, you won't need to add any sugar to prime the bottles.

Enjoy the recipe, anyone who loves wheat beers will love a good hefeweizen. Enjoy!

Make Your Own Beer, Without a Stove

The Problem

Ok, so, beer can be quite expensive. After a while, you will start to notice that you are spending more money than you should on beer; well, if you're like most college students, that is (note: if you are under 21, you shouldn't be drinking anyway, it's important to wait until you are 21 to start drinking...)

Many people toy around with the idea of making their own beer, it seems like a great idea, doesn't it? The problem is: most kits require you to make 5 gallons of beer at a time, and require a stove. I tried this...and it worked, but it was a TON of work, and the product wasn't great. Now that I have an apartment, I make my own beer, the real way, and it is very delicious. I actually just bottled 25 bottles of a Hefeweizen, and it should be delicious.

The Solution

Anywho, back to the topic at hand; making your own without a stove. The Mr. Beer kit is really great for starting out at making beer. While you do not make world class beers with Mr. Beer, you can make a very tasty product, and you will definitely enjoy making, and drinking it. We figured out you could have 2 gallons of beer ready to drink per week when I first started doing this. Our plan was to buy up to 9 Mr. Beer kits and have 18 gallons ready per week. Then, we would sell the beer and make a handsome profit. (This did not work because 1. It is Illegal, and 2. It requires large amounts of capital, and 3. It is Illegal. Don't make beer if you're too young, and DON'T EVER SELL YOUR BEER!)

You can get a kit from Amazon, or other websites, and it will have enough to make one batch of beer (2 gallons). After that, you can buy refill kits to keep making beer. You might need some bottles, as well to fill up with delicious beer. Once you have the things you need, there is a slight change in procedure that you will need to follow, but I have outlined it below.

1. Sanitize the keg as usual: all sanitization steps will be exactly the same
2. Sprinkle a little bit (1 teaspoon) of the booster into 4 cups of water in a microwave safe container which will hold the liquid. Microwave until it is nearly boiling (microwaved water will not actually boil, unless a container is made for it)
3. Stir in the booster, slowly
4. Stir in the canned malt extract. Re-microwave to heat up if required
5. After this, all the steps are the same. I have made Mr. Beer with the microwave before, and it turned out great. I highly recommend it.

Once you get into this, it is possible to catch the "bug" of homebrewing. Once you have the space to do it, and you would like to step into "real" beer making, you can try out a few sources for information. One is a DVD that is pretty popular. It lays out all the steps needed to make beer from malt extract. There are further DVD's with more advanced techniques.

Some books that are also helpful are:

• The Complete Joy of Homebrewing by Charlie Papaizian
• Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels
• Clone Brews by Mark Szamatulski
• How to Brew by John Palmer - This one is free online, and has all the basic info you need
• Brew Your Own Magazine
• BasicBrewing Podcasts - Video and Radio podcasts dedicating to the art of brewing beer

So, that's a basic overview of how to get into brewing your own beer; in a small confined space, and in an apartment. Once you get into brewing beer, it can take off and you can start making lots of beer :) I currently have probably 100 bottles in my stash, just waiting for a thirsty day.

Happy Brewing!

Save Money with Hydroponics!

I have started a hobby that, at the very least, is very fun, and it can in fact save you money. I have started growing my own vegetables in a hydroponic garden. There are some VERY complicated hydroponic systems out there, then there is the system I use, which is called a deep water culture. Basically, my plants sit in little pots full of hydroton (basically soil for hydroponic systems, it's actually clay pebbles) over water in a rubbermaid tub. Once my plants start producing, I should save TONS of money on vegetables. Peppers and tomatoes can be expensive, as can fresh herbs, so this can save you serious money in the long run.

The system I built cost me about $40-$50 to get going. However, that cost is higher because I did not price shop (please price shop) and I had to buy a separate light, instead of installing an incandescent plant light into a lamp I already owned (which I highly suggest)

The following video gives a good breakdown about how to start building a hydroponic garden

A few things that are different with my system:

• His is a larger system, I used a smaller tub, and did not have a problem with the sides bowing out (too much)
• I keep mine indoors, so I also use a plant light during the night time (this way, I get about 18 hours of "sun" on my plants per day")
• I bought my stuff at Meijer and a hydroponics store.
• I cut my top with a utility knife (a.k.a. box cutter, a.k.a. exacto knife), once you get a hole going, it is quite simple to cut the plastic with a sharp blade. (Word of warning, be careful with a sharp blade, always)
• I did not cut "slits", I simply cut holes so that I could rest the pots in the plastic
• It's not a "neti" pot, it's a "net" pot (Click here to see what a "neti" pot is)
• I eyeballed where to cut the holes. His is much more precise, mine required much less effort...you can decide how you would like to do yours

If you can find a shallow tub that allows you to build a system, I would recommend it. There is not reason to keep 12 gallons of liquid in a tub when you don't need it.

The most amazing tip about planting seeds in hydroponic gardens!

If you want/can buy plants to transplant, go for it; I could not, since I started my garden in the winter in Michigan. I bought seeds, however, and I figured out you can plant directly into your hydroton. I simply dropped 2-3 seeds (for larger plant seeds like tomatoes, peppers, and basil) or sprinkled seeds (for smaller seeds like oregano and thyme) onto the hydroton in the basket.

1. Fill basket half full with hydroton
2. Sprinkle (small seeds) or place 2-3 large seeds on the hydroton
3. Cover to about 3/4 of the way up the basket with hydroton
4. Once seeds have sprouted and are tall enough, offer more support for the stalk with hydroton filled to the top of the basket

If you cannot find a store which sells these items, I have put together a little aStore on amazon which has all the items you will need with the exception of the giant tub. Furthermore, if you want different seeds, you can either search amazon, or simply find them at a grocery store (some grocery stores will still carry them)

If any of that is unclear (and it is very likely that some of it is) or if you would like some clarification, just leave a comment and I will reply with more details.

Here are some pictures of my hydroponic garden:

The Air stone:

The pots barely touch the water:
Tomato plants:
The pepper plant:

Keeping Yourself Accountable

January - Over.

My record based on the Seinfeld calendar for exercising: 27/31

That's pretty good, working out to 87% completion; 90% would be better, 100% desired, but looking back, I have no regrets.

The days I missed were interview related; after a long day of interviews, it's too difficult to go ahead and work out. With that said, every day I do not have an 'X' I actually did SOMETHING, but not enough for me to justify that in my mind, because that would sabotage me later on.

For Example:

"Well, 20 minutes of cardio should be enough to count it, I've already done that twice"

"You know, 10 minutes is ok, because I went pretty hard during those ten minutes"

"Well, I didn't actually 'work out' per se, but I walked a lot around campus"

"I didn't lift weights, but I did lug around my backpack, and that is quite heavy"

"I didn't do anything today, but I did get out of bed, that should count"

Blam, suddenly you find yourself doing nothing, and, worst-of-all, it is all justified in your mind.

This calendar is keeping me accountable, because I can see, and everyone else can see, how much I worked out. I also purchased a scale, and once it comes, I will take daily measurements, and graph it. This will also be posted in my room, for all to see.

"Hmm, I'm kind of embarrassed about 380, but, I won't be embarrassed if that was my starting point and I have lost 30 pounds"

So you can see, it is all about accountability, because we're all too persuasive to ourselves; we can make ourselves believe anything, so don't let your mind start to persuade you, fight back and do what is right!