This is in response to Mush4Brains' interest in brewing.
Mushy, as I said in the other thread, start simple. First, a few tidbits of knowledge that may or may not help you. The Germans are absolutely retarded about their beer. The first food law ever enacted was the purity law, also known as the reinheitsgebot. This law said that in order to call something beer it must contain only water, barley, hops and yeast. This law was created because, at the time, beer was probably the most important thing in their diet and like always there were lots of shysters selling all manner of shit and calling it beer. The brewing culture in Belgium was much much different and brewing with spices, vegetables or even chocolate was common. I mention those things to show you that brewing is what you make it, fuck a rule book. To make what you most likely think of as beer, the German approach is what you're after. You only need water, barley, hops and yeast.
You mentioned that I had lots of different grain in my video and asked where I got them. I got them at the homebrew supply store, duh! Buy them online if you have to. Some grains differ by being grain from certain strains of barley, but most differ only in how they are treated after malting. Malting simply means they allow the grain to begin sprouting, then quickly dry it. This causes the grain to produce the enzymes we will use during mashing to break the starchy grain to a sugary liquid that yeast dig. After malting, some grain is roasted to varying degrees, all the way from lightly roasted to jet black, which is called chocolate malt or roasted barley. For all intents and purposes these two are the same thing. Sometimes after malting they will soak the grain in warm water to semi mash it and the developed sugars will crust on the outside of the grain which is then roasted to various degrees, this is called crystal malt. The numbers of crystal malt, like crystal 60 or crystal 120 refer to the color of the finished malt as measured on the loviblond scale. Crystal malts give your beer a red color. The higher the lovilond number the deepr the red. The roasting denatures the enzymes, so you can't overdo these types of grains without supplementing the mash with enzymes directly or by using a small amount of another grain that contains a high percentage of these enzymes. 6 row barley is used for this reason.
Your beer must have a base malt. That'll be any pale 2 row barely you prefer. More grain equals more sugar equals more alcohol. For a five gallon batch ten pounds is good amount of base malt to start with. The other grains you add are for color and flavor nuance. Just let your instinct guide you and see how it goes. Toss some in your mouth, crunch it up, taste it. I promise you'll love what you make.
The grain must be cracked to give the enzymes easy access to the starch in the grain. You can buy your grain already cracked if you don't have your own mill. It's not that expensive to have done.
Buy spring water that you think tastes good to use for brewing. Bad water makes bad beer. Most city water has shit in it that tastes nasty in beer. Chloramine, which is becoming very common in city water, will straight fuck your beer up. Chlorine is okay if you let the water sit overnight in a bucket before you brew with it. This will allow it to evaporate. There exsist no such easy fix for choloramine. You can get a water report free and easy, just call em up and say 'yo, nigga..'. Water is the most important factor in how your beer tastes. The second most important factor in how your beer tastes in the yeast. In addition to alcohol and C02, yeast expel lots of other things that effect the taste of your finished product. Start with a good clean yeast. Any brewing yeast sold as american ale yeast should be fine. I prefer Safale T-52 dried yeast.
Lastly, keep a notebook. You need to do this so that you can dial in what you're trying to do. Every time I brew I record the recipe and everything I do. I do this so that I can go back and possibly pinpoint what ruined a batch or made it awesome (tis how I figured out that chloramine was ruining my beer). Also, don't get all caught up on exact temps and weights, it's a waste of time and takes the fun out of it. If you're serious about making brewing a hobby, buy the book 'The Complete Joy Of HomeBrewing' by a cat named Charlie Papazian. Best book ever. Charlie is commonly accepted to be the father of American homebrewing. Even though at one time everyone made their own beer, prohibition all but killed the American brewing culture, and Charlie has been largely responsible for building it back up.
Don't hesitate to hit me up anytime you need advice or just wanna ask me something.
Good luck!
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Never judge a man until you walk a mile in his shoes. But, by that time you're a mile away and you got his shoes, so fuck em.
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