Brewing a Revolution
The Process of Homebrewing
Homebrewing in the Suburbs
Mike Tonsmeire, 28, an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has brewed more than 40 batches of sour beer, including a tart Saison on Dec. 4, 2011. Tonsmeire started homebrewing during his final semester of college at Carnegie Mellon as part of a student-taught course called Beer Brewing and Appreciation. A childhood friend had introduced him to “good” beer a few months earlier, thinking it would be a good complement to his interest in cooking. Tonsmeire was hooked pretty quickly. His interest has continued to grow especially after starting a blog. Tonsmeire lives in Takoma Park, D.C. He owns a three-bedroom house with a detached garage.
Milling
Tonsmeire crushing German Pilsner malt—malted barley sprouted and dried. Tonsmeire converted a Lowe's cooler into a mash tun. At the bottom is a homemade copper manifold that separates the sweet liquid produced during the mash phase from the husks and the other solid parts of the grain.
Homebrewing in the City
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just wanted to point out an important typo here – the hops will provide “about 10 international bittering units”, not “buttering units” (spell-checkers like to replace “bittering” with “buttering”)
Cheers!
Mike was making butter beer. Thanks for the head’s up Jim.