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Merry Christmas everyone! We broke out the beer for the holiday party last night, and it was well received. Even if it wasn't the best beer on the planet, folks were excited to try completely home-made booze. I'd been shaking the keg every few hours for the last couple of days, and I think it...

It's beer o'clock! After two weeks in the fermentor, bubbling had almost ceased and I decided to put it in the keg. I ran some sanitizer through the keg and tap system first, then made a siphon and filled up the keg. This is the first time I've made a siphon work out well, previously I'd...

Brew day was a success. We got the whole process down to less than four hours, and were able to develop a technique of squeezing our grain bag into the kettle between a pair of ceramic plates, which turned out to be very simple and effective. Since this was a fully homemade batch I didn't...

I roasted my malts this week. Four of the ten pounds went in the dehydrator set to 165 F for two hours (the highest it will go), while the other ~5 lbs went in the oven at 200 F. I took all the grain out of their respective heat-treatments after two hours. The 200 F grain had a nice smell to it...

AFter 72 hours of germinating, a few percent of the barley had acrospires emerging. I began the drying process. Half the barley (now puffed out with all the rootlets, maybe twice the original volume) could fit in my dehydrator, so the other half went in the oven on 170 F with the doors open...

Here is hour 60, with most of the acrospires about half the length of the grain. My daughter, who was planted the same time as this barley last year, is included for scale.

Hour 36, I've been giving it a stir and spritzing it with water ever six hours or so. Last night it went almost 10 hour while I was asleep but it appears to still be growing. I think the moist paper towels (which I change every day) are helping, my last malt was uncovered and dried out on night...

Thanks for the info! I got several rinses in, and the last one yielded clear-ish water with a yellow tint and a nice smell. I didn't see any reddish color. My third go at home malting is underway.

I've begun the first steep. There was a few handfuls of chaff that floated to the surface, which I was able to remove. Water temp is about 50 F. I wanted to add some hydrogen peroxide (I was worried about germs on the grain) but I did not have any.

After harvesting my grain in June or July, I got a little side-tracked with the newborn daughter. Now in November, I've finally got around to processing the grain. I started by stomping on the grain with my moon-boots to break down the long pieces of straw I cut during harvest. This reduced...

The beer is a success! Gravity started at 50 and got down to 05. The color is a wonderful near-black, the taste is mild with dark notes, and the head is thick and rich off the nitrogen tap. I'm very pleased with this one.

Wow, that guy is going to the extreme- isolating his own yeast and gathering his own rain water! For my part, I've had a hiccup with my current brew (using my home-malt). My AC went out while I was on vacation, and the fermentor got to at least 88 F. It must have been like that from day 15 to...

I'm brewing tomorrow! I malted up a ten-pound batch of grain I got from the university last year (the grain I harvested this summer is being saved for later), and I just finished the dark malt last night. I had half a pound of my pale malt in the oven at 450 F for 30 mins. It got quite smokey...

Another Tri-Citian! We're having loads of that 100 degree weather right now.

I live in Richland, where it's been nice and hot lately and rain is something that happens to other people. An acre of land sounds like a big operation! But if you have a tractor and you have the time, don't let me dissuade you. 60 bushels per acre is a modest yeild, and even that is 3000...

Farmersteve, congratulations on your ambitious plan! I've been pursuing a similar scheme as you, growing hops and barley in the hopes of creating an estate beer. My research indicated that 100 square feet ought to yeild between 5 and 15 lbs of grain, dependent mostly on the levels of nitrogen...

There was some kind of leak in the gas line, because the nitrogen was reading zero on Thursday, after being plugged in only a few days. Never the less, the beer flowed from the tap on Friday (could the 50 psi in the keg have pushed it out by itself?) when party goers were over. The faucet also...

Thanks for the advice, baba. I cranked up the pressure and turned down the fridge temp, so we'all see where that gets us. Here the finished product: I'm happy about this, since the first batch of beer wasn't the best. I can still claim a victory for the keg set up, and look forward to...

Yesterday I bought the last part I needed to complete my tap system. The nitrogen regulator I bought from a gas supply company in town did not use the same fitting as the hose and pin-lock set I bought from Kegworks, and Home Depot had nothing to marry the two. Going back to the supply store...

A few points about the air circulator: I used a 1/2 inch air tube after the 3/4 inch tube running through the 1" pvc pipe seemed to block it up and made it difficult for the beer to also fit in the pvc pipe. When I finished up last night I couldn't really feel air at the other end of the pipe...