How & why did you start brewing?

[bracconiere]

as I pick the mash paddle back up again.

the river!

Welcome!

 

[Taket_al_Tauro]

I played with the idea of homebrewing for a long time, but never really became serious about it. Once I searched for beer recipes on the internet...I was expecting a cookbook-style recipe, with detailed instructions on the process. All I had in front of me was a table with a lot of weird technical terms and obscure figures I did not understand. I was immediately scared off and considered it couldn't possibly be done in your kitchen with cheap and simple equipment.

Then, about ten years ago I met a food engineering student who had just started a company with a few buddies. They were selling the simplest brew kit you could think of: a 5L party keg, malt extract, hop extract, dry yeast. All you needed to do was mixing all the ingredients directly into the party keg with the right amount of water (no boiling involved), and let it ferment. I think they came up with some sort of cheap spunding valve for the party keg that was able to release excess pressure while giving you carbonated beer at the end. After a few days of fermentation and a few more of cold conditioning in the fridge, you could tap the fruits of your hard labor, your self-made beer from there, WOAH!
So I told him: hey great idea you had, I'll definitely order one.
When I was about to pull the trigger, I asked myself: wait a minute, what's the fun of it? I might just as well buy the finished beer instead.
So I started searching the web for infos about making your own beer, this time more seriously. I was living in Germany at the time so I found a German homebrewer's forum first... and from there, there was no going back. I sometimes think it may have been better for me if I pulled the trigger on that 5L party keg...maybe, just maybe I'd have avoided falling into this homebrewing trap