First of all, ask yourself: what are the things about brewing your own beer that would be discouraging or intimidating?

1. Fear of failure
2. Buying or gathering the equipment.
3. Buying or gathering the ingredients.
4. Washing the equipment.
5. Exploding bottles.
6. The revenooers.
7. The tooth fairy.
8. Waiting out the aging process.

Ah HA! That's it, isn't it? The last one.
In our society of instant gratification we would like to mix it and then drink it. If we gotta wait a month or so, the hell with it, let's go get a couple six packs of Budweiser. (YUK!)

The fact of the matter is, that washing the bottles and waiting is the only really distasteful part of brewing your own. The recipe for Brunbrau is probably the easiest beer recipe known to man, and at most you'll probably only wait a month to taste this remarkable libation. But then again, if you don't have the character, then perhaps you should be drinking Budweiser. Assuming, however, that your spirit has risen to the lofty heights required for this process, here we go:

THE EQUIPMENT:

1. Bottles - Eight six packs, plus four, of empty 12 oz. bottles. 52 to be exact. Use any color. They should be returnable bottles, however, not the kind with the screw caps.
2. Crock - For aesthetics it's nice to have a six - gallon clay pickle crock. It looks more acceptable behind the kitchen stove. However, failing that, get a 6 gallon plastic pail or garbage can.
3. Siphon hose - About four feet will do.
4. Bottle capper, and fifty two caps. (unused, please)

THE INGREDIENTS

1. 1 can (about 36 oz.) of malt extract.
2. 5 lbs. sugar. Plain old granulated cane is okay, or you can use corn sugar.
3. Yeast. Any kind. A cake, or a package of that powdered stuff, or the kind that comes in a jar.
4. Water, 5 gallons. You have that, don't you?

There, see? No big deal. No complicated list, no great expense. But great results.

DIRECTIONS:

STAGE ONE

Okay, you're ready to mix the recipe. This is the easiest part. In essence, all you have to do is mix the malt and sugar in the water and then add the yeast. HOWEVER, (there's always gotta be a few howevers) there is one critical factor.

When the dissolved yeast is added, the temperature of the water should be somewhere between 60 and 90 degrees. Really, that's not too critical, is it? You don't need a thermometer; just stick your finger in it and it should be cooler than your finger, but not cold.

You'll soon find your own method for doing this. Although a longer explanation makes it sound more complicated than it really is, I'll tell you how I do it.

I put the crock behind the stove, or where ever it's going to stay during the brewing process. I get this plastic milk jug, see, and fill it with hot water and pour it into the crock. Then I pour the full 5 pounds of sugar into the crock with the hot water. Dissolves real quick when I stir it. Then open can of malt. Now this stuff is real sticky, and it doesn't conveniently run out of the can into the crock. What you have to do is spoon out this big, gummy glob of malt into the warm water and stir until it's dissolved. Getting all of the malt out of the can can be expedited by putting hot water into the can and stirring, then pouring into the crock.

Anyway, by this time you've got the malt and the sugar dissolved in a gallon of water in the crock, right? Now, put the remaining four gallons of water in. Mix it in cool, warm, or hot as necessary to make the filled crock in that temperature range. Then, take that empty malt can, scoop up some of that luke - warm mix from the crock, and dissolve the yeast in it. When it's dissolved, pour it back into the crock and stir it a couple of times. And then put the lid on. Now that wasn't hard, was it?

STAGE TWO:

The brewing process can take from a week to two weeks, depending on the temperature of the crock. It should be kept above 60 degrees or it might not brew at all, but I'm not certain of that. I have wrapped a heating pad around mine in order to keep the temperature constant, but I can assure you, that's not necessary. Don't go out and buy a heating pad. The best bet is to keep it between 70 and 90 degrees, or, about room temperature.

Within 12 hours of mixing, a foam should form on the top of the brew. However, I've seen brews that didn't foam. Don't ask me why. You'll know if it's working, though, if you look at the surface of the brew in a good light, and you will see tiny bubbles being propelled out of the fluid. Although you can forget about it for at least a week, you'll probably inspect the contents of the crock at least twice a day. The "contents", incidentally, are called "wort". The term comes from an ancient teutonic word meaning "crud".

STAGE 3:

This is the bottling stage, and this is the only other critical point in the whole disgusting process. Bottling should occur after the brew stops working but before it goes flat. I don't know what that grace period is; it may be 12 hours or it may be 48. At any rate, when the little bubbles stop dancing off the surface of the wort, the time is NOW.

Line up all your clean, empty bottles, deposit a quarter teaspoon of sugar in each. Use a little funnel for this; the amount is not critical. It's for the purpose of restarting the brewing process in the bottle in order to obtain the effervescence. With the crock on a level higher than the bottles, siphon the wort into the bottles, and cap. I have found that I can cap one bottle while another is filling.

Here, I should mention sediment, which is simply yeast in the bottom of the crock. A lot of purists don't like to see the sediment poured into a frosty mug, and certainly it is not as aesthetically pleasant as a crystal clear liquid. Some of this is going to get into the bottle during the siphoning process, and you might as well accept it. On the other hand, there are a few techniques that will reduce the problem somewhat.

1. Keep the siphon hose about an inch above the bottom of the crock when bottling, or,



2. A day or so before you bottle, sink a bottle in the wort, so that it's lying on its side on the bottom of the crock, with the siphon hose inside it. Presumably, the sediment will resettle, not inside the bottle, and when you commence siphoning, the end of the hose is clear of the sediment, or,



3. Two or three days before bottling, siphon the wort from the crock to another, leaving the sediment behind, or most of it anyway.

STAGE FOUR:

The only instruction for this stage is for the temperature where the filled bottles are stored. If you put them in the wood shed in the winter, they won't age at all. So temperature should be above 50 degrees. The attic is probably the best place which will range from 50 degrees in the winter to about 110 in the summer.

How long should the brew age? In most cases you will find an acceptable drink after 3 weeks. It should be mentioned, however, that 30 to 60 days aging will produce an even finer brew in terms of dryness and effervescence. My Uncle Bill retrieved some forgotten brew from a refrigerator after a year, and by comparison, it made Miller's, "the champagne of bottle beer" taste like swampwater.

STAGE 5:

This stage is only a vehicle for me to make a graceful exit from this production. It might describe the enjoyment of imbibing your own creation, which will cost about a tenth that of commercial beers, and will be twice as strong. It will taste at least as good, and undoubtedly better when you become accustomed to its stronger, yet lighter, more effervescent flavor. But more than that, it gave me an opportunity to write about my yankee and scottish forebears, with some degree of fact and a large degree of whimsy. So, Cheers!