Shitty Homebrew: The Quest for More Beer



 
Shitty Homebrew: The Quest for More Beer


Support my kickstarer, Help me make more terrible beer!



When I was a child, pokemon was cool. And now what I am older, homebrewing your own beer is cool. Maybe brewing was also popular when I was younger, but I was too busy force feeding my pikachu rare candy like a foie gras duck to pay attention. Now pokemon consists of chandeliers and ice cream cones and all kinds of goofy shit so it isn’t cool anymore.  


Canard! I choose you!


After having a couple of friends in college who brewed their own beer (including one who also made his own whiskey, cigarettes, and built a server in a very tasteful coffee table which stored at least 100gb of hardcore pornography), I decided that I was going to venture into homebrewing one day. I’m more partial to wine and spirits than beer, but I like learning new things, expanding the boundaries of my world, and like all the other mindless sheep (see: humans), I do stuff when I see other people do that stuff. In fact, homebrew is an increasingly popular activity in the states. According to the American Homebrewers Association, their membership increased four fold from 2005 to 2013 and around a million americans brew their own beer at least once a year. Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/15/home-brewing-beer_n_3278651.html.


After I got a job (and thus money) after grad school I decided I was ready. I was going to start making my own beer. I was going to overthrow the mind shackles that the man makes me wear every time I go buy a 6 pack from a large soulless corporation. I was going to be like those beatniks in Portland. I was going to catch all the pikachus.  Then I forgot about brewing for months until I was at Marshalls buying a bowtie to trick people into thinking that I was smart and/or a timelord and saw a Mr. Beer homebrew starter kit on sale for like $25.


Chandelier pokemon make no sense. Big ass yellow lightning rats are objectively more logical.





I rushed home to start making my beer and I was so excited that I didn’t bother to read the list of required equipment (I don’t have time for that shit, I am a narcissist and a genius) so I had to hold my mash in a pasta strainer over my sink at one point. Something pertaining to homebrew that isn’t obvious is how important sterilization is. You need to sterilize EVERYTHING, all the bottles, pots, silverware, piping, ect; My beer equipment had less lifeforms on it than medical equipment. I could cut out a man’s appendix with my sterile spoon. Granted, I dropped my stuff on the floor a few times but I wasn’t going to let chemistry or science stop me from my dream.

My vessel to emancipation



What did stop me from my dream was some of the following things:

    • I didn’t have any beer bottles so during the bottling stage I put my beer in a rectangular prism of clear polymer (aka tupperware). This way the beer would be exposed to all nuances and flavors of the San Antonio sunlight ( I didn’t bother to close the closet door where I kept this beer) while the polymer diffused into the beer giving it a not so subtle taste of blood poisoning. See the video at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1604639731/shitty-craft-beer


    • On the same topic, I tend not to turn on my AC during the day when I am at work, I just open the window. This way my liquid zygote booze child soaks up all of the character and culture of San Antonio Texas.


    A bench I saw in San Antonio. Spelling is not part of the culture here.



    When I finally finished brewing my first homebrew batch and it bottled for a few weeks, I opened my tupperware container and learnt that I had effectively brewed flat soda. My beer has almost zero carbonation and it tasted like root beer and mediocrity.


    My dreams were crushed but months later I decided to try again. I was going to rekindle my flame…. Next episode next week.


    Support my kickstarer, Help me make more terrible beer!
    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1604639731/shitty-craft-beer

    Jordan Rejaud is a mediocre homebrewer and slightly less mediocre Robotics Engineer.
    You can read about his projects and rants at jordanrejaud.com

    Click here for part 2! 

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