Near Beer

After the success of my fall beer making, I decided to take the process a step further, and attempt brewing beer from the raw materials. Barley, Hops, Yeast, and Water. A simple and amazing process and product.


The first step is to work the barley. I germinated the grain to begin the process and then slow roasted the sprouting seeds to dry them. The process took most of the day on Sunday, but the result was a golden roasted pile of pre beer goodness.




With the roasted barley on hand and a bucket full of dried hops collected from the vines in my neighbor's yard last fall I was ready to boil up my wort. To make the wort, the roasted barley is boiled to extract the sugars that feed the the yeast in the fermentation process. The hops were added into the mix to create the fruity bitter taste that most pale ails have.


Well... That's about when it all failed. The boiling process is supposed to last for at least an hour in order to burn off unwanted enzymes and release the desired sugars into the water. Two unexpected things happened. 1) The Barley swelled up and overflowed the water level, driving the bottom layer of barley to the bottom of the pot and proceeded to burn. The delightful beer smell quickly turned to a pungent burn odor. 2) The wort broth that I tried to salvage from the initial boil was unbearably starchy. It was thick like pea soup and colored like porridge. After various strainings and filterings, the first attempt had to be aborted.