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homebrewing

Brewing: better than meditation

meditativeboiler

I love brewing.  I find it so relaxing.

Mostly, it’s because of all the gaps (not the brewing, but the spaces between).  While the mash is going or the wort is getting to the boil,  you can happily while away the time playing MarioKart, but still feel like you’re doing something productive.

It also makes cleaning the kitchen feel less like a chore and more like an exciting preparatory ritual.

At the end of the day, we’re left with sparkling clean house; we haven’t thought about work for hours; and we’ve got a fermenter full of what might turn out to be the best beer ever.

Boak

9 replies on “Brewing: better than meditation”

What a great way of looking at it. I love the hope that’s there in the last line, plus the sense of achievement. Homebrewing is cool.

I guess you’d call it a ‘strong ale’. It’s kind of amber in colour, with Fuggles and East Kent Goldings, and (this is where we’ll get savaged for our terrible technique…) chucked in a just-past-its-sell-by-date tube of Burton Ale Yeast *and* a sachet of dried Nottingham yeast, to be on the safe side. It’s come out at c.6% abv.

I used a past its sell by date vial of Burton Ale yeast in my Copper Head Best Bitter disaster, so you’ll probably find the Nottingham does the business.

Brewing is therapy, even though I do extract with speciality grains – I just love the whole process, from formulating the recipe, steeping the grains and getting the boil going, watching the Yeastie Boys doing their thing in the carboy. The only bit I don’t like is waiting for the conditioning in the bottle to be complete, so I brew again the day after bottling.

I am slowly getting a nano-production line going, currently have my imperial stout conditioning, Christmas Abbey Ale fermenting, next up will be my Thanksgiving Barleywine which will age for a year, then December is time to make my smoked chocolate porter, which has a big Fuggle hop presence.

I tend to invite people over for brew days, so it often turns into a social occasion too. But now and again, when my wife and son are away visiting family, I’ll do a solo brew day. That’s kinda nice (although I could live without the clean-up operation after :))

I read in brewing downtime, keeping one eye on the boiler. Great opporunity to steal some ‘me time’. I’ll also invite a mate over, and we find it hard to spend the time talking about anything other than beer. (well, apart from Leeds United). CLeaning as you go is a must!

I used to find the smell alone was worth brewing for. sadly I no longer have the space to brew but find cooking does the job instead. a great way to relax as you say

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