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In case you haven't checked out the 'Hobbies' pages on this site, I like to brew beer at home. I've been brewing for a little over 2 years. Also, I've done wine, root beer, and mead (for those of you who don't know what mead is, it's honey-wine).
Just started checking out a web broadcast for homebrewers at http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com. It's pretty good. Mainly, I am interested in the live broadcasts on Sundays. Most of them are available in the Archives section, in MP3 format.
I currently have the following beers on tap: German Hefeweizen, IPA, and Strawbeery Blonde. Oh, and RootBeer. I also have an Amber Ale, a Dry Mead, and a Sweet Mead that are aging.
I brew beer using a process called "Extract Brewing". What this means is, most of the hard work is done for me. Here's pretty much what I do...
- Sanitize all of my equipment.
- Heat up a bunch of water.
- Steep the grains in the warming water.
- Add liquid malt extract (depending on the recipe).
- Add hops (depending on the recipe).
- Boil it all for an hour.
- Add more hops (depending on the recipe).
- Cool it off as fast as humanly possible.
- Pitch the yeast.
- Watch and wait for fermentation to start (hopefully, within a few hours or so. The quicker the better).