Labels:text | letter | black and white | man OCR: GREAT FERMENTATIONS of Marin 87 LARASPUR ST. . SAN RAFAEL, CA 94901 - 415/459-2520 SEX AND THE FIRST-TIME BREWER The Brewing Process .. . Cook, Cool, Ferment, Bottle. The first time you do anything, its bound to be confusing, even though the principle may be very simple. Beer is that way. Its just malt, hops, yeast and water. All the varieties of beers in the world come from varying these four Ingredients, and, sometimes, from adding other grains or sugars. MALT gives you grain aromas, sweetness and fermentable sugars; HOPS balance the sweetness with a pleasant bitter taste, and have their own spicy aroma as well; YEAST converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide gas, and WATER holds it all together. Home Brewers usually get their malt as a malt extract, In elther syrup or dry form. This speeds up the brewing process, by saving the several hours it takes to brew straight from the grain. The mall extract is first dissolved in water, then bolled with hops. This bolling extracts the hop flavor, clarifies the beer by precipitation of proteins, and sterilizes the unfermented beer. Alter the boll, the beer is cooled, diluted to the proper strength (If necessary) and yeast Is added, The yeast eats the mall sugars, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide. The alcohol remains, but the CO2 bubbles away, and the beer flavor changes from sweet lo dry. After a few days, as the yeast finishes the sugar, bubbling slows down, and eventually stops. The beer begins to clear, and before it is completely clear, while there is still some live yeast floating around, the Home Brewer adds a measured amount of corn sugar, and bottles the beer in a crown cap or clip-top bottle. This wakes the yeast up ( "wow, gang, more sugar ! " ) and It cats the sugar, producing more alcohol and carbon dioxide, but now the Co2 is trapped In the sealed bottle and the bubbles saturate the beer with natural carbonation, giving the beer its head and sparkle. The yeast then settles to the bottom of the bottle, and after a brief perlod of aging, the brewer can gently pour clear beer out of the bottle, leaving the yeast sediment behind. Now, about sex and the first time brewer. Brewers can be of either sex. It used to be the custom to refer to females as "brewsters", but this seems to have died out . Brewing, however, has not died out, and in fact keeps growing every year, as more and more brewsters and brewers discover how good home brewed beer can be. We've taught hundreds of people of both sexes how to do it . We have books, videos, classes, equipment, supplies, and lots of free advice. When you're ready to brew, just give us a call , Great Fermentations, (415) 459-2520
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