Welcome to my beer blog!

I love beer. Beer is at it's core extremely simple, but possesses infinite variations and possibilities.

My aim is to educate about beer, ales and homebrewing. Simple right?

Lets get started with some terms that I will be using.

Beer: According to the 1516 Reinheitsgebot, the ingredients in beer are Barley, Hops
and water (Yeast was not included in that text, as the role of it in beer making had
not been discovered at that time). The use of other, starchy, cereal grains is also common, but
may people will claim that those are ales rather than beer. There is documented information
showing beer production as far back as 3000 BC in various parts of the world.

Yeast: Yeasts are fungal microorganisms found just about everywhere on our planet. Their role in
brewing is to consume sugars in the brew and release ethanol and carbon dioxide as a waste
product.

Fermentation: Fermentation is the process whereby the yeasts do their work.

Wort: Wort is what you have after you've used water to extract the grain when making beer, it
contains the sugars that will be fermented, as well as other particulates that add flavor and color
to the finished product. The wort also has the resins from the hops extracted into it.

Hops: Hops are the female flower cones of the hop plant. They serve to bitter the wort, add flavor
and add aroma. Hops are also a mild antibiotic and help prevent bacteria from taking hold in the
brew, instead they favor the activity of the yeast.

Malt: Malt is the product of sprouting grains in water and then quickly stopping the process by
rapid drying. This has the benefit of converting starches in the grain into sugars, making
the process of fermentation simpler and faster.

Priming: This is the process of adding additional sugar to the beer after fermentation to kick start
the yeast to cause it to produce carbon dioxide during bottling/kegging.

Pitching: Adding a yeast culture to a wort to start fermentation.

A note on sanitation: it is important to sanitize anything your beer will be in contact with. That means your funnel, fermenter, spoons and anything else you can think of.
Wood is not a good candidate for stirring spoons. Plastic or silicone is better. BACTERIA IS BAD.

That should be enough to get started, anything else will be covered when I think about it.

Next Post: Steam Beer!