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Connie L. Sheehan
Senior Editor
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Lower Level M-F 8-5
Nebraska Union Sat. 11 -4
Garden Level East Campus
East Union M-F 8:30-5
Homemade attempts teach
brewer "weiser" lessons
Charlie Papazian's home
brewing bible, 'The Complete Joy
of Home Brewing," has only one
commandment: "Relax, don't
worry, have a home-brew,"
Joel Pedersen, a Lincoln assis
tant city attorney, has been fol
lowing that commandment for the
last two years.
"Basically, if you're interested
in home brewing, you're not a guy
who sits down and has a Miller
Lite and feels like he just had a
great beer," Pedersen explained.
Tf you're the kind of person who
goes and has a Guinness Stout and
wants another one, you might be
s interested in home brewing."
Pedersen said some of his
complaints about commercially
available beer is that a good one is
"pretty hard to come by and there's
not a lot of variety."
American breweries do brew a
difficult beer, in terms of home
brewing, said Pedersen. Pale,
lightly flavored beer is hard to
brew oecause any slight off-flavor
will show through.
"It's more a tribute to their
process," he said.
Pedersen said his interest was
influenced by the European beers
he had during his visits overseas.
"When you get that German
beer, then you come home and
have a..." Pedersen just laughed,
not completing the comparison
between European and American
beers.
Home-brews have a full-bod
ied taste, and a lot of people don't
like that, he said. They would rather
have something they can drink
easily.
"Home-brew is like a good,
imported beer/' he added. "It's
something you drink for the taste
and for the experience of it."
Pedersen said brewing beer is
like cooking. If someone cooks a
meal, it's easier to appreciate and
understand what went into the
making of the final dish.
"When you make beer, you begin
to understand what flavor yeast
adds, for example," he said. Brew
ers begin to learn how each ingre
dient will affect the beer's taste.
And basically, beer only has four
ingredients: hops, yeast, water and
malt, Pedersen said.
Asked about analyzing im
ported beers to achieve the taste
ne prefers, Pedersen said it's easy:
"I cheat."
"Most of beers I make come
from kits," he said, "and I'm more
of an intermediate home brewer
rather than an advanced one."
While a beginner would use an
"already-hopped" kit, Pedersen
said he uses an "unhopped" kit
then adds hops according to his
own taste. An advanced orewer
would go as far as preparing his
own grain mixture.
A kit usually costs around $10
and makes about two cases and a
six-pack, Pedersen said.
"It's not really, really cheap,"
he said, "but if you consider wnat
you're brewing is basically im
Rirted beer. . . have you priced
ew Castle Brown Ale lately?" he
asked, referring to his favorite
imported beer. "It's a bargain when
you look at it that way.
But if somebody is trying to
make dirt-cheap beer, it can hardly
be done, especially if one gives
any value at all to their time.
And it does take a lot of time,
Pedersen said.
"When I first started brewing,
it was kind of an event," he said.
"I'd have some friends over and
we would brew beer on a Satur
day afternoon."
Pedersen said he has made about
a dozen or more batches of home
brew and had only one failure.
"What happened, I have no idea,
it just didn't work," he said. "It's
really easier to make a home-brew
than to fail."
According to "The Complete
Joy of Home Brewing," the brew
ing process begins "given the right
conditions where yeast will con
vert (ferment) the fermentable
sugars to alcohol, carbon dioxide
ana the taste we know as beer."
If one gets the right equipment
and keeps everything clean, the
process should go fairly smoothly,
Pedersen said.
Pedersen said brewing equip
ment costs about$60and includes
items such as the carboy, or large
bottle used to ferment the beer,
hoses, other small items and the
large pot used for cooking the
mixture.
"If the pots are thin, the malt
tends to stick while cooking but
it'll add a little flavor to the beer,"
he said. "It's happened before and
I just kept on going. I was w orried
I scorched it but it didn't make
much difference."
Cooking the mixture is easy,
Pedersen said. Everything gets put
in a big pot then you simply follow
the directions. "I'm not a scientist
and I'm not a good cook either."
Pedersen starts with about one
gallon of water, heating it to help
tne malt syrup dissolve better and
adds the three-pound can of malt
ingredients. Then the mixture is
boiled from 20 minutes to one hour.
"You do want to keep it warm
for quite a while," he said. That
ensures removing all the "nasty
stuff" and also changes the char
acter so that all the sugars and
malt are dispersed throughout the
liquid.
"The fun stuff is the hops," he
said. There are two kinds, boiling
hops added during the boil and
finishing hops added at the end.
These are used in intermediate
brewing techniques. Beginning kits
are already "hopped.
"The boiling hops will add hop
flavor and some aroma and the
finishing hops add primarily the
aroma without adding the bitter
ness of the hop taste," he explained.
The heated mixture is then
poured into the carboy with the
remaining water. The lager, or ale
yeast, is added after the mixture
cools to room temperature, he said.
After the fermentation is com
pleted, the mixture is decanted
into sterilized bottles and aged,
preferably longer than a month,
Pedersen said. The final product
will average from 3 to 5 percent
alcohol.
"You'll be really pleased with
yourself," he said. "It7s an accom
plishment."
Pedersen said he sometimes
alters the directions, especially with
the English kits that sometimes
call for open-air fermentation or
fermentation in buckets rather than
closed bottles.
"My wife's got a microbiology
undergrad and she says, 'No, no,
no, thatwouldn'tbeagood idea',"
Pedersen said. He agreed that he
prefers not to take any unneces
saty risks.
Pedersen doesn't filter his beer.
"If you're very particular about
floating things in your beer," he
said, "that's a drawback."
The yeast eventually settles
down to the bottom and can be
decanted, Pedersen said, but added
that the yeast contains B-complex
vitamins that supposedly nelp
lessen hangovers.
Although one of Pedersen's
friends has won state fair compe
titions with his homemade brew,
Pedersen said he really hasn't
thought of entering his own into
competition.
"I don't really do it for other
folks," he said. "1 find a beer I like
and if it's good, it's good for me."
Laws govern brewing fun
By Joel Schroeder
Staff Reporter
Tired of your same old do
mestic beer on the weekends
and ready for a little adven
ture? Brew your own.
According to federal and state
law, it's not unlawful. However,
certain restrictions apply.
In November 1978, Congress
passed a bill that repealed a por
tion of a 1920 federal law that
{>rohibited the making of beer,
t was signed into law Dy Presi
dent Carter.
The restrictions in the fed
eral law provided that not more
than 100 gallons per person can
be produced in a year and the
producer must be at least 18
years of age. Locally, however,
many suppliers will not sell
brewing Kits to anyone under
21.
The law also states that the
beer be for personal use only
and cannot be resold in any form.
State statute 53-102 says that
no one can "prevent the making
of wine, cider, or other alco
holic liquor by a person from
(ingredients), by simple fermen
tation and without distillation,
if it is made solely for the use of
the maker, his or her family,
and guests."
Alcoholic beverages are de
fined as including, "alcohol,
spirits, wine, beer and every
liquid or solid . . . capable of
being consumed as a beverage
by a human being."
The statute also adds that al
coholic liquor includes confec
tions or candies that contain more
than one-half of 1 percent of
alcohol.
Beer is defined as the "alco
holic fermentation of an infu
sion or concoction of barley or
other grain, malt and hops in
water, and includes "beer, ale,
stout, lager beer, porter and the
like."
It also defines beer as any
beverage with the above condi
tions having more than one-half
of 1 percent alcohol by volume.
So, if you've finally decided
your beer just doesn't have the
same old gusto, go ahead and
brew your own. ft's legal.
Brewing partners plan new drinking experience
By Dionne Searcey
Staff Reporter
Plans to open a restaurant that
sells homemade beer are brewing,
local home brewers said.
Kristina Tiebel, a University of
Nebraska-Lincoln microbiology
laboratory technician, said plans
to open the pub are still in the
developmental stages.
Such establishments, called
brewpubs'or micro-breweries that
brew Deer on site, can be found in
cities such as Minneapolis. None
currently exist in Lincoln.
"Setting up a brewery takes a
lot of big equipment," Tiebel said.
"It's a bigger version of what people
do in their kitchen."
And the small problems that
home brewers tackle are intensi
fied, she said, when brewing is
done on a large scale.
Tiebel said equipment designed
exclusively to maice beer will be
used at the pub.
"That makes it more of an engi
neering feat," she said.
Materials for the brewing proc
ess, which Tiebel called "pretty
( intense," include machinery* that
can boil, store and steam tne liq
uid.
She said the brewing begins in
giant stainless steel vats, so that
once the process begins, extra grain,
yeast and hops can be addea.
Tiebel's partner, Linda Vescio,
associate director of Cedar Point
Biological Station, said the pub
plans to produce four batches —
about 896 pints — of beer a week.
Because the beer will be "mi
cro-brewed," Tiebel said, the in
gredients can be changed to make
a variety of flavors.
Vescio said four or five differ
ent beers will be offered daily at
the brewpub and other beers will
vary according to the season.
A wheat beer will be available
in the summer, she said, and darker
beers, such as a porters and stouts,
will be brewed in the winter.
Tiebel said the beer will be un
filtered to give it a "more whole
some taste.
"It makes it a more pure prod
uct and is a more traditional way
of making it," she said.
The yeast that normally is fil
tered out of beer, she said, con
tains vitamins and minerals.
Tiebel said filtering is an "un
necessary and undesirable step that
big breweries have to do to ship
it.
Unlike commercial beer, addi- t
ti ves and preservatives will not be
added to the home-brew because
customers will drink it immedi
ately, she said.
Tiebel said she and Vesciohave
been home brewing for about two
/ears.
"Brewing is great fun. It seems
like Lincoln needs something like
this."
Ken Johnson/Daily Nebraskan
BEFORE YOU CAN FOUOW
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FOUOW THE RULES.
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ANTI-WAR V
RALLY
Saturday, February 23, 3:00 p.m.
Federal Bldg. 16th & O sts., Lincoln
-SPEAKERS
Nell Eckersley: UNL student
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Chip Stanley: UNL student "Racist Hate Crimes"
Aiman Alaraj: Palestinian from Kuwait
"Letter to Mother in Kuwait"
Rev. Danial Gangler
Jamie Obricht: Vietnam Veteran
Sponsored by People for Peace in the Middle East
Supported by Citizens for Palestinian Self Determination,
early warning, Ecology Now, Nebraskans for Peace;
Lincoln Chapter, the World Peace Center, and You
For more information call 472-6775 or 472-8199
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