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Chisholm Trail Cervesas
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| By: |
| Jesse and Alexandra Chisholm |
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"Let's see, the recipe starts this here way:
First, pour two cups of wine into the chef.
Hoo! Now I like that!"-- Justin Wilson, the Cajun Cook
General Comments
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If you aren't already a home-brewer, look in the phone book or search on the
Internet to find a beer / wine maker's supply store in your area. You can generally get
the equipment you need for under $100. You can probably get the essentials
for about $75. (You can, of course, spend up to $3000 if you want to get the top of the line equipment. ;-)
This basic set includes a 6.5 to 7-gal primary fermenter (either plastic bucket
or glass carboy), a fermentation lock, a boiling pot (30 quarts if you can get one,
but a 10 quart will do), thermometer, hydrometer, long handled spoon, and various
other items. The store will have some kits of various prices with everything you
really need. Don't forget - to put it in bottles you will also need
a bottle capper and new caps.
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The people at the store are also a great source of advice and answers.
They are very friendly and they enjoy sharing their knowledge of beer-brewing.
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A 5 gallon batch makes about 50-55 of the twelve oz bottles of beer. It only makes
about 30 if you use the 22 oz bottles. You could also choose liter bottles, party-pigs,
pony kegs, soda-kegs, half or full kegs. These instructions assume you are using
12 oz bottles of the pop-top variety.
The screwtop variety are a little harder to work with.
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For the instructions in this site, I am going to assume you got the 30 quart (7.5 gal) boiling
pot and the 6.5 gal glass carboy for fermenting. This is part of a medium priced setup.
If you got the smaller boiling pot, then you will have to boil all your water ahead
of time to sterilize it. Then boil your malt with 1.5 gallons, then add remaining
pre-boiled water to the primary fermenter.
The 7 gallon plastic fermenting buckets are easier to clean than the glass carboys,
but I started with glass, so that's what I talk about.
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I am further going to assume, that if you want to know more of the details that you
will buy one of the many excellent books on home brewing. This is an overview of the
whole process as I do it for these recipes. Among the details the books cover that I don't cover
are the steps you do to estimate how alcoholic your brew really is. My recipes will be
anywhere from 4% to 8% depending on how fully you convert the starches to sugar and how
fully the yeast converts the sugar to alcohol and how long you let it ferment.
Once I got the taste the way I liked it, I stopped worrying about those details.
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See my links page for other sources of information.
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Back to the Chisholm Trail Cervesas
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