San Miguel Cerveza

The standard in Mexico

I've tried pretty much every cerveza available here in San Miguel. I knew coming to Mexico that the beer would be light lagers and so I settled into accepting the loss of those bold, malty and ultra hopped beers I was used to on the west coast and tempered my taste buds to fit the local offerings. Modelo is the 'Bud', or should I say Coors/Molson of Mexico and they have an extensive selection of beer that ranges from minimal malt and hop flavor (Negro Modelo), to effectively No hop and what appears to be just the remnants of malt (Corona). I settled for awhile on Victoria which has some beer like flavors that my pallet could detect. Also the 'Mega' Super Mercado has their brand name version of a Bohemian Pils that was surprisingly similar to what one might expect from a European import (in the can only). Then, to my surprise I discovered 'Bohemia' which , although light in malt, had a distinctive Saaz(?) hop flavor and aroma. Bohemia is what I buy when I can find it and for some reason it is a rare item in San Miguel. I suspect that it doesn't sell very well here because of the pronounce hop flavor. Some, used to the typical samplings may taste the hops and think that the beer has gone bad or something. In the mean time I wait patiently for my bottled beer to carbonate (2 days more!!). Speaking of my beer, after taking a gravity reading and tasting the sample, I actually scared myself with the huge hop profile, after being weened on the likes of Victoria for the last few weeks. I don't think the friends I've made down here will appreciate the flavor of my beer but, I'm pretty sure I will.

Back to the brewing

The new burner in action.

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Getting back to my first brew here in Mexico. At the time of this writing the beer boiling in the picture has been in the bottle for a week now. But I want to fill you in on the process.

After setting up the burner I discovered that the flame was far to low to bring 6 1/2 gals. of wort to a boil. I needed the control valve orifice to be larger to provide enough flame. I was able to ream it out with a rusty bent nail I found on the ground nearby. The nail reference is because I don't have any tools accept a used crescent wrench I bought at the outdoor market. Tools are any home brewers best friend. I used bottled water because I suspect that the water here is very hard and because I don't know what else is in it. I had to order all of the ingredients on line except the Honey which is available at the local supermercado (Bonanza) and the Columbus hops which I brought down with me. I also brought us56 dry ale yeast. All of the equipment I was able to round up here except the wort chiller and I brought my Hydrometer and thermometer with me. This is my recipe:

American IPA

7 lbs. light liquid malt extract

2 lbs. local honey

1/2 lb. Crystal #60 (steeped)

1/2 lb. aromatic (steeped)

In a 60 minute boil I used:

3/4 oz. columbus for bittering 60 min.

1 1/2 oz. cascade for flavor 15 min. and Irish moss for clarity

1 oz. cascade for aroma 3 min.

1 oz. cascade for aroma 1 min.

Everything went well and I reached my target gravity of 1.061 in 5.5 gals. It took a while to cool to 70 degrees F. because of the tap water temperature and after getting down to a little over 100 degrees I lowered the boil pot into a tub of ice water. The fermentation went without a hitch and I bottled directly from my primary fermentation using 3/4 cup of cane sugar (boiled).

Now I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'm a little nervous about the bottling process because I have been force carbonating my beer in the keg for many years now.

Choices!

That's a lot of choices!

I'm at a cross road in my life. A moment where answers may be discovered. Answers to questions about where to go from here with my passions and desires? How to leave the past behind? How to end my patterns of familiarity for the sake of comfort. How to be comfortable in the unfamiliar. My work has afforded me my comforts, but I'm tired. Tired of the need to continue in order to pay for the necessary commodities of life; food and shelter, gas for the car, insurance, bla, bla, etc. etc., just to be able to continue some more. I'm at a place where the value of the things I do are more important to me than just doing to keep doing. If that makes any sense. So here I am in Mexico, not getting my questions answered but brewing beer. Maybe brewing beer is the answer.

Patience

Patience is a virtue in the world of brewing, and a pint helps!

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Finding the equipment has proved to be easier and cheaper than finding ingredients. The local ferreteria had a pretty good burner on a stand for 300 pesos ($30 usd). After a series of exagerated hand gestures and some badly expressed spanglish I was able to explain my needs for "mucho fuego" to the young clerk. Of course I was assured the burner in question would provide adequate fire. I carefully inspected the spoke shaped burner head and the clerk graciously replaced a cross threaded fitting where the gas line attached. I proudly carried this floor model back home.

Hardware stores in Mexico are different than the States. They have all the same stuff including an extensive supply of very cheap Chinese versions, but you don't walk down aisles picking up what you need. Here you step up to a counter (kind of like an auto parts store) and you ask for what you want. I had to learn quickly to say in spanish "I want..." fill in the blank, Cobra tubo, manquera regulador and otro regulador esta roto "...another regulator this one is broken", again pointing and picture drawing were important language skills.

For those familiar with home brewing do's and don'ts, aluminum boil pots are a big NO-NO (See picture above).Primarily because of the possible metallic taste that may occur in your beer and also, some claim that the metal may cause brain damage. We'll I've got another two weeks to wait on the flavor aspect since that is when my first batch of brew will be fully carbonated in the bottle. I'll keep you posted. As far as the brain damaging effect...only time will tell. I will say though that over the many years of my life I have ingested significant amounts of vegetable, mineral and animal parts that could possibly cause brain damage, so if some brain related desease or deficiency does occur, one would be hard pressed to single out aluminum as the route cause. In any case I purchased a 6.5 gal Aluminum pot at the Tuesday outdoor market. I haven't seen any stainless pots here and my plan is to only make two 5 gal. brews anyway.

Fermenters in the form of glass carboys are a very rare item here in Mexico, "land of the plasticos". Although I did find a couple in the rubble of a friends house that is being remodeled. My first instinct was to grab them for nostalgia sake and because I like to horde anything beer related, but I gave up on the inconvenience of the weight and difficulty in cleaning carboys long ago. I have been primary fermenting in a large foodgrade plastic containers for years (I use some empty malt extract containers that I got from a homebrew store with no ill effects. Before coming to Mexico I had the forthought to toss a few food grade bags in my carry-on and these I use to line my current fermenting container which I know for sure is not food grade.

No Expert

The entrance to one of the local Cantina's near our house

I'm no expert on brewing. I don't know all the aspects of the chemistry involved in brewing that say, a commercial brewer probably needs to know. I couldn't even guess about some of the technical aspects of moving liquid in a large brewery while at the same time preventing contamination and the introduction of oxygen. I haven't had the hands-on exposure to that kind of beer making. What I do have is about 8 years of personal experiential knowledge of making small batches (10 gals.) of the type of beer I enjoy drinking. I have the kind of experience you get from trial and error. I have retained a little information from books I've read on brewing and the history of fermented drinks. I've also picked up a few pointers from fellow homebrewers like the ones from the homebrewing club in Santa Cruz, Ca. http://zymurgeeks.org/ or from the question and answers on the http://hbd.org/ internet discussion board. But, for the most part I just brew, over and over again. I modify my ingredients, techniques, practices and/or yeast until I have , like an alchemist, turned malt into gold or at least a gold alloy. I can't stop trying to perfect my pale ale (the Holy Grail of brewing in my world).

Beer Brewing Classes Outlined

Review the choices for homebrewing classes
Today, more than ever, people are looking for ways to improve on the quality of their lives by taking control of the processes that provide good quality food for themselves on a local level. This means growing, harvesting, preserving and preparing your own wholesome food in the place that you live rather than relying on farms and processeser from far away to provide you with the essential foods of your life. Brewing beer at home is part of this movement and its revival is a reflection of the desire to provide essential foods for ourselves as we did as far back as the time of the establisment of this country. Most of the early American settlers brewed their own beer right along with baking bread and canning fruits and vegetables for the winter months.
This site is the home page for The Back Yard Brewer homebrewing school and is the portal to the different home brewing classes available in the Santa Cruz and San Miguel, Mexico. I also want to be a resource for those that are interested in brewing, providing helpful insight through information about the ingredients, equipment and techniques involved in brewing beer at home.




Cabrillo College 5 Week Brewing
This course in home brewing is being offered as a comprehensive and complete way of seeing the steps in brewing beer at home from the basic 5 gallon batch using malted extract to brewing 10 gallons of beer using whole malted grain.
Click here to get all of the details about this popular class and the information needed to sign up for this years summer and fall classes.

Testimonials
"That was a great class. You did such a good job of making the process of brewing at home comprehensible without oversimplifying, and showing us we could all do it. The more brewers in the world, the better! Thanks for sharing all your knowledge and experience with us."
-Dave Kramer-Urner

Cabrillo College Beer Tasting
This class is 3 hours of sampling a wide variety of ales, lagers and specialty beers. We will use a simplified beer evaluation sheet to identify the aromas, flavors and mouthfeel in order to understand and appreciate the classic beer styles from around the world and a selection of micro brewed beers from the United States that exemplify the small brewer movement that is currently taking place.
Click here for more information about this exciting and memorable class and to register before the class fills.


Brewing 101 course
Learn the very basics of brewing beer at home. I will take you through the process showing you how simple and inexpensive it can be while we brew up a batch of pale ale and sample some home brews that I have on tap. Click here for all the information and fees for brewing up a 5 gallon batch of beer at my home in Aptos, California or in San Miguel De Allende, Mexico.