Scott wrote:It would be interesting to hear about your experiences...remote brewing. Scott
I lived in an Islamic country capital for a year, working in the US Embassy enclave. We (Americans, ex pats) could get alcohol through the Embassy Commissary, but the local customs folks ensured that the beer arrived stale and nearly destroyed (hot place)--plus it cost a LOT (I paid $76 for a case of St Pauli Girl Dark, and it was awful). The disgust over that beer and finding some basic brewing equipment in one of the houses led me to brew again.
Midwest Supplies turned out to be very accommodating for sending kits, and dry yeast made the voyage mostly intact. Aluminum pots of a large size were easy to find downtown, as was PVC tubing. The Department of State provided houses had distillers (large ones) for drinking water, and I slowly filled 5 gallons+ of water jugs for brewing water. The rest was basic extract brewing on a house gas stove (never quite got to a rolling boil, but close), except chilling the wort was done in a cleared out freezer, which still took 3-4 hours to get to pitching temps. Fermentation was done in a un-occupied basement with the A/C raging down to 65F or so. It worked, and the beer by stateside standards was good, but in that situation far removed from home, the homebrewed IPAs, Porters, Kolsch, and Hefeweizens (etc) was awesome. My beer got fairly popular, and I ended up teaching three newbies how to brew while there--and that was fun!
More importantly, the experience rekindled my love of brewing. Although my time now is more limited than ever, and I have other hobbies that distract me, I make time for brewing and enjoy the results of it almost every day. Using eBIAB RIMS, temperature controlled fermentation and other improvements, I think my beer's getting to a darned good level. Lots of fun and satisfaction.
). Now I'm on an adventure to brew great beer and see how many different types of beer I like.
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