The Means of Production

Growing up, there was always one person on the block who made their own home brew. Usually it was something really appetizing like ‘wine’ made from cherries/dandelions/elderberries that you would be forced to taste, without making a gagging noise, when you visited their house. Nowadays, the creation of fermented beverages at home is no longer the purview of the neighborhood eccentric. In fact, the corporations are getting a run for their money with the masses producing a surprising number of formerly commercial products at home. Good evidence for this is the many books here at the library that will guide you through the process. Here is a just a sampling of the titles on offer.

Beer, Beer, Beer and Mead
The beer world has been decentralizing for years now with the advent of microbrewers and craft beers. Why not take it a step further and do some home brewing to create a truly unique and original elixir? While there is definitely a learning curve, brewing isn’t rocket science, so there is no reason not to give it a try.

We have several manuals for home brewing beer here at the library, but a good place to start is with Mastering Homebrew: The Complete Guide to Brewing Delicious Beer by Randy Mosher. Mosher lays out the basics of brewing at home, complete with colorful graphics and illustrations to help you through the process. Once you get the basics down, you will want to try out different recipes to get the perfect glass of suds. Craft Beer for the Homebrewer: Recipes from America’s Top Brewmasters by Michael Agnew and Make Some Beer: Small-Batch Recipes from Brooklyn to Bamburg by Erica Shea are both chock full of recipes to help you experiment. If you find the idea of brewing at home too time consuming, take a gander at Speed Brewing: Techniques and Recipes for Fast Fermenting Beers, Ciders, Meads and More by Mary Izett. Finally, if you want to get in touch with your inner Viking, sans the pillaging of monasteries one hopes, take a look at Make Mead Like a Viking by Jereme Zimmerman to learn all about this fermented honey-based brew.

In Vino Veritas
While wine and winemaking tends to have a lofty reputation, don’t let that scare you away from trying to make your own. Long before wine experts were declaring their favorite chardonnay ‘busy but never precocious’ the Roman plebs were quaffing the stuff by the amphora while cheering on their favorite charioteer. Why not throw caution to the wind and give it a try?

While there is, of course, Home Winemaking for Dummies, you might want to start with First Steps in Winemaking: A Complete Month-by-Month Guide to Winemaking in Your Home by Cyrill Berry for a yearlong approach to winemaking. Once the basics are down, move on to The Home Winemaker’s Companion by Gene Spazani and Ed Halloran with more than 100 recipes for different types of wine and easy to understand diagrams. If you don’t have access to grapes or other fruits, Winemaking with Concentrates by Peter Duncan is for you. Using concentrates allows for the creation of small batches and a wide variety of types of wine. If you want to move on from winemaking as a hobby and take it to the next level, both the Winemaker’s Answer Book by Alison Crowe and From Vines to Wines: The Complete Guide to Growing Grapes and Making Your Own Wine by Jeff Cox will give you sage advice about selecting land, vines and equipment to get your wine vineyard up and running.

Teetotaler
While for many the whole point of brewing and fermenting at home is to produce beverages with alcohol, there are actually a surprising number of items that you can produce at home that are alcohol free. Cheese, yogurt, sauerkraut, vinegar, and kimchi, to name but a few, are all products of fermentation and can be made at home. As always, the library has your back. Take a look at these books to get you started.

Fermentation for Beginners and The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz are two great books to get you on the road to home fermentation with detailed instructions and easy to understand concepts. Once you have gotten the basics down, definitely check out Mastering Fermentation by Mary Karlin to hone your skills with more than 70 recipes including sourdough, vinegar and mustards. It is easy to think of vinegar as simply wine ‘gone bad’ but that is far from case as you will find out in the book The Artisanal Vinegar Maker’s Handbook.  Learn the ins and outs of vinegar fermentation, distillation, and infusion from the Austrian distillers Helge Schickl and Bettina Malle. Kombucha, a type of fermented tea, is gaining popularity but there is no need to buy it at the store. Instead check out The Big Book of Kombucha by Hannah Crum and Kombucha Revolution by Stephen Lee to learn how to make your own at home.

The means of production are now in your hands. Go forth and ferment!