How To Home Brew Barley Wine

Suspected to have been in production as early as 6000 B.C., wine is an ancient alcoholic drink made from the fermented juice of the grape. Its modern name is derived from the Latin vinum, which refers to the vine of the grape. The early Greeks and Romans celebrated wine’s properties of health and intoxication; they even had a god of wine named Bacchus (a.k.a. Dionysus) who was the administrator over feasts and drinking revels. Since the last supper of Jesus with his disciples, Christians have used wine to celebrate the Eucharist in remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice. Needless to say then, wine is one of the most important foodstuffs of the human race, used for multiple purposes over thousands of years.

Wine is a beverage almost as varied and unique as the people who drink it. This is largely due to the fact that the finished wine product has a memory that preserves minute influences of flavor, color, and acidity. The individual complexities of a wine can be determined by such factors as soil mixture, temperature variation, grape variety, vintage, natural flavoring, yeast and the fermentation process, aging, choice of wood barrel, and the list goes on. There is a large subculture built around wine and wine making because there’s something in it for just about everyone. Learn more about the wine making process, watch this step-by-step video series on how wine is made and all the detail and love that must go into it. Santé!

"Hi I'm Mark Emiley on behalf of Expert Village. Today I'm going to teach you everything you need to know about how to brew your own barley wine. Today we'll be talking about everything you need to home brew this style which includes the ingredients, the equipment, and the different processes you are going to need to take all of your basic ingredients and convert them into tasty beer. I've been a home brewer for about nine years, I've got about 140 different batches under my belt. I'm president of the Employee's Beer and Wine Maker's Club. I've even had some of my beers scaled up and produced commercially. There are many different ways to brew beers. Today we are going to be focusing on extract with specialty grades. Our focus will be on doing this as simply as possible with the least amount of equipment investment to start up. We'll recommend the basic amount of equipment you need and also some big equipment that if you want to get a little more into it, you'll appreciate it later. To start off, I'm going to give you an overview of what you're going to be expecting during the whole brewing process. To begin, you are going to start on the brewing day. On this day you are going to steep some specialty grains if you have them and then you are going to add some multi-extracting boil off that, you are going to add in your hops, and then at the end of that when you are done boiling, you are going to cool it down and add in your yeast. And this usually takes between two to three hours. After the yeast has been added, your work is now beer and the yeast will start fermenting away for about three to seven days. And this is called your primary fermentation. Once the yeast starts slowing down, you're going to siphon out of your primary vessel into a secondary vessel. This operation is called racking and it takes roughly about thirty minutes. Once you are in your secondary vessel, you're going to let it sit and finish its remaining fermentation that it has left. And this will take you usually seven to fourteen days. At this point, most of your yeast will have fallen out of solution and your beer will be getting very, very clear. Finally, you are going to be going into the bottling phase where you are going to siphon one more time into your bottling bucket and add some priming sugar and then fill up your bottles and cap them off. Then you are going to put them into a nice, dark area and let them sit for two or so weeks. At this point, the beer will start carbonating itself, get that up to a nice level and then you'll be able to chill and drink your beer. While this video will be enough to get you home brewing, I'd like to recommend a couple of other resources that you can use to develop your brewing skills. First, the American's Home Brewer's Association puts out a "Beginner's Guide to Home Brewing" which you can pick up at your local store or request at their website at www.beertown.org. Next, we have a classic book called "The Joy of Home Brewing" which is going to be everything you really need to get started. For people who want to get a little more advanced, you can pick up "How to Brew" by John Palmer which takes you through a little more of the science. And for some other good recipes out there, for some beers that you may have already tried one of, to reproduce there is "Clone Beers and "Beer Captured.""