Do you find beer brewing too complex?

[allenwrench]

How did the old timers make beer? I mean back in the middle ages or a little later. They must not have made things as complex as they are nowadays with beer brewing.

I look at all this brewing discussion here and it looks like you need to be a scientist to do it with plenty of space and $$. And really my interest in brewing is based on the fact that all the beer in the supermarket has gone to hell. All pasteurized, flavored garbage with funny names. Even Becks is made in America now. I just want to get some unpasteurized, decent tasting brews and don't want to devote my life to making them.

Last week I made some easy peezy ginger beer for a first go. (And maybe it is better termed as hard ginger soda, dunno.) But it is nothing like you discuss here. Fresh ginger juice, water, sugar, fresh lemon juice and pinch of bread yeast. Ferment for a few days...boom you are done.

It may not be up your alley, but I was pretty happy with it. Maybe a little too sweet, but very promising for low amount of work. I've found with cooking that seldom are recipes you find perfect, they always seem to need adjusting. I brewed the ginger beer right in recycled Evian liter water bottles.

What else can be brewed VERY easy?

 

[camonick]

Welcome to the forum. Brewing can be as simple or complex as you want to make it. Many online stores sell extract kits ($25-$40) that make 5 gallons of very good beer if you do your part. Use Camden treated tap water if you’re on a municipal water supply or use bottled spring or RO water. Look into BIAB if you’re wanting to go all-grain and use the bottled spring water again to make good beer. Dry yeast has come a long way recently and is a cheaper option to make good beer now. Bottle with 2 cases of salvaged or recycled bottles and you’re good to go.
There are a lot of people on the forum who are brewing with the basics.
Sláinte

 

[McKnuckle]

It's easy to make beer. It takes a little more effort to make the occasional batch of good beer, as in good enough for an average person to acknowledge. It's definitely more complex to make great beer, and it's the most challenging of all to make consistently great beer, particularly in a range of styles.

Like most things in life, it depends what you want out of it! Brewing can be simple, or amazingly complex, and it suits many types as a result.

Asked another way: Do you think a person could open a successful, for-profit brewery without learning brewing science, selected bits of engineering, and some unique sensory perception skills? (Not to mention lots of business skills, but let's ignore that for now.)

 

[Gadjobrinus]

Mirroring what the lads above say. It's what got me going. Decades ago my wife got me an IPA kit and Papazian's book for Christmas. Religiously followed Charlie, blown away by the aromas and textures at every step, and ended up with an astonishing thing - you can make excellent beer at home! I was utterly blown away because I expected it's nigh impossible, that all I'd probably end up with is swill.

I don't know if I would have gone on so deeply if I hadn't had the luck of that first, successful batch. I tapped Charlie's book and basically went crazy from there.

Like camonick says, the cool thing about beer is you have a wide latitude of play - you can go with kits and make really good beer without knowing all that much; or you can go deep into brewing science, get a deep sensory vocabulary of malts, hops, and their combinations, and really just go crazy.

That kind of forgiving quality isn't universal to hobbies, I'd say. Beer is by its nature a convivial beverage. There's a reason, thinking now, the "movement" was born in many ways on the saying, "Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew."

You can easily do it with just a kitchen and a stove. You can make it better, as McKnuckle says, with improvements in your techniques and knowledge, and the incremental gathering of equipment - if you want.

Good luck to you. You're going to have a blast, I predict.

ps: Oh, from personal experience. Back in '96 or so, I had friends over one night and was opening bottles of Charlie's "dithyrambic brown ale," made cassoulet to go with it, which ended up being a perfect mate. Beer was awesome, all were merry.

Except we all got the most massive, pounding headaches. The dreaded fusel alcohols. If you can, find a way to control your fermentation temp at least somewhat, so you don't ferment hot. Avoid the brain pain!

 

[quickerNu]

I will echo the sentiments above. It is only as complex as you make it. I brewed for years on a system that I had less than $100 in, and made good beer. Better than I could get at the store back then, and definitely cheaper.
Years down the road I have a lot more money in my equipment, and have fun tweaking each little aspect of my process. Don't feel pressured to take it to the extremes. Have fun, drink your beer, and if you get curious, experiment more. If not, enjoy a simple, fun, and rewarding hobby with your friends and family.

 

[The_Professor]

How did the old timers make beer? I mean back in the middle ages or a little later. They must not have made things as complex as they are nowadays with beer brewing...

First off I'm going to suggest that when someone makes a post about some way to monitor their beer and people respond that those people are interested in that subject (and not necessarily in agreement) rather than every home brewer in the United States.
It is also not that difficult to find forum threads where people suggest some step is NOT needed.

The easiest way to make beer is going to get some hopped malt extract (Coopers, Mr. Beer, Brew Demon, etc) dissolve it in water, add yeast and ferment it. But even with that you will need correct fermentation temperatures, as well as good cleaning/sanitazation, monitoring the fermentation process, and proper carbonization.

Feel free to not do any of that and post how all your friends love your beer.

 

[Wayne1]

Here is a site that goes into great detail on how Nordic farmers made beer.

https://www.brewingnordic.com/

 

[keesh]

I go back and forth with brewing like the tides. Sometimes I dwell over every detail and take satisfaction in being thorough and almost manically focused on every step. Other times, I breeze through the process and get enjoyment in being in the moment. It just comes and goes, depending. I think in many ways it is like anything else in life: I get out of it what I put in, and shouldn't expect any more or less. Overall, however, I think in total my reward through it all has exceeded my investment.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

What else can be brewed VERY easy?

Beer - just follow an existing recipe. The process has a couple of relatively unique characteristics (cold side sanitation, fermentation temperature control). Cold side sanitation isn't hard - just follow instructions. Fermentation temperature control isn't hard - but it may require purchasing (or building) something to control the temperature.

Beyond that (and like many other cooking hobbies), the variety of ingredients and the underlying science make for an interesting hobby.

 

[cactusgarrett]

Historically, beer processes mirrored what was necessary at the time. So it could be argued that brewing is also becoming simpler. Take, for example, cereal mash and protein rest steps. Because malt nowadays is improved (better modified), those steps (for the most part) aren't necessary in the brewing process.

Additionally, beer long ago didn't taste anywhere near to what it does now - one would argue "worse" compared to a human palate of today. So brewing could have been simpler, but it's the improvements that brought along the improvements and refinements in flavors. Some strive to make beer "good enough for them" while others strive for "best possible beer; period". It's all relative.

 

[verboten]

No.

 

[lump42]

What else can be brewed VERY easy?

Kombucha is stupid simple and doesn't require the same sanitation levels. I've purposely not kept the same sanitation levels to build a house culture. Cider is easy with store bought juice. If by easy we're referring to up front effort, wine kits are easy. They just takes more time. Mead can be easy and relatively quick (a few months) if you follow the existing recipes and nutrient schedules.

Learning how to make beer is easy. You're just making grain tea and adding yeast. The hard part is learning what and why the steps in between are. That usually comes after learning to make beer and is helpful for when things go pear-shaped. You could avoid learning it and just stick to the follow-the-recipe model (no shame with that) and just dump any batches that don't come out well.

 

[kh54s10]

Beer brewing only needs to be as complicated as you want to make it. You could go very simple. Extract only and a 60 minute hop. Just add the extract when the water reaches a boil add the hops and boil for an hour. In reality you don't even have to boil that long but you would have to calculate for your hop utilization

A step further would be SMaSH BIAB. Very simple.

 

[McKnuckle]

The other side of all this is that, quite frankly, some of us find "complex" to be challenging and fun. Plenty of nerds like to brew beer.

 

[brewbama]

Brewing is complex by nature. Complex = a whole made up of interrelated processes.

Determining milling gap, water minerals composition, adding grain to water, the mash, the lauter, the boil, separating wort from trüb, fermentation, packaging, and conditioning are all individual processes that, when combined, = brewing beer.

However, some brewers overcomplicate those individual processes. Complicated = difficult. No need to make the processes involved in brewing difficult.

By no means shoddy, a lot can be said for good enough.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

The problem with your question is that it assumes beer made "way back when" was actually any good by today's (our palates') standards. I can assure you you'd be lucky to have found something in the 1700's that you would actually say was "good" beer by today's standards.
Beer in the 1700s and before was almost certainly sour to some degree and quality varied A LOT. The "what to brew, and when" part of Reinheitsgebot came into effect because they observed quality was better when beer was brewed in the winter and spring rather than in the summer. THey didn't know why though (bottom line it was because of spoilage). Bear in mind that yeast was not part of Reinheitsgebot originally because they didn't know what yeast was or understand microbes.

So if you think a Guinness back in 1855 tasted even REMOTELY like it does now, you would be mistaken.

The reason modern brewing has become "complicated" is that we have quality standards we are accustomed to and we like consistent, repeatable results.

You may not like Budweiser, but from a precision quality control/production standpoint, they are among the very best in the world, rivaled only by the other "mega" breweries. That's one thing the megas definitely do right.

 

[Dland]

Way Back When brewing was probably not that simple. Workers had to supply a constant supply of fuel, build and maintain brewing vessels and try to find ways to keep temperature stable. All stuff we can achieve now with fairly small investment.

As to how it tasted back when? We will never know, unless someone has a time machine that can go back(now that's probably complex). I bet it varied a lot though.

When I started brewing a back in the early 90's, most of us had little more than a couple big pots, a cajun cooker and some bar bottles, brew stores were often just a little more than large closets. I made good beer then sometimes too, but it is better and more consistent with the general knowledge and equipment now available to the home brewer. I certainly don't want to go back to lifting 12 gallon pots of hot wort around.

 

[SundayBrewer]

The science and experimenting to make better beer is what keeps me going but it also got a lot more expensive. It's amazing all the new yeast and hops that came available in the 4 yrs i been brewing.
This is one of my easy non-beer favorites: https://wellnessmama.com/9087/beet-kvass/

 

[Mumathomebrew]

I don't have anything complex. Just doubled up kitchen pans for the mash. A bowl in the kitchen sink to cool the wort in. Glass demijohns, a thermometer and a hydrometer.

I like the cream of three crops on here for a beginners beer.

 

[foolsbrew]

It's funny. My very first beer was a kit made in a plastic carboy. Just mix it with water, add some sugar, add the yeast. Super easy. Over time, I switched to all-grain biab. Then came large kettles, starters, kegs and a cooler. Not so easy. All that stuff was taking like half a kitchen once.

Now I am back to the beginning. Well, I didn't go back to kits but I just do biab all-grain, which is just a fermenter and a kettle. I make lagers in winter and ales in every other season. My most complicated equipment is a bucket with a spigot. The total cost of the setup is minimal. Every now and then I am tempted to add something complicated, but I know it's not going to make anything easier. I like biab, requires very little space. Brewing takes slightly more time compared to a complete setup, but it's not worth the headache of managing all that stuff. I brew in a kettle on top of the counter. Life is good.

It depends on how much space and disposable income you have though. Some people have huge houses or garages where they can store all this. If you can, and cleaning is no problem to you, go for the full setup.

 

[Erik Rodriguez]

How did the old timers make beer? I mean back in the middle ages or a little later. They must not have made things as complex as they are nowadays with beer brewing.

I look at all this brewing discussion here and it looks like you need to be a scientist to do it with plenty of space and $$. And really my interest in brewing is based on the fact that all the beer in the supermarket has gone to hell. All pasteurized, flavored garbage with funny names. Even Becks is made in America now. I just want to get some unpasteurized, decent tasting brews and don't want to devote my life to making them.

Last week I made some easy peezy ginger beer for a first go. (And maybe it is better termed as hard ginger soda, dunno.) But it is nothing like you discuss here. Fresh ginger juice, water, sugar, fresh lemon juice and pinch of bread yeast. Ferment for a few days...boom you are done.

It may not be up your alley, but I was pretty happy with it. Maybe a little too sweet, but very promising for low amount of work. I've found with cooking that seldom are recipes you find perfect, they always seem to need adjusting. I brewed the ginger beer right in recycled Evian liter water bottles.

What else can be brewed VERY easy?

I was thinking the same thing some time ago when I got into this. Now that I am getting more into it, learning more about the chemistry, how yeast works, how hops works, and the various grains, water chemistry, and so on, you are right. Brewing can be as complicated as you want. Or it can be as simple as you want.

A lot of this was explained in a book I read: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0937381969/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1. Chris explains this to a point, enough to give you an idea. In a nutshell, there was a LOT not understood about brewing, and even more misconceptions. So, our ancient forefathers brewed beer with a **** ton of luck. Hit and miss.

And BTW, if you want to read a very informative book series, read that one. He has one on almost every topic. Want to know what X hops adds to your beer? He has a book that explains all that. Want to tweak your favorite recipe by changing the yeast, he has a book that explains all that.

 

[SouthBounds]

Ok - Here is the easiest beer I ever brewed: American Light Beer

Here is the kit I brewed it with: Kit

All you need to know is in the instructions in the box. Really simple and better than the stores you mentioned.

 

[wiggybrewer]

If you like IPAs, check out the Blasfamy NEIPA recipe. Simple and tasty.

 

[wiggybrewer]

If you like IPAs, check out the Blasfamy NEIPA recipe. Simple and tasty.

Oops Blasphemy!

 

[tellyho]

As with any forum, the people here are nerds of this discipline. We will endlessly debate details that may have no discernable affect on outcome because we're nerds.

I read a lot of threads on here, but when it comes to actually brewing, my goal is to make my process as simple and quick as possible.

 

[Krasdale]

Korean rice wine is total farmhouse. I just this minute took the leftover rice from the rice cooker, broke it up with my hands [after cooling], added the starter and incorporated it the same way, pitched it onto a yeast cake from prune juice wine. A few damaged bananas, fill with water, and good to go. Of course I mostly post at r/prisonhooch.

 

[dwhite60]

I think it's an American thing. Eight malts with four different hops added at all the prime number minute increments during the boil makes it complicated. Don't seem to find this in British or Australian home brewing, from what I've read.

Pot on the stove, three malts, one or two hops at 60,30,10 minutes is all it takes. Pumps, filters, electric control panels, keg's, CO2 cylinders, etc. make it complicated.

I just did Cream of Three Crops with FOUR fermentables. This was a big change for me. Dropped the rice for some Caravienne and white wheat malt so it added one.

All the Best,
D. White

 

[Soulshine2]

How did the old timers make beer? I mean back in the middle ages or a little later. They must not have made things as complex as they are nowadays with beer brewing.

I look at all this brewing discussion here and it looks like you need to be a scientist to do it with plenty of space and $$. And really my interest in brewing is based on the fact that all the beer in the supermarket has gone to hell. All pasteurized, flavored garbage with funny names. Even Becks is made in America now. I just want to get some unpasteurized, decent tasting brews and don't want to devote my life to making them.

Last week I made some easy peezy ginger beer for a first go. (And maybe it is better termed as hard ginger soda, dunno.) But it is nothing like you discuss here. Fresh ginger juice, water, sugar, fresh lemon juice and pinch of bread yeast. Ferment for a few days...boom you are done.

It may not be up your alley, but I was pretty happy with it. Maybe a little too sweet, but very promising for low amount of work. I've found with cooking that seldom are recipes you find perfect, they always seem to need adjusting. I brewed the ginger beer right in recycled Evian liter water bottles.

What else can be brewed VERY easy?

I've been a member here for a few years and after reading your post, you're like me. I brew very simply, no fancy gadgets just because I could spend money on anything I want . I have a crudely built electric rig ,I do gravity transfers , I still use a copper Immersion chiller and I continue to bottle because -
A) I dont have the room for kegs or the CO2 lines.
B) I read so many issues keggers have , the keg doesnt hold pressure, the lines are dirty, the CO2 regulator goes bad, the CO2 is empty , on and on. more trouble than its worth to me .
C) I like to keep my batches at 5-6 gallons and I like to keep a variety of beers in my dedicated beer fridge ,sometimes I have had 8 different beers ready to serve .
To me, to bottle and hand cap anywhere from 48-60 bottles isnt a bad thing or too time consuming. I use a simple clear tubing and bottling wand. Yes, washing bottles can be a pain but i'm recycling those bottles . I chose this as a hobby , not something to do while im doing something else.
What can be brewed very easy? depends on your skill level and time frame to brew. Might I suggest buying (if you havent already) a book or two on brewing . My brew day is on average and consistently 6 hrs from start of strike water to chilled to pitch temp no matter what I'm brewing from a simple pilsner to a complex porter or stout. You can get a little more difficulty if youre adding fruit in a secondary or dry hopping. I clean up as I go while I wait for the next process to be done. Like, as I chill, i'm cleaning up the mash tun . Day before bottling, im soaking bottles so the next day all I need to do is spray em down with star san and set up the bottling bucket.
Brewing has a wide range of difficulty . Just have fun with it.

 

[McKnuckle]

One paradox about brewing is that the more you understand about the science and process, the simpler the equipment you truly need. Meaning, you can put very basic equipment into service because you know how to finesse it.

Conversely, if you don't understand how brewing works, you'll have a tough time making purposeful changes to your end product, even if you have fancy brewing equipment.

This is true in so many walks of life! It's the craftsman, not the tools.

This being said, a good craftsman appreciates fine tools. But s/he has the skill to transcend whatever is available.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

As with any forum, the people here are nerds of this discipline. We will endlessly debate details that may have no discernable affect on outcome because we're nerds.

I read a lot of threads on here, but when it comes to actually brewing, my goal is to make my process as simple and quick as possible.

I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum. Where your goal is as simple and quick as possible, mine is to make the absolute best, highest quality beer I can possibly make within the constraints of my equipment and facilities. If that requires complexity of process and extra time, well, that's the price I pay.

Sure, I'd love it if my brewday were shorter (currently about 7 hours start to finish including cleanup), and I am working to improve efficiencies to get there, but not at the expense of the beer.

As far as "no discernable difference", I beg to differ. I am making commercial quality beer that I would hold up proudly against anything you can buy. I'm not trying for "this is good for something made in your garage".

But it is good for the brewing community that there is a full range of the spectrum, and neither of us are right or wrong. If everyone like the same things and had the same priorities, the world would be a boring place.

Prost!

 

[kh54s10]

As far as "no discernable difference", I beg to differ. I am making commercial quality beer that I would hold up proudly against anything you can buy. I'm not trying for "this is good for something made in your garage".
Prost!

Your experience may be different than many. I have brewed extract on the stove. Partial mash on the stove. 3 vessel propane all grain, BIAB. I have had equal results with all of them as far as being able to brew a great beer. My 3 vessel all grain did have the most consistency though. I now have an electric recirculating BIAB system (Unibrau) I haven't finished any yet so I don't know how it is going to compare.

 

[LittleRiver]

...I look at all this brewing discussion here and it looks like you need to be a scientist to do it with plenty of space and $$...

As you can see from the discussion so far, the enjoyment of brewing is not found in only one way.

Some people love geeking out with the hardware, and build brewing rigs that are festooned with electronics, pumps, etc. I get that, it's fun to design and build things. Other folks (sometimes it's the same folks) go deep into the into the chemistry of brewing. There's nothing wrong with any of that -- if they're having fun they're doing it right. But is all of that necessary for brewing excellent beer? No, it's not.

I take joy in removing complexity from my brewing, and intentionally look for ways to simplify my rig and my process. I design & build things for a living, so I don't need to scratch that itch with my brewing.

...I made some easy peezy ginger beer... What else can be brewed VERY easy?

Most any style of beer you want can be brewed very easily on a simple BIAB rig.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

Your experience may be different than many. I have brewed extract on the stove. Partial mash on the stove. 3 vessel propane all grain, BIAB. I have had equal results with all of them as far as being able to brew a great beer. My 3 vessel all grain did have the most consistency though. I now have an electric recirculating BIAB system (Unibrau) I haven't finished any yet so I don't know how it is going to compare.

I have made some very enjoyable homebrews from extract-and-grains. I liked them, my friends liked them, and I have not ruled out doing that method again in the future for one-offs. THat said, I would not consider any extract beer I ever made (or have ever had from other brewers) to be commercial quality. By commercial quality, I mean from big breweries, because the vast majority of new nanobreweries popping up in neighborhoods all over the country are turning out mediocre product (yes, you can dry hop the crap out of my morning piss and call it an NEIPA and most people would still buy it).
But that aside, going to all-grain, using fresh, high-quality ingredients, I noticed a dramatic qualitative improvement over extract-and-grains.
I further noticed (a less dramatic, but still noticeable) improvement when I started paying attention to water chemistry and pH.
I noticed further improvement when I started reducing oxidative damage to my beer.

But all that came at the cost of a dramatic increase in complexity and time required to produce.

That said, someone who is not attuned to flavor nuances or who is just looking for something they can drink in quantities with their friends and catch a buzz and proudly say "yup, I made that", may not appreciate or even care about the improvements or may feel that a small improvement isn't worth the large additional investment of effort (we all have to decide where we stop on the scale of diminishing returns).

For me it is. YMMV.

***BUT...making decent to even pretty good beer doesn't have to be all that complicated. It's only as complex as you make it.

 

[Zambezi Special]

As easy as your ginger beet? Cider from packs of juice (someone else mentioned it as well), bread yeast and sugar. I've had some very nice ones and some terrible ones (read the label, and don't use the ones with sodium benzoate added )

Beer, I brew BIAB. First batch with existing pots and pans, mashing by putting the whole pot in a coolbox, cooling the stuff down by using that same coolbox but now with the garden hose in it for cooling (and ice blocks)
I do use an old fridge as fermenting chamber, but that is because our temperatures fluctuate enormously and I don't have aircon. And I had an old fridge and regulator lying around (inkbird)
I do have power cuts though, so I will keep most manual and I just hope that the fermentation fridge stays more or less cool during those cuts.

By the way, to my big surprise some of my ciders came out very nice even though the day temperature went over 43 oC (indoors and outdoors)

Not so much on topic, but I have the idea that climate played quite an important role way back when....
There got to be a reason for most of the Northern European countries brewing beer, and the Southern countries making wine..., (besides grapes not doing very well in the Northern countries)

 

[kh54s10]

I have made some very enjoyable homebrews from extract-and-grains. I liked them, my friends liked them, and I have not ruled out doing that method again in the future for one-offs. THat said, I would not consider any extract beer I ever made (or have ever had from other brewers) to be commercial quality. By commercial quality, I mean from big breweries, because the vast majority of new nanobreweries popping up in neighborhoods all over the country are turning out mediocre product (yes, you can dry hop the crap out of my morning piss and call it an NEIPA and most people would still buy it).

For me it is. YMMV.

***BUT...making decent to even pretty good beer doesn't have to be all that complicated. It's only as complex as you make it.

Again that is your experience. One of my extract and specialty grain brews that I did in 2011 I would still rank in my top 10 maybe even as high as #5. I would say it was better than ANY commercial beer I have ever tasted. (I don't buy the 22 oz bottles of commercial bottle that cost $20 though.) I also rank most of my brews better than most of the $10 - $15 six pack commercial beers without all the pH, LODO stuff. I don't even purge anything with co2

I admit that I don't have much of a discerning palate, I would guess that most homebrewers also don't.

So for me it doesn't make sense to spend a lot of money to make my already better than commercial beers better. I do what I can without going to great expense or hassle.

Everyone has their own needs. Mine are not as great as yours.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

Again that is your experience. One of my extract and specialty grain brews that I did in 2011 I would still rank in my top 10 maybe even as high as #5. I would say it was better than ANY commercial beer I have ever tasted. (I don't buy the 22 oz bottles of commercial bottle that cost $20 though.) I also rank most of my brews better than most of the $10 - $15 six pack commercial beers without all the pH, LODO stuff. I don't even purge anything with co2

I admit that I don't have much of a discerning palate, I would guess that most homebrewers also don't.

So for me it doesn't make sense to spend a lot of money to make my already better than commercial beers better. I do what I can without going to great expense or hassle.

Everyone has their own needs. Mine are not as great as yours.

And the most important thing is that you are happy with the beer you are producing and see no need (or maybe even see it as not possible) to improve it.
And that's a great place to be.

 

[kh54s10]

And the most important thing is that you are happy with the beer you are producing and see no need (or maybe even see it as not possible) to improve it.
And that's a great place to be.

Thanks, As far as improvement I am sure my beers can be improved. But I am taking small steps. I don't have the funds to rework my entire system for what to me would be a small improvement (probably - as I have never tasted a LODO beer.)

 

[Cavpilot2000]

Thanks, As far as improvement I am sure my beers can be improved. But I am taking small steps. I don't have the funds to rework my entire system for what to me would be a small improvement (probably - as I have never tasted a LODO beer.)

I'm in a similar boat - I do infusion step mashes but I am dying for a HERMS setup. I just haven't been able to justify the expense. We all work with what we have, and each brewer has to decide where he stops on the scale of diminishing returns.

 

[Zambezi Special]

I couldn't resist:
Simple simple set up for apple cider:

 

[Saunassa]

Korean makgeolli is easy, just have to buy a bag of nuruk which is available online or in Korean markets.
Soak and steam sushi/glutinous rice, let cool, pack into a jar, mix some nuruk and bread yeast in plus some water and let it rock. The rice and nuruk are the key.