If you had to give brewing lessons

[m00ps]

I have a local publication that is pushing me to give brewing lessons. I could also make some money to pay for my ingredients. I've been racking my brain on how i possibly could do it. Theyd like multiple lessons but I feel like it could only be a few different ones and theyd be several hours. I'd like to just have people over while I'm doing my thing and just explain things and feed them beer. I'm thinking:

- whole brewing process from mash in to pitching yeast
- yeast propagation & bottling
- General recipe design and equipment needs

Thoughts? If I end up doing it, I'd like it to be informative and not impact my weekly brewing shcedule too much. Ideally, I could hAve a bunch of schmuks paying me to help me with beer chores while I feed them beer

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Kegging.
Yeast starters and yeast harvesting.
Style-specific.
Lagering.

Be careful offering homebrew to drink if you're charging money for the lessons - I don't know about laws in the US but in Aussie you can't offer it as part of a paid event.

 

[mikescooling]

I show new brewers BIAB, it's like making a 150* cup of sugar water. I also have some grain for them to eat, (let them know not to bust a tooth). I try to have a few kinds of hops for them to smell. I don't like showing people the E-brewery, I can see it's TMI. KISS is better

 

[FatDragon]

I'm with @mikescooling - start simple with something that they can do with minimal investment in equipment.

Maybe do leveled lessons.

Level one is an extract brewday to teach the basics of how sugar water becomes beer with a bonus five minutes on swamp cooling/heating your fermentor.

Level two is PM/BIAB to teach the basics of mashing and show how AG can be done on the cheap.

Level three is three-vessel AG (maybe with a multi-step mash) to teach some more advanced techniques and equipment and demonstrate why people spend so much on equipment.

Level four is a multi-session design, brew, and package your own recipe experience.

Optional second session on packaging for any level 1-3 lesson - have a couple batches ready, get participants to do some hands-on bottling, show them the basics of how beer goes from a fermentor into a keg and gets set up for serving, and maybe demonstrate bottling from a keg if that's something you ever do.

 

[GrainToGlass]

Agreed with the above about keeping it VERY basic from the start. First explain the four main ingredients (water, malted barley, hops, yeast) and brew an extract batch. It's pretty much how I was introduced to brewing with the Mr. Beer kit. I believe the key to getting and keeping them hooked to homebrewing is not throwing too much information at them at once and scaring them off. You can also show cost expectations for ingredients, equipment, cleaning/sanitizing, etc. I like the idea of tiered lessons if you have enough students, one LHBS I know does this. Another LHBS nearby offers casual brew days to learn or just hang out with free pizza.

 

[radwizard]

I think teaching BIAB would be ideal. It should be an easy and quicker way to show the basic mashing concepts. It would give you more time to spend getting into yeast theory's which imo is overlooked way to long for newer brewers (it was for me at least) . Honestly, I wouldn't get to much into recipe development. If I was giving a new guy advice it would be to not even worry about making their own recipes until they have nailed a few styles using tried and true recipes. That's just my 2 cents.

 

[Moose_MI]

If it's a series I would consider an initial class using extract. I don't brew extract but I think that's where most folks start at least for 1 or 2. It shows folks they can make beer with the pot they have in their kitchen. I find many of my friends are reluctant to get into this hobby when they see the mass of gadgets that I've acquired. It's hard for me to get them to realize how little they need to start.
I think it would be great for a new Brewers to see it once and then introduce them to the next phase. If they are even remotely interested in brewing with you the 1st time they will likely camp out in your yard for a BIAB session

 

[brewfun]

When I taught classes, I would do extract and all grain back to back. The reason being that the most important thing in extract is teaching sanitation, yeast management and basic techniques. Brewers going AG typically understand these things and want to know more advanced topics like mash chemistry, sparging and wort chilling.

The Extract and AG classes would cross over at the wort chill time. This let all the brewers see various chilling equipment and methods. Then I'd get right into the grains, chemistry and mash for the AG class. Both groups were there for about two hours. I could answer followup questions while sparging, then have the next boil and chill all to myself to cleanup and unwind.

One thing: I would teach fly sparging because it's easily the most frustrating and "mysterious" method, while talking about other methods. This demysified fly sparge and made every other method easy to understand.

 

[m00ps]

hmm thanks for the advice. If it happens it would still be a few months off. Obviously, nothing in the ad would mentioned free homebrew. Probably say something like "complimentary samples provided".

I would be doing all-grain BIAB. I could show the basics of extract using DME for a yeast starter and have a class on yeast, especially since I have so many strains maybe they could taste the starter wort from different ones. Ill think some more on it. Not entirely sure I have the patience for it

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

"If you had to give brewing lessons"

I'd take up painting.

 

[WissahickonBrew]

Invite participants to bring some of their homebrew for sharing during the class. Extract brewing demonstration for the beginners of course. Keep the group small and keep every active around the equipment. Involve all of their senses to experience the smells, tastes, textures and sights of the brewing process.