Home brewing in OUR Apartment

Bobby loves beer. Since coming to Korea he has become quite passionate about it. Not only drinking and tasting the infinite possibility of flavors from well crafted beers, but also a love for brewing his own beer. It is no shock to me that Bobby would like and be good at making his own beers. He has always been great at cooking and making me delicious drinks (with and without alcohol).

When we first thought about brewing our own beer we were certain it was unfeasible in our small apartment in a country where there aren't neighborhood homebrew supply stores-we would have to wait almost a year until we were back in the States. But then we found a home brew forum for Busan. Then we found people who home brew here. Then Bobby started being an assistant brewer. Then Bobby got the wild hair and wanted to figure out a way to do his own home brew.

There were a few things I was concerned with before we got started. First of all, during the brewing process the beer needs to be kept at a certain temperature. If I remember correctly, last summer our apartment felt like a sauna and we were constantly sweating. Additionally, I didn't want to invest too much money in a system that we would only get to use a few times.

Thanks to some of the extremely nice people we have met through the local home brew community, we were set up with all basics to get started. Although bordering on experimentally minimal, we gathered all ingredients and equipment for virtually no cost! Yes, it may be somewhat "ghetto" to put our hops in laundry bags or ferment in a Kimchi fermentor, but it worked out so well.

Our first batch of beer in our apartment went smoothly. We were worried about the warm temperatures, but it has been fine...so far.

Last weekend About a month ago, a friend came over to help Bobby bottle his first batch of beer.. and yes, we reused water bottles we had. We didn't have the proper hose with a lever on it to control the beer to come out from the fermentor to the bottles.. so Bobby took a shot of tequila to sanitize his mouth and siphoned it himself.

We were "suppose" to wait a few weeks before we opened a bottle to try out. During these few weeks the beer conditions and creates the carbonation. But we noticed the carbonation started really fast... and we (mostly Bobby) were really impatient. We tried our first beer less than 24 hours later and our thoughts were...

I think you can get the answer from his face... that is some tasty beer!

Even though the ingredients were really simple, it was fantastic. No bugs, no weird tastes. Its hard to beat fresh home brew, especially in the beer wasteland we currently live in.
 It was a successful first batch.

The next day, Bobby had another wild hair and decided to brew a second batch. This time a far more inspired and complex Wheat Ginger Beer (I love ginger!) As I sit here typing, beer #2 is sitting right in front of our blasted AC to get it as cool as possible and once Bobby is home tonight we will add the yeast.

Bobby even has even started some hard apple cider (my new favorite). This will have to sit for months and months before it will be ready to drink(unless we are impatient again).

Bobby had also found a kombucha starter here in Korea.. and we have made two batches already. YUMM.

Sounds like we will be drinking good for the next few months!

I am so proud of Bobby for following his passion and is making things happen!

Cheers!