I'd recommend getting a basic book to begin with - I don't know what's
on the market ATM. My first book was Brewing Better Beers by Ken Shales,
and cost me five shillings in the late sixties, when home brewing was
catching on as a hobby. I don't agree with everything in the book, but
it will give you safe levels of sugar. (However, my advice would be to
brew with only malt - much more body to the beer.)

A book sounds like good advice. I shall have a 'browse' . . . "Brewing for
Idiots" would be a good one to start with I think - if it exists!


Boots Home Winemaking and Brewing is quite useful, but you might have to
go online to look for copies of either. When you find you really like
the idea of brewing, you can look out for really detailed books. best
place to ask (I'd guess) would be in rec.crafts.brewing or
alt.homebrewing - bearing in mind that these aren't specifically UK
groups. (And the Yanks drink Budweiser..... and not the proper stuff
from wherever on the continong. (Czech Republic?)

No - not the proper stuff at all. Budweiser Budvar is the proper stuff, a
quality Czech "beer", along with Staropramen ("Star of Prague"). Both
absolutely delicious served cold on a hot summer's day, outside in the sun,
and both a million miles from the gnats' water which goes by the same name
in the States. I'm not anti-American by any means, I know some good people
over there, but "Budweiser" is not one of the better things to come out of
that place, IMHO . . .

But NEITHER can compete with the Belgian "Kriek" beer . . . like the best
bitter and the best lager-beer you've ever tasted, all rolled into one, with
a kick like a rabid tyrannosaur (weighing in at 8% alcohol). Never managed
more than one at one sitting - not exactly a "session" beer. They do a
weaker version at a mere 6%, which is a cherry beer - sounds disgusting, but
again, it's like the nectar of the gods.


More history. Before the days of breweries and various
customer-protection bodies, most towns had an Ale Conner to test the
fitness of the ale or beer. He would spread a puddle of it on a bench
and sit thereon in his leather trousers. If he stuck to the bench, the
beer wasn't properly brewed. (I kid you not!)

Lol . . . I met a girl once in a club who claimed her job was "beer tester".
I was disappointed to learn that it involved mass spectrometer analysis and
the like, and nothing more exciting. A cruel end to a budding romantic
interest. (only joking!)

Of course, in the 'olden days', people HAD to drink beer, as it was the only
sterile drink around. The Oriental peoples solved the problem by boiling
their water of course, and tea was "discovered" when a Chinese Emperor was
boiling his water, and a tea leaf accidentally fell in. Or so I hear!

Beer and tea - two wonderful drinks. Wouldn't it be terrible if we were all
the same!


The "Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency" sounds right up my street! I may
well "check it out", as our American friends might say. It will go with
my
solar panels and wood pellet stove.

OK, here's something else then. Knowing how clay lump building blocks
were made led me to try something when my old man offered me seven sacks
of slack and dust from the coalshed.

I got several buckets of raw cowdung from my neighbours byre and mixed
it with the coaldust, trowelling the mixture into plastic flowerpots and
turning tem out like little black sandcastles. These I dried in the sun,
and they made a fantastic slow-burning fuel for my Parkray and my
Rayburn. It also works well with sawdust or chopped straw.

However, this might just be a nice thought, as I wouldn't think you have
too many dairy farms in Bury.

There are a few in Summerseat, actually, which is not far away, but being
the proud owner of a mountain bike only, I think I might have some problems
transporting the stuff to my house.

What I AM looking at is a "log maker" from the Centre for Alternative
Technology in Machynlleth, Wales, which presses old soggy newspapers into
"bricks", which you can then dry out and burn on a fire. As the wood pellet
stove I'm planning on getting only takes wood pellets (they have 'liquid'
properties, and feed automatically), I'm planning on using the "paper logs"
for my outside fire (made out of bricks from a building which was itself
demolished by a fire), which I have a few times every year, to burn all the
garden rubbish etc. It's a nice 'earthy'-type ritual to have every so often,
I find - quite cathartic in a way. Who knows - I might even have some home
brew to drink at the next one!

On the subject of combustion (pyromaniacs of the world - ignite!), one thing
I will have when I get my wood pellet stove which I don't have at the moment
is a hot water cylinder - my boiler's a gas combi at the moment. Presumably
I would need to brew my beer next to the hot water cylinder, to get the heat
.. . . ?


Thanks again, all!

Best of luck, then. And remember - since Mr. Marples was Home Secretary,
it's legal. (I was a 10-year-old criminal.......)

Ah! So it's not true that they're starting younger these days, then . . . ?
;-)

If I get it all together, I'll most certainly keep you up to date on it! My
house has had huge changes since I first joined this group - garden walls
covered in camo netting, a yard full of pots, a bathroom full of 'silk' ivy
.. . . I've even got a buch of seed packets with all sorts of nice things in,
ready to go. Sweetcorn, radishes, mangetout peas, turnips, rocket . . . the
list goes on! Even got a couple of blueberry bushes (well one of them is
more of a 'twig' than a bush, it doesn't look too good actually) - and an
apple tree with three varieties grafted on. I'll take some photies in a
couple of months and post them up on my homepage - "before URG and after"!

Even made a sign for my house - "Green Cottage". And when I get my solar
panels, it will be even more true!

Yours greenly,

Andrew