Homebrewing

Once you get beer-making down, maybe you can tackle...

Vodka
Can be made from wheat, rye, barley, corn or potatoes. Sugar and molasses can also be used, or added to other ingredients. There are a lot more steps to this distillation process than the beer brewing one.

Cider
Pulp up some organic apples, simmer in a pot, add sugar, allow to ferment and cool. Pour cider into fermenting bucket, add yeast. Three weeks later, you got yourself some cider.

Strawberry Wheat Ale
Puree strawberries and simmer. Separately, brew oats, wheat malts and hops. Add strawberry puree later and leave to ferment for three to four weeks.

Red Wine
Crush grapes into a pulp, then add yeast, sugar and whatever else you feel like (to a degree). Allow to ferment for a week then pick out skin, seeds and pulp. Ferment a bit more, bottle and age for six to 24 months.

Mead
Mix honey and distilled water to make 'must'. Add fruit and/or spices, then yeast to the must. Put in a container with enough space at the top, and secure with an airlock. Allow to ferment for a few months, then siphon into bottles and cork tightly. Age for at least six months.   

Need a hobby? Love beer? Well, maybe you should learn how to brew your own beer in the comfort of your own shed/garage. Here's the basics of how it's done.

1. Brew

Put specialty grains into a mesh bag and steep in a large stock pot filled with boiling water; this is for colour and flavour complexity. Add malt extract, which provides the sweet base for the yeast to feed on to make alcohol. Add hops, which sterilises the extract and, depending on how early/late you add it, will affect how bitter the beer is.

2. Ferment

The concoction you've got so far is called wort, and is cooled to room temperature (the faster you can cool it the better), before being siphoned into a fermenter (plastic/glass carboy). Strain the wort as your pour to remove the hops. Splashing is encouraged because the more air the yeast get the better. Add water, then yeast. Put the lid/stopper onto your fermenter, sealing it for one to two weeks. You should notice bubbling after 24 hours and if it ain't then something's gone wrong! 

3. Bottle

Here's where you add priming sugars, which will assist in carbonating your beer. The now fermented beer is then siphoned into bottles; be careful not to disturb the sediments at the base of the carboy or splash the beer too much as that can lead to oxidation (cardboard-ish taste). There should be a little airspace at the top of the bottle. Screw bottle caps on tightly.

4. Age

Now let your bottled beer sit at room temperature; some people recommend for at least a week, others recommend for a month, but the flavour only improves with age. As well as carbonating during this time, the beer will also rid itself of unwanted sediments like excess yeast and protein, thus making the beer even more tasty.

5. Drink

When you think the time's right, or can wait no longer, pop the bottles in the fridge to chill and then you can drink up your own (hopefully) glorious brews.