Horst Buch's Fast and Easy Beer

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—66 12-ounce or 33 24-ounce bottles are needed for six gallons of beer. If you drink two bottles at a clip, or regularly share your brew with a friend or spouse, go with the latter. Champagne bottles work perfectly, and can be had for free by crashing the right parties. Standard beer bottles come 24 to the case, so you'll need three cases costing a total of $35.37. You'll use the extra bottles to replace normal breakage (which at my place includes forgotten bottles left in the freezer for fast chilling which eventually broke).

If you don't mind bottles that aren't new and clean, buy returnable bottles from a bar or a beer distributor for the cost of the bottle deposit. (Never use nonreturnable bottles, which may explode under carbonation pressure). Expect bottles to be scratched or worn, but be sure to throw away chipped or cracked one. Recycled bottles come with tattered labels and icky insides, so clean them well. Soak the bottles in a tub or laundry sink, peel off the label, and rinse out the goop. If stuff still sticks inside a bottle, pour in a handful of peagravel, add a little amonia and some warm water. Shake well.

—A bottle washer ($10.35) flushes out dirty bottles. With the aid of an adaptor, the bottle washer screws into a standard kitchen faucet. Because I don't have much patience with fussy little parts, I replaced my kitchen faucet with a laundry faucet (about $30), which comes with a screwthread. It isn't pretty, but it works.

—A capper is necessary to tighten caps on the bottles. I've seen good cappers, cheap, at flea markets. A new one will cost you $29.50.

—A thermometer ($7.65) and a hydrometer ($6.95) are a must. The thermometer tells you when your mix is the right temperature to add yeast. The hydrometer lets you determine the alcohol content of your brew, and tells you when your beer safe to bottle. Hydrometers come with full instructions. Your capital investment (less optional laundry faucet) is about $200 plus shipping and sales tax.

Note: At the going rate of four bucks per six-pack, after you've made seven batches your equipment is paid for. From then on, each six-pack of real beer will cost you just $1.40.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was published in 1992. The costs above and the contact information below was accurate at that time.

Mail-Order Resources

Some mail-order suppliers are slow to ship, others are consistently out of the very thing you need most; still others characteristically short your order and keep the change. Here, however, are three that I have no problem with:

Beer & Wine Hobby, 180 New Boston Street (rear), Woburn, MA 01801, (800)523-5423.

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