Hoppy with our honey wheat

IT turns out all those weekends I spent making crusty baguettes were good training for making beer. Both use the same basic ingredients (water, grain, yeast), require a bit of arm muscle and take just a few hours and plenty of patience to make.

But home brewing can be a daunting space commitment. My husband, Kevin, and I can’t even fit a pizza peel into our small apartment kitchen, much less a 5-gallon boil pot, outdoor burner, propane tank and 6-gallon carboy (fermenting bottle). Converting our living room into a beer-making lab before first trying our hand at it seemed like a bad idea.

Instead, we took a late-summer road trip to Central Coast Brewing in San Luis Obispo, where you can use their equipment -- and get guidance from their brewers -- to make beer. At an average cost of $135 per 15-gallon keg, it seemed like a great way to get our toes wet.

Unless you count the college guys tossing back pints at the makeshift bar, Central Coast isn’t exactly a storybook brew house. The nondescript storefront was a computer store in a previous life, and it’s no-frills now. But one look at the six glistening 15-gallon copper tanks and we were smitten.

Then we smelled the beers, several of them, each in various stages of completion. Aromas of fresh ground barley, thick and heady, gave way to sweet wafts of simmering mash. The moist, intoxicating smell of fermenting yeast hit us head-on.

According to George Peterson, owner and avid home brewer, “Just about everyone who works here is a home brewer, so it was a natural to let our customers make beer with us,” he says. “Some people come to learn about home brewing, others want brush-up tips. But most people just want to have a good time and take some beer they’ve made back to their friends.”

So many choices

TIM GILLHAM, brewmaster since Central Coast opened eight years ago, appeared from the back office and offered us a beer from among those they serve on tap, which include bestsellers, such as honey wheat and classic amber, and a rotating selection of experimental flavors. One week you’ll find Scotch ale made with a dose of whiskey, the next it’s yerba mate amber, spiked with the South American herb.

Recipes for those beers, along with a hundred others, were arranged in binders for our perusal. Picking a beer to make was the hardest (and most important) decision we made all afternoon.

“Choose whatever you like, but there’s a reason the classics have never gone out of style,” advised Gillham. The espresso porter recipe was tempting, but we heeded Gillham’s advice and chose two beers we’d tasted, a honey wheat and classic amber.

You can also bring your own recipe, but at your own risk.

“We’ve had folks add habanero peppers to honey wheat and blueberry extract to ale,” Peterson says. “But we don’t guarantee it will taste good unless you use one of our recipes.”

Our frat house friends picked the house pale ale. A 40-ish couple on the kettle next to us went with Topless Blonde, the most popular Central Coast beer.

After we’d tasted all the beers on tap (twice), it was time to get busy brewing with Gillham.

First stop, a nearby tabletop with a grain mill clamped to its edge. It looked like an oversized metal nutcracker with a funnel. We weighed the grains, a combination of barley, wheat, rye, or oats depending on the recipe. I poured the grains into the funnel and then conveniently disappeared to the bar to refill our beers, leaving my husband to crank the grinder. Grinding the grain is essential for opening the grain husks, giving beer maximum flavor. It’s the most laborious process of the day, although it requires focused attention more than muscle.

We put the cracked kernels into a large mesh bag (the mash bag). Once the grains steep in simmering water, the infused liquid is called beer mash.

Gillham explained tank size is the main difference between brewing on professional equipment, such as that at Central Coast, versus brewing at home. The 15-gallon tanks here are three times the size of most home brew pots. But at only 4 feet high, they’re still manageable, leaving ample room to lift the lid and peek on the progress of our brew.

When the timer dinged after 40 minutes, we removed the mash bag and added malt. Malt -- barley seeds that have begun to germinate and release sugars -- facilitates the conversion of the grain-steeped water into beer. But the barley seed germination process takes one to two days, so for home brewers with limited time, or in our case day-tripping brewers, a commercially available malt extract is often used.

Gillham measured our malt extract, thick as molasses and full of those essential sugars. We brought the water to a rolling boil, added the extract, then reduced the temperature and steeped the mash for another 40 minutes.

The waiting game

WITH time to kill, we poured ourselves another cold beer. The couple next to us, experienced home brewers, asked Peterson why a batch of honey wheat they’d made at home had an off flavor.

“We’ve learned by trial and error to use wildflower honey, no matter what the market price,” Peterson says. “In terms of flavor consistency, it’s the best.”

When our mash finished simmering, we added hops to counterbalance the syrupy sweet malt. Hops are bitter flowers that give beer its distinct flavor, and they also act as stabilizers. Each recipe calls for a specific type (sometimes several) and amount of hops, added for a prescribed length of time, often in stages.

Central Coast uses hops pellets, finely ground hops compressed into small pellets that look like rabbit food. The pellets tend to be more stable than whole dried hops, which spoil easily if stored at improper temperatures or humidity. We sprinkled our hops into the mash and watched it bubble vigorously.

After the hops have steeped for their allotted time, the mash is transferred to an awaiting keg. The mash is now called wort (unfermented beer water). Transferring the wort to the keg takes about 10 minutes, enough time to cool it slightly so the hot liquid doesn’t kill the yeast that’s added next. Gillham pulled a couple of test tubes filled with yeast from the fridge and poured them into our keg.

For the next three weeks, our keg of wort would be busy fermenting in the storeroom, gurgling up yeasty bubbles as it slowly turned into beer. Before leaving, we selected labels from the sample book on the bar. Four weeks later we headed back for bottling. Central Coast will also bottle and ship the beer to you, but that’s not nearly as much fun.

Gillham had carbonated our beer a few days before we arrived so it would be ready to bottle. Our fraternity friends were back too, carefully placing their stylish labels on bottles. Their group had doubled, which turned out to be helpful for the bottling phase.

After the first few bottles, we had developed an efficient system. My husband smoothed the sticky labels on each bottle while I filled them with beer, one by one, in an automated filler device that siphons beer from the keg to the bottle. After three pumps of carbon dioxide to keep the beer carbonated, I handed the bottles back to him. He put them in a plastic cap sealer, a simple tabletop device with a lever handle that seals the cap in place. Sealing the cap required a hefty tug on the handle, a little rough on our city-soft hands.

A couple of blisters later, we realized that whatever we drank on the spot from our kegs didn’t need to be bottled.

So we drank up, sharing with the frat boys and their friends, and two hours later we had finished. Peterson gave us kudos on the honey wheat, not too sweet with a nice bitter balance. We were partial to our amber, rich and hoppy with a subtle bite.

As for whether we’ll be jumping on the home brew bandwagon, that decision will have to wait. First we’ve got to drink our way through the 12 cases of beer stacked in our living room.

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Beer heaven for brew-it-yourselfers

Here’s where to go for instruction, supplies and equipment for brewing your own beer:

Onsite brewing

Brewbakers, 7242 Heil Ave., Huntington Beach, (866) 421-2739; www.brewbakers1.com. This storefront brewery offers beer-making, soda-making and pretzel-making parties. Snack on pizza and burgers while you brew a full or half keg or as little as a single case. Open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 6 p.m. Reservations recommended. $105 to brew and bottle 36 (22-ounce) bottles, $185 for 72 (22-ounce) bottles.

Central Coast Brewing, 1422 Monterey St., San Luis Obispo, (805) 783-2739; www.centralcoastbrewing.com. Taste beers on tap as you brew your beer. Choose one of their recipes or bring your own. Come back three weeks later to bottle, or have them do it and ship. Beer- and soda-making parties also offered. Open Tuesday through Friday, 2 to 9 p.m.; Saturday, noon to 6 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Reservations recommended. $120 to $150 to brew a 15-gallon keg, plus $50 for labels and 72 (22-ounce) bottles.

Brewing supply stores

Beer, Beer & More Beer, 1506 Columbia Ave., Suite 12, Riverside, (800) 622-7393; www.morebeer.com. Online and in-store supply shop offers an extensive selection of equipment and ingredients, from starter kits to bulk ingredients and professional tanks. Website has a chat room with tips, recipes and reviews. Open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, until 4 p.m.

Culver City Home Brewing Supply, 4358 1/2 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City, (310) 397-3453; www.brewsupply.com. A large selection of specialty ingredients, brew kits and equipment, including some equipment for rent. Home brewing classes ($5) are offered each month to familiarize new customers with equipment and ingredients. Other classes include all-grain brew class and partial-mash brew class. Monthly newsletter with beer-making tips; website offers brewing tips, recipes and a glossary of brewing terms. Wine- and mead-making supplies are also available. Open Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Thursday, 6 to 9 p.m.; and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.

Home Beer, Wine & Cheesemaking Shop, 22836 Ventura Blvd, Unit 2, Woodland Hills, (818) 884-8586; www.homebeerwinecheese.com. A beer-, wine- and cheese-making supply store offering equipment and ingredients (and free advice) for more than 30 years. Home of the Maltose Falcons, arguably the oldest home-brew club in the U.S. Open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m; Saturday and Sunday until 5 p.m.

Mr. Suds, 2112 E. Thompson Blvd., Ventura, (805) 643-4560; www.MrSuds.net. Known for its party rental supplies, but it also offers keg beer, home brewing and brewing supplies and winemaking kits. Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

O’Shea Brewing Company, 28142 Camino Capistrano, Laguna Niguel, (949) 364-4440; www.osheabrewing.com. Large selection of online and in-store home brewing supplies and equipment, winemaking kits and commercial beer available by the bottle or keg. Limited brewing equipment is also available for rent. Open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday noon to 5 p.m.

Stein Fillers, 4160 Norse Way, Long Beach, (562) 425-0588; www.steinfillers.com. Offers a wide selection of beer-making ingredients, including mops, grains, hops and yeast. Operated by the California Fermentation Society with a brewing research library open to the public. Open Wednesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday until 3 p.m.

-- Jenn Garbee