Teach a friend to brew day went well here at Beer Bits 2

I'll finish the thread I started with the last few posts, but first...

I started thinking about Teach a Friend to Brew Day when I realized it would be on the same day as our neighborhood fall festival. That's when I thought. How cool would it be to demonstrate brewing at the party. I was a bit reluctant, but, my wife encouraged me. That's all it took. Out went the neighborhood newsletter announcing the spectacle. Soon it was showtime and I spent most of the day Saturday getting my proverbial sh#t together. Ten gallons of water, check, 3 gallons of one step, check, liquid malt extract check, 30 lbs of ice, check, lots of books and mags, check...the rest of the mobile brewing setup, check. Did I mention that this demonstration is not at my house?!

In retrospect I could have been a little better organized with the Teach a Friend to Brew Day literature and even cards for my own website, but, I made up for it with lots of answers and explanations, besides they know where I live. I also found a couple other homebrewers in the neighborhood. Not to mention Bryan from The Brew Lounge. Thanks for taking some pictures. Somehow I forgot to do that too. Yes, that's a limited edition TBL T-Shirt I'm sporting.

Some popular questions and statements;

• How long does it take?
• What are you doing right now?
• So we can't drink it today?
• Do you sell your beer?
• Will you give us a chance to taste the beer?
• How do you increase the alcohol?
• What kind of beer are you making?
• How much does it cost?
  

I did my best to answer all these questions and was very impressed with the interest and desire to learn. If you ever get a chance to demonstrate, do it. It is very rewarding to share what you know.

About 10 to 20 people asked questions and helped. The process took about 4 hours to brew a 5 gal. extract batch of some kind of high abv stout. The process went like this.

1. go buy yeast because you can't find yours
2. spend hours gathering and loading everything you need for mobile brewery
   
3. heat 6 gallons of water I brought in soda kegs
4. add steeping grains
5. steep for 30 min
6. bring to boil
7. kill flame
8. add malt extract
9. boil
10. turn down the heat
11. add some hops
12. add some more hops periodically
13. chill with 30 lbs of ice
14. panic and ask to borrow garden hose
15. clean chiller with one step
16. chill beer with chiller to 75 degrees F
17. put pot on table (after borrowing table)
18. siphon beer into carboy
19. add dry yeast
20. aerate by shaking carboy on grass
21. add stopper and airlock
22. clean up
23. enjoy homemade mead
24. go to awesome homebrew halloween party

Thanks everybody for helping out and making it a success!