Page 19 - Demo

14How to Build a Small Brewery was initially distributed through homebrew and winemaking shops alongside works by Eckhardt, Coe, Burch, Papazian, and others, and was revised and expanded in a second edition with numerous drawings and photographs in 1989 and again in 1992. Owens sold over 30,000 copies of the first two editions by 1992, and has continued selling copies since.56 It was the first work to focus on building an all-grain brewery at home by using commonly available materials such as picnic igloos, kegs, water heaters, and garden hoses. While Owens did not create the innovative ideas, he pulled them from different sources and put them together in one innovative package.Prior to How to Build a Small Brewery, most homebrewers brewed with malt extract, a thick, sugary syrup made from malted barley that was widely available in homebrew shops and grocery stores. A homebrewer would create wort by boiling the malt extract with water and hops for a set amount of time depending on the desired beer style. Once the wort is cooled it is transferred to a fermenting vessel, often a five-gallon glass carboy or plastic bucket, where the yeast is added. In the late 1970s there were few choices of malt extract types, and many already had generic hop flavor. As the interest in homebrew picked up, diverse malt extracts came on the market. Homebrew shops also supplied specialty malts and grains to add a little bit of color or different flavor to a homebrew on top of the malt extract. There are hundreds of malted grain varieties that are used in various ways and can be grouped in various categories (e.g., by process, enzymatic activity, color of wort, expected flavor).57 With the introduction of How to Build a Small Brewery, many homebrewers switched from extract brewing to all-grain brewing, purchasing base malts in lieu of extract and adding portions of specialty malts, giving more control to the brewing process and mirroring large brewery practices. The best part of Owens%u2019system is that it works by gravity, limiting the amount of physical effort required.