Home Brewing Beer Homebrewers
October 29, 2011 by
Filed under Home Brewing
About College Scholarships and Grants
Author: S. Michael Windsor
About College Scholarships and Grants
Some of the best ways to pay for a college education is by focusing on either scholarships or grants. With college scholarships and grants, none of the money has to be repaid, in contrast to Federal student loans as well as private loans. Access to these types of funding usually has to do with the student's past achievements in school and more. There are many types of scholarships and cannot be listed in full here; however, a good site to look at all the different scholarships would be college-scholarships.com which lists each one as well as some descriptions available. It is important to know that each scholarship may be different from the next and they may all have different terms and conditions applied to them which you will need to review prior to applying for the scholarship.
In addition to scholarships are grants. As a result of the US government's No Child Left Behind Act, our government now offers more college grant opportunities than ever. Some of the Federal grants include the Pell Grant, National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (aka SMART) grant, as well as the Academic Competitiveness grant. The money provided by these grants and more are provided in order to help pay for college expenses such as for books and tuition. These grants and more can be obtained through federal and state governments, colleges, universities, as well as other public and private organizations.
There are several different categories for grants such as student-specific grants, degree level grants, subject specific grants as well as grants specifically for lower income students and minorities.
As for the student-specific grants, there are several categories such as those for low income or disadvantaged students, graduate grants, doctoral grants, undergraduate grants, non-traditional grants as well as military grants for college.
When considering subject-specific grants, subjects such as nursing, teaching and healthcare may offer grants for schooling which in many cases will be sponsored by corporations hoping to acquire interns and future employees to their companies after graduating from college with a degree in the corporation's industry. In addition to the grants provided by many corporations and such, there are also those grants which are offered by your state and information about these types of grants that are offered by your individual state can be found be simply contacting your state offices and/or contacting financial aid offices at your college which you will be attending. There are many opportunities for students to get the funding for a great education and they can all be found by contacting those organizations or their websites for more information. If you are in high school, try a guidance counselor. It is important to get this information earlier on as the more you know the easier things will be once it comes down to getting that education funded.
Here is the break down for my time spent on each beer:
Research recipe – 2 weeks off and on – reality is about 3 hours.
Order supplies/pick up – I usually order my supplies from Midwest Supplies… arrives in 3 days on average. My local brew supply store is not close in city traffic.
Prep time – Sanitation, Sanitation, Sanitation! Really doesn’t take that much time. 10 minutes and then I let dry over night.
Brewing this is were it really takes effort – I pre-measure and sort all my ingredients before I even put the water in my brew pot. So give it a good 4 hours from start to the sealing of your primary.
Fermenting – Depending on beer 1 week then move to a secondary for another week. You will want to take the occasional reading to make sure fermentation hasn’t stopped.
Bottling – Sanitation, Sanitation, Sanitation! Washing 2 cases of beer takes about an hour…. feels like 10. I then sanitize them in the dishwasher… another hour-ish.
Bottling takes 45 minutes maybe and carbonation takes another 2 weeks.
Overall you are looking at 4 weeks total, but only 2 or three days/10 or so hours of working hard of actually working hard.
Beer: Homebrewers?
Any homebrewers out there? How much time on average would you say you spend brewing for each batch of beer? I’ve always wanted to brew at home but don’t have heaps of time, how much time investment would you say you put into brewing say a gallon of beer?
There are 5 liter keg systems available at your local homebrew store. They have replacement bungs and CO2 injectors available so while technically you can reuse them it’s really a PITA when you take into consideration how easily damaged they are, how difficult to clean, and what a low value for the money they are. It’s much more cost effective, fun, and pain free to just use your corny. If you’re concerned about portability, there are also 3 gallon cornies and there are small CO2 cylinders dispensing systems. I sometimes take my homebrew in 2 L soda bottles. You can take the cap of a 2L bottle, drill a hole in it, and add an air valve. With an air chuck on a line to your CO2 tank you can even carbonate right in the bottle.
Oh, that’s so sad. My girlfriend encourages me to make my beer and wine! It’s a great hobby; it’s fun, inexpensive and rewarding. You get a consumable product you can be proud of and you’re not giving money to a giant corporation. You actually get to enjoy the fruits of your labor… homebrewing is a wonderful thing and better than any other hobby I can think of.
If it’s between me making my own beer, or building sailboats in bottles, obviously the answer is clear.
Your wife should know that homebrewing is great, and practiced by people all over. And I assure you, none of us are alcoholics… alcoholics could never wait for their booze to brew! They’d just go out and get it!
I feel for you buddy.
Can I use a 5 litre heineken keg to dispense homebrew?
My girlfriend and I are homebrewers, and we own a corney keg. We don’t have the rest of the equipment at this point to use it. I was wondering, in the mean time can I use an empty 5 litre keg (heineken, etc.) to dispense home brew? I don’t even need to buy one, because the beverage store supplies me with empties, even grolch bottles! Thank you beer belly bob’s. Friends that taste our beer ask us to bring it to parties, because we have gotten very experienced at the hobby. This would be pretty convienent, even after we puchase the rest of the equipment for the corney keg system, because of portability.
Am I an alcoholic? My wife indicates so…?
I’m getting into brewing my own beer and making my own wine. Everything I spend any time on either of those projects, she indicates that I’m obviously an alcoholic which I naturally deny. If anything, I feel that at this level, producing my own beverages makes me less of one because of the time factor involved in waiting and producing something drinkable.
Any other homebrewers get this same lecture at home?
Any homebrewers out there?
I’m going to start home brewing my own beer, and I want to start with a kit for my first try. Which is the best kit to use for a first-timer? I’m looking for something that will be easy and give me a strong chance of getting a good result. Also I want something that tastes good. Ideas? Suggestions?
Go to http://www.beertown.org/homebrewing/ to find out how to begin, and http://www.realbeer.com/edu/homebrewing/ to find out even more. Realbeer.com sells kits. I bought one last year, and I have to tell you, it’s been worth every penny and then some. Have fun.