Hello,
My name is Philip and I am from Brazil. I believe I am the only guy from Brazil that listen´s to the show. I am going to write a little bit about my life and how I became an avid BN listener.
I got interested in brewing when I went to Washington DC (to my grandmother´s apartment) to look for a job on my summer vacation (december-february, 2003, 2004). Before that I didn´t even know that you could make beer at your house and what homebrewing was. The job I found was to help a guy with his international online book store, with the headquarters at his house. Everyday I went over hundreds of books.
One day I came across this book, and I stared at it for quite awhile....don´t know how it caught my attention, but after reading a bit there I decided to take it home with me and read a little more after work. It was entitled "The Joy of Homebrewing" by our renown Mr. Pappazian. So I read the whole book and went down to a LHBS. Bought 2 cans of liquid extract plus some DME and some other items.
Getting back to Brazil I dedided that was going to be my hobby. So I brewed 2 times with the extract and then that was it. No more extract. So I went all-grain on my third batch. Getting beer ingredients down here is not as hard as with "IndianBeerGeek", but it´s not that easy also.
So I made friends with a local microbrewery at my home city (very lucky, they started in 1999 and there are not many micro´s in the area) and they supplied me with ingredients for my next batches. But I could only get my hands at 1 type of malt and 1 type of hops (cluster and maybe tettnang I bellieve), plus only one type of yeast (the micro also use dried yeast, I believe Saflager S-23). And I brewed some more batches.
But the thing is that my beermaking business was too hard (didn´t have a lauter tun, had to build from 2 plastic buckets. Didn´t have money for shit, so I only had 1 7 gallon kettle). I got a little frustrated and got away from brewing for some time.
Having problems at my university ( I was a physics graduate) I decided to drop that and try out for Chemistry next year. And also I decided that if Brewing is my passion, then that´s what I am going to aim for. I hope to start my chemistry course next year and then maybe try an internship at Un. Cal. Davis or Siebel Institute, or American Brewer´s Guild for a semester or a year. I also want to go to Europe if possible to work or learn more about brewing and then someday get back to Brazil and start my own Micro!
I also ordered a bunch more books online and after the next shippment arrives i will have 9 or 10 books on brewing.
About 1 and a half month ago I went down to iTunes and typed brewing on the podcast list. Found lots of Beercasts and also I found the Brewcasters at BN. My first show was the tasting and evaluating beer. From that point on, I got addicted. So I am listening to all of the archives this past few weeks and getting thirsty as I go on. I want to tell you guys you do a tremendous job at passing out the information and amusing me and all the other listeners. Don´t stop the jokes, they are too much fun!
So to finish off this motherf...... e-mail, I figured my 5 gallon batch system was too bad and messy and I started to research and look for a better and bigger system myself. So I found this site http://www.brewzilla.nl/?brewhalla and adjusted one to my plans.... My little brewery will have a 15 gal. capacity and I already got the pots with spigots and a false bottom on one of them. I also have burners, a fridge, a paddle and I hope to get my brewery going in about 15 days).
I will also try to buy a microfone and set up skype so I can try and participate on the live show. But first things first.....
Philip Zanello
