I started home brewing back in 1998.  I was working as a development engineer in a large corporation, the bosses of which thought their pay packets were too small and they decided to improve things by embarking on a retrenchment drive.  The "airy fairy development department would be the first to fall under the hammer, so I decided to buy or build a brewery.  At that stage micro brewing in South Africa was almost non existent.  Home brewing was also a black art practised by "mad professor wannabes" and hooligans after high octane hooch.

I found some chaps who were prepared to receive a million of so of my cash in exchange for a couple of stainless steel barrels, pipes and a pump.  Fortunately I didn't have a million lying around.  Also the research and business plan I did said a micro brewery would not be financially viable.

HOW DO YOU MAKE A SMALL FORTUNE IN BREWING"

START WITH A BIG ONE.

During the research I was given a Home Brewery, a kit that contained every thing needed to make beer - for Christmas.  With in 30 minutes of opening my present the wort was bubbling away in the corner of the kitchen, This became a feature of the house.

By the middle of January I had a full mash bucket brewery set up.  My second Brew started on a Friday afternoon at four.  And by six the next morning I had 20 litres of beer in the fermented bubbling away.  The only problems I had were; crushing the grain with a rolling pin 3 hours, strike temperature too low, a stuck mash, boiler switching off before the wert boiled (removed the cut off switch from the element) hops clogging the counter flow chiller, (I still have the chille complete with hops in it.), not closing the tap on the fermenter  and loosing about 4 litres of cooled wert.

Best of all I went to bed happy at 7:30 after breakfast.  I have now got brew day down to between 5 and 6 hours.