Like most foreigners that have come to Belize, we wasted a lot of money buying (really crappy, cheap, screw-top wine priced like fine, premium) wine in an attempt to have a taste of home and feel sophisticated.   In addition to the price, the heat and humidity, the higher alcohol content of wine was sure to make us uncomfortable for the whole night, the fuzziness continuing to the next day and making work difficult.  Now, after having lived here a while and given up all pretense at being sophisticated, we just want some good, honest-to-God, alcohol that doesn’t burn a hole in our pocket or our stomachs.

Having had some experience while at University with brewing, the obvious answer is to brew some beer.  How to do this, though?  There is no friendly brew-shop down the road to get all the essential ingredients…no barley, no hops, no nothing!

Well, we do have plenty of maize, grown by the bushel by our friendly Mayan neighbours (I’ve tried growing corn and I just haven’t managed yet…go figure!), GMO free and cheap.  What do you do with it, though?

The first step is this…

After the maize has sprouted it needs to be dried before it can be turned into the different types of malt we are all familiar with…like, pale malt, chocolate malt, Munich malt, crystal malt, etc.  Here it is dried…

And this is the basis for my maize, gluten-free beer.

For a more detailed discussion on the malting process have a look in our Bored-in-Belize section for Malting Maize.

Tune in next time for Part II, Brewing with Maize.

 

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