Zombie Apocalypse Guide

[Oswalda Shutte]

BROOKSIt was a childhood phobia that evolved into an adult fascination. As I got older I realized that zombie stories were a powerful tool for examining real world issues. Because zombies are a macro-threat, (as opposed to say, a single werewolf/vampire micro threat), they can kill people by simply disrupting the slender threads that hold society together. In a zombie outbreak, how many people would die from starvation, dehydration, and unhygienic living conditions?

Until I blogged about zombies I had no idea there were so many groups working on projects involving zombies, from actors and singers to school teachers, it seemed like everyone had zombies on the brain. Why do you think zombies are so popular? Are they the new vampire or are they bigger?

Your book and upcoming movie, World War Z, follows a reporter during a zombie apocalypse. While you were writing the story you must have thought a lot about what you would do if zombies ever started roaming the streets again. If you were going to prepare for a scenario like the one in World War Z, what would you put in your emergency kit?

America lives in the comfort of plenty. When major events happens alot of people are unprepared. I have a survival kit that can cover a hurricane & zombie outbreak. Happy to see the CDC finally touching on this subject.

This is truly a wonderful way to get people to get prepared! I am obsessed with wanting to work for the CDC and help with issues. That is what I come to this site for in the first place. However, I am obsessed with zombies too! I get all I want from one website!

I am rather disappointed that they are so politically correct as to noticeably exclude firearms from their list of suggested survival items. Putting aside this silly (but entertaining) stuff about zombies, the lack of law and order in the immediate aftermath of several hurricanes and riots have demonstrated the wisdom of having the means at hand to defend yourself and your family from bad people until order can be reestablished.

The Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse (AZA) is where my editor sent me to get a first-hand experience of such an event. AZA is an annual production running from late September through Halloween. Three attractions, Zombie Shoot ($30), Zwars ($20) and Curse of the Undead ($20), attract people each Halloween season to live the apocalpytic world. The chief security officer of AZA and owner of the property, Fred Mephisto, and two zombie actors, Justin Hester and Quavas Scott, gave me a few tips to stay alive.

Close to midnight, a group of us walked out into the streets. At first there was silence, then there was evil laughter and clanging of chains against wood and metal. We all turned the corner to be disturbingly surprised. After most of the community was killed off, several of the more aggressive survivors had captured a number of zombies and were taunting them. A woman, who was loud and dressed in rags, had a zombie tied up like a dog. She was placing bets on who could kill him first. She counted her money and teased the zombie, almost torturing, as no one seemed able get a clean shot at his head.

Still with the group, I entered an abandoned warehouse, where the undead were still on the loose, terrorizing other defenseless, scared survivors. We found a man, armed, calm and confident. As we made our way through the abandoned warehouse, our leader and only armed survivor at the time, directed us upstairs, downstairs, into large rooms and small rooms, ready to pull the trigger with each step. He would eventually lead us out of the warehouse.

I somehow got turned around and ended up all alone. I knew the only way to escape this infested area was to shut down all brain activity in each of them. I soon found a loaded rifle. While using my gun, I was shooting at their bodies the first few shots. I soon felt their hands trying to grab me. I had to aim for their heads before they dismembered or infected me. Other survivors with guns frantically shot at one another in panic. I had to navigate through the pitch-black warehouse with nothing more than a blue flashlight and my weapon. I anticipated getting infected but I listened carefully for the groans of the undead around every corner. I killed each zombie I encountered with a bullet to the head, and escaped the warehouse into the night.

I felt relieved to be free and clear of the zombies. The fact that I could only see their silhouettes running at me in the dark was scary enough. When I came back to reality, some of the corniness of the event made me laugh, but then I began to wonder how possible a zombie apocalypse could be.

Malting, at its core, is the interrupted germination of a plant seed (in our case the seeds of the barley plant). To do this, we are going to need to put our post-apocalyptic minds to work towards rigging together a malting setup.

If we are looking to create pale malt, the essential base grains of our beers, you could hardly do better than an open concrete floor in an enclosed garage or warehouse. To this space we are going to need to add some ability to heat the air in the room without making it tremendously smokey. To do this, I would suggest installing several wood fired stoves with piping to the outside to vent away smoke.

The malting process starts with a thorough soaking of the grains in water, I would suggest using large drums, wheelbarrows, Rubbermaid tubs, etc. to accomplish this. Allow the grains to soak for 4 hours and then spread them out on the concrete floor in a layer several inches thick. Now we are going to allow these grains to start sprouting. Every 12 hours or so you will want to turn and rake the grains so that they stay evenly moist and get access to the air (this prevents mold). Monitor the grains for the growth of an acrospire. Once this structure reaches the opposite end of the kernel (under the husk), it will be time to dry and kiln the malt. This germination phase usually takes about 2 to 5 days.

Both of these malt varieties are created by kilning the malt at higher temperatures. In the case of roasted malt, the malt is heated to dry at oven temperatures while in the case of caramelized malt, the grains must remain very damp during the initial heating process.

To create roasted malt, we will want to rig together multiple sheets of metal (baking sheets would work well for this) so that we can heat the malt directly over a woodstove while the malt still receives adequate airflow. The malt is heated until the desired coloration is achieved (anywhere from light brown to black). Once cool, it is best to allow this roasted malt to age for a month or two before use to allow some of the harsher flavors produced during kilning to mellow.

If you are even half as competent at growing hops as you are at putting down zombies, you will eventually find yourself ready to harvest your fine hop crop. If the hop flowers feel firm and heavy (moist) to the touch, they are not ready to pick. However, once the flowers feel airy and light, this is a good sign that they are ripe for harvest. You can confirm this by pulling a few off the vines and rubbing them around inside your hands. If your hands are covered in aromatic and yellow lupulin oils then its harvest time!

Once harvested, the hop cones will need to be dried in order to keep them shelf stable. This is best done by assembling racks made out of window screens or other mesh materials. Spread the hops out and let them air dry for about 3 days. If you need to speed up the drying process, you can always heat up the air a bit making use of the furnaces in your malting space, but make sure to keep the temperatures limited to those you use to air kiln base malts. Either way, when the central spine of your hop flowers breaks under pressure rather than bends, your hops are now dried and ready for storage and, more importantly, brewing!

What if you were unable to find hop rhizomes or, despite your best efforts, your hop crops failed to grow? Once again, sour beer comes to the rescue! You can always choose to formulate sour recipes without the inclusion of hops. While many classic beer styles would taste like complete crap without good hops, a wide variety of delicious sour beers can be made without so much as a single cone.

Luckily for us, brew worthy Saccharomyces strains and a variety of the funky microbes needed to make sour beers are all around us in nature, happily doing what they do completely oblivious to the perils which have befallen mankind. Sour beer fans will find that their tastes suit them particularly well in a post apocalyptic world. Without the convenience of pure lab cultures, it will be more difficult, but not impossible, to brew clean beers. Regardless of whether you prefer your ales clean or funky, we will first have to get our hands on some yeast.

If you do get your hands on some bottle dregs or yeast vials sorely past their expiration date, the first step towards trying to nurse these strains back to health is to create a very low gravity (1.020) un-hopped starter wort. You will want to transfer a little bit of the dregs or culture you find into very small containers of this wort, and gradually step up the starter size once signs of growth become apparent.

With this wort produced, you will want to fill jars or other small containers and cover them with cheesecloth, fine mesh, or other types of screen that will keep larger critters like fruit flies out of the wort. Sit these jars out overnight in areas such as fruit orchards, fields, forests, or damn near anyplace really. Alternatively, if you find wild fruit (a natural environment for Saccharomyces) you can simply bring it back to your compound and add it right into your jars of wort there.

The first of these processes occurs in the mash. In the past, professional maltsters produced awesome, very high quality, and fully modified malts that would convert into all of the sugars needed to make a great wort with a simple infusion mash. Well you my friend are not one of those professionals, so we will be utilizing a step mash for your beers. You will want to target two lower temperature steps before heating up the mash to saccharification temperatures either by direct firing the mash tun or through infusions of boiling water. You want to make the mash fairly thick to help these first two steps be the most effective. Shoot for a grain to water ratio that leaves the mash feeling like a standard bowl of oatmeal, not so thick you could turn the bowl upside down without worry but not soupily thin either. I would recommend the following table as a starting point for your step mashes:

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