Anyone brew their own BEER??

[jymbee]

Been thinking about learning how to brew beer for some time. From what I've seen and read it doesn't appear to be all that difficult. But then again, most of the sites you find are trying to sell their beer making equipment and supplies.

If you're an experienced brewewr, I would be interested to hear how you got started and any advice you might care to pass along.

 

[marimus]

Yep, it can be as simple or as hard as you want to make it.

First up is sanitation. Hospital grade, everything needs to be clean. Including your hands as you are handling the equipment.
Then decide if you want to start with extract brewing, partial grain or all-grain. Extract is where most people start as it is simple and all you really need is the extract kit, a clean fermenter with an airlock. Quality can be improved by controlling the fermentation temperature, what temperature is dependent on the strain of yeast you are using. A major step forward is throwing out the little packet of dried yeast that comes with a kit, and using a quality liquid yeast such as wyeast. Something like 60 percent of the flavour actually comes from the strain of yeast you use. The overall quality of the end product is directly proportional to the quality of the ingredients, so basically decide if you want to brew beer, or brew great beer.

Cheers

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Someone started a similar thread a few months back, don't recall which forum, but there may be some info there you might be interested in.

 

[forgeblast]

Morebeer.com has a great forum, and there are many other beer brewing forums.

The intro brewing kits are good and have enough to make a quality beer. Get john palmers How to brew. Its the best book out there, and take notes as you go.
If you can boil water you can make beer.

I do a lot of brewing, all grain mostly sometimes extract(malt). I also do hard cider (very easy). If you have questions post away, be glad to help.

 

[dmccarty]

I started home brewing a couple of years ago. Finally, since I have been wanting to brew beer for decades but I did not have the time and I barely have the space now. I like HomeBrewTalk.com - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Community..

My suggestion is to find a local home brew store, and as Forgeblast suggested, get John Palmer's book. Some of what is in Palmer's book is more than you need to start but as you spend more you will keep referring to the book.

My brew store has hardware kits to make the beer with as well as packages of grain and extract for brewing. I ended up buying the more expensive kit just to make sure I got everything. I kinda wish I had not done this because the kit came with a 5 gallon glass carboy. I just use the 5 gallon fermenting bucket to for 3 weeks before bottling the beer. Some people will move the beer from the bucket to the carboy but I don't.

The "hard" part of making beer is the sanitation and temperature control. Sanitation is easy. Buy Star San and a spray bottle. Star San is a sanitizer that works really well. You do not have to rinse it like other sanitizer so it is easy to use. The bottles of Star San are not cheap but you only need an ounce or so of Star San to make five gallons of sanitizer. I mix up about a gallon or so and we use it for both beer making and as a general cleaner/santizer around the house. It works very well. All you have to do is put it in a spray bottle and mist away.

Temperature is the hard part in beer making for me. The beer needs to ferment in a given temperature range set by the yeast. This is hard for me to do in the summer so I don't brew when it is hot outside. This works out because I don't have time to brew in the summer anyway. :laughing::laughing::laughing: If it is warm enough, I will fill up the bathtub with water and put the five gallon fermenter in the bath to help control the temperature. I keep one gallon and one liter jugs/bottles of water in the freezer to rotate in the bath water to control the temperature.

After the wort is boiled you have to cool it down to a given temperature before putting in the yeast. This can be time consuming but I have started to add water right from the well. I used to obsess about sanitation so I would boil the water that needs to be added to the boiled wort but that is time consuming and the cool well water helps cool off the wort for the yeast. Some people use a spiral copper tube to run tap water through the wort to cool it down but to me that is wasteful of my well water so I don't do it.

My wife has had two shoulder surgeries, and as part of her recovery, we have two devices that pump ice water to her shoulder. I have used these things to help cool down the wort.

Brewing can be as hard or easy as you want it to be. If you can boil water, read a thermometer, and follow step by step directions, you can make really good beer.

Later,
Dan

 

[wedge40]

dmccarty, I watch a lot of "Good Eats" and Alton Brown will by bags of ice. All you have to remember is "A Pints a pound the world around"

Wedge

 

[jymbee]

Yep, it can be as simple or as hard as you want to make it.


... Something like 60 percent of the flavour actually comes from the strain of yeast you use. The overall quality of the end product is directly proportional to the quality of the ingredients, so basically decide if you want to brew beer, or brew great beer.

Cheers

Interesting, and sounds like good advice re. the yeast.

Apparently there used to be a very active hop growiing industry around here (upstate NY) some years ago. I read somewhere that growing your own hops isn't all that difficult. (?)

 

[jymbee]

I started home brewing a couple of years ago. Finally, since I have been wanting to brew beer for decades but I did not have the time and I barely have the space now. I like HomeBrewTalk.com - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Community..

My suggestion is to find a local home brew store, and as Forgeblast suggested, get John Palmer's book. Some of what is in Palmer's book is more than you need to start but as you spend more you will keep referring to the book.

My brew store has hardware kits to make the beer with as well as packages of grain and extract for brewing. Dan

Great info-- thanks much Dan. Do I understand correctly that you have your own brew store? You sell brewing equipment and/or ingredients?

When I read your description of temperature control, I was reminded of my old photo darkroom days when I used to process all my own color film & slides. Kept everything at correct temperature with fish tanks and heater. Wonder if that might be a possiblity...

 

[jymbee]

I did do a few searches before posting, but did not catch these discussions. Some great links to resources posted here by others and I will definitely invest in Palmer's book as well as check out the other links.

Someone started a similar thread a few months back, don't recall which forum, but there may be some info there you might be interested in.

 

[RobertN]

I have brewed on and off for years. I still like Pappazians books. And Palmer. I hardly ever brew from a kit. I typically peruse the books and pick one. Price is usually the same though, getting the ingredients together at the store, or buying one of their "kits".

I would start with one of those books. Then try to hook up with someone who is brewing. Or the brew store if there is one in you area; the one here, has classes on brewing, so you could get your feet wet.

 

[forgeblast]

I have the wort chiller, but when doing big batches 10 gallons I need to be able to cool to pitching time. Normal pitching time is somewhere in the 80's for me. I hit the hot wort with 3-4 seconds of o2 and then pitch. I have never had a stuck batch.
I started with a normal stock pot, and boiled a gallon or two at a time, and had my water in my fermenting bucket, and chilled in my tub. But as i started doing mini-mashes, and all grain I wanted a bit more control over my temps. I bought a bigger pot (instawares.com has some good deals, mine are all aluminium), and a wort chiller. This helped out a lot. Next I went to kegging due to how long it was taking to bottle. I used to use pin/ball (soda) kegs but I have now been reusing my sixtel kegs.

is my system. Its called a brutus 10. The plans were free in a homebrew magazine and I spent a few years building it.

show some of my hops

I have about 12 plants, I get gallon bag's full of them every year. My plants I bought from thymegarden.com and they are easy to take care of. Put in ground and add something for it to grow on.

When fermenting, there is a big range to where you can ferment in. I use safeale s-04 its an ale yeast. I ferment in the basement to make sure I dont have temp fluxes. 64-72 is the normal recommended (for s-04), but you can find some like the s-05 which can handle from 59-75 degrees. The bucket you ferment in will be sealed so no fishtank heaters, they do sell a carboy belt that will let you keep the wort at a higher temp.

 

[RobertN]

Brutus!

The thought has crossed my mind, since my brew kegs and some hardware from my current setup could be used on the Brutus system. I just do not brew enough any more to justify. My gravity feed 10gal system works fine for now.

is my system. Its called a brutus 10. The plans were free in a homebrew magazine and I spent a few years building it.

 

[cqaigy2]

Wow some nice setup! My neighbor grows his own hops as well. I've only help with the brewing, well that's not true, i also will help with the drinking too.

 

[dmccarty]

dmccarty, I watch a lot of "Good Eats" and Alton Brown will by bags of ice. All you have to remember is "A Pints a pound the world around"

Wedge

Alton used ice and I have thought about it, but remember you don't want to contaminate the wort. Alton bought ice, I would have to use what the freezer makes. I am a bit paranoid about using my freezer ice because of contamination but it is most likely an unwarranted worry. Our ice, especially in the winter, can sit unused so another concern was off flavors in the ice.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

Great info-- thanks much Dan. Do I understand correctly that you have your own brew store? You sell brewing equipment and/or ingredients?

When I read your description of temperature control, I was reminded of my old photo darkroom days when I used to process all my own color film & slides. Kept everything at correct temperature with fish tanks and heater. Wonder if that might be a possiblity...

Sorry, no I don't own a brew store. I should have phrased that a bit better. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

Speaking of temperature, I used one of those fancy dancy electronic thermometers with alarms and such. POS. I have used 2-3 of these things over the years and they either die or give false readings. The brew kit I bought had an old fashion mercury thermometer that works just fine.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

jymbee,

Get on youtube and search for brewing. There is a Canadian who has a channel about making beer and cider. I watched a few of this guys videos and figured if he could do it with his very modest setup, so could I. There are also quite a few other good videos out there was well. I would really like to keg the beer but we don't have a good place to put the keg fridge. The advantage of bottling is that you can have a bunch of different brews waiting to drink but with a keg it gets problematic to have 4-5 different beers. Bottling is a bit time consuming but not bad. To make it go faster I use 22 ounce bottles for the majority of a brew and fill a few 12 ounce bottles to try first and to give away if someone asks. I have taken over two base cabinets to store the beer and I need more space. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

Later,
Dan

 

[Lou66]

My granddad and dad made home brew or choc beer and also made moonshine,, I would carry the sugar to the stills for them and others that were in the business,, I have tasted alot of home brew in my days and have never found one that tasted worth a crap but they did do the job.. I have found that whom ever makes it,, will think it's the best that was ever brewed.. same with the moonshine.. I leave it to the pros.. can you say bud wise er?.:laughing:. Lou

 

[forgeblast]

RobertN, nice set up. I used a cooler for a couple of years, they work great at holding the temp.
If i didnt get a deal on the pumps I was going gravity also.

Dan I forgot to tell you I found some flip top bottles at ....Ikea. They were cheap. I cant remember what I paid for them but they were no where near the price I paid for smaller bottles. Ill have to post a pic of them.

 

[RobertN]

Sheesh, when I started brewing, had no choice but to read the best books of the time. There was no WWW. We did, have email digest; I was on the original Home Brew Digest. Came out once a day. TBN and it's creators weren't even born then There were some of the .net forums, but few people had a computer, much less access to them.

Get on youtube and search for brewing. There is a Canadian who has a channel about making beer and cider. I watched a few of this guys videos and figured if he could do it with his very modest setup, so could I. There are also quite a few other good videos out there was well.
Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

RobertN, nice set up. I used a cooler for a couple of years, they work great at holding the temp.
If i didnt get a deal on the pumps I was going gravity also.

Dan I forgot to tell you I found some flip top bottles at ....Ikea. They were cheap. I cant remember what I paid for them but they were no where near the price I paid for smaller bottles. Ill have to post a pic of them.

I have some of those bottles the only problem is that they are clear and not colored. I think they are around a liter in size. I bought them for some reason, plus the price was too good to pass up, :laughing:, but I put them up in a cabinet and promptly forgot about them. I saw them over the weekend and was wondering WHAT I bought them for?

As I started up brewing, I started buying flip top bottles at a beer store located too closely to the brew store. :laughing::laughing::laughing: The bottle were full of German beer, rather expensive, but given the cost of empty bottles the beer was pretty cheap. :licking: Funny thing is that I have not used on them to hold beer! I was going to use them for cider but never got around to it.

Later,
Dan