is there a home-brew / zymurgy thread around here?

[Razberri92]

I've done hard cider a few times too. It's so easy, and it tastes better than any store bought stuff.

I'm a big fan of hard cider. So, when you say easy..... how easy is easy?

 

[jbj]

wine is easier to make than beer. just pitch some yeast in grape juice and youre done. there is a potential for bottle bombs but if you're careful you can avoid them.
I had a few go off when I bottled in some really nice olive oil bottles. They were in my fridge when I heard some loud popping noise-i knew what it was right away. as long as you bottle in bottles that can take the pressure you wont have this problem. I use beer or sparkling cider bottles only now.

Ha my apartment in Saudi had a tonne of shrapnel made out of Appletiser bottle lids from a largely unsuccessful attempt to make sparkling wine.

 

[jbj]

I'd be quite interetsed in the cider too.

I did brew some whilst abroad but it was never particularly strong and you had to drink a tonne to get drunk.

 

[micwalt]

I'm a big fan of hard cider. So, when you say easy..... how easy is easy?

I'd be quite interetsed in the cider too.

I did brew some whilst abroad but it was never particularly strong and you had to drink a tonne to get drunk.

Super easy.
You get some unpasteurized cider (Mrs. Gooch's from Whole Foods is great), some sugar (white, brown, or both) and some yeast (champagne yeast works well) and throw it all in.
A week or two later, you have hard cider.
That's literally all there is to it.

 

[Razberri92]

Super easy.
You get some unpasteurized cider (Mrs. Gooch's from Whole Foods is great), some sugar (white, brown, or both) and some yeast (champagne yeast works well) and throw it all in.
A week or two later, you have hard cider.
That's literally all there is to it.

Thanks for creating my grocery list for the week! haha

 

[eloydrummerboy]

So, I have noticed recently that we have a few homebrewers here. Or at least people who know homebrewers, as several people mention drinking homebrew in some of the "Watcha Drinkin'/Weekend Wrapup" threads.

I've just finished Palmer's book "How to Brew" and am probably not far away from trying my first batch with a buddy at work.

So let's talk shop. How long have you been at it? What's your set-up? How often do you brew? Extract? All-Grain? What's in the fermenter right now? Favorite recipes?







Beer.
chears

 

[Chicken Man]

10 years, couple hand-me-down glass carboys, no beer--only do wine, mead, and cider.

 

[BoomBoomBigelow]

Just get busy Scott.

 

[Tiltsta]

I have one of those mini 2.5 gallon conical Brew Demon things. It works awesome and is stone cold simple to use.

I know it isn't a real 'microbrew' setup, but I have no basement and my garage is way too hot for brewing, so I am limited to something that fits in my laundry room utility sink. I think my wife wouldn't be happy if I brought in a couple of 6L carboys. Anyway, I can crank out around 2.5 gallons every 7-10 days, not including bottling/carbonation and maturation. I have a decent backlog of past beer runs, so now it is just rotating stock. I pretty much use kits from Brew Demon. They are all extract, easy to mix, and make surprisingly good beer with minimal effort. Not super cheap, but not really expensive either. I know, again, not exactly craft brewing, but I enjoy what I have made, even if it is just a kit thing.

Don't feel too bad for me, at work I have one of these. A 150L bioprocess test fermentor. Sadly, we use it to make proteins in yeast, and not beer. We have discussed making beer in it many times, but we never managed to get the time. I also have 20L version of this that is more amenable to beer production.

 

[Hanglow]

I did my first homebrew when I was 14, which was 20 years ago. I still remember how bad it was

Recently started again (last 3 or 4 years) mainly do all grain beer, 20l batches or so. Also do some wine kits and country wines and ginger beer etc. I'll brew anything but the recipes I get more excited about are historic british recipes I think, things like scottish IPA and porters/stout porters

I bottled an 8% 'murican IPA thing today, I have high hopes for it. Used summit, cascade and amarillo hops

I usually brew stronger beers as they keep better - (apart from AIPAs etc which need drunk quick!)

 

[BoomBoomBigelow]

[quote="Tiltsta, post: 929595, member: 112"

We have discussed making beer in it many times, but we never managed to get the time.

[/quote]
Um,OK, so you CAN'T warp the space-time-beer continuum with that apparatus? Chuck it.
I think I can brew beer on my smartphone. Lemme check play store.

 

[CBHScott]

I'm thisclose to getting a one-gallon starter kit, just to see if I dig it.

 

[eloydrummerboy]

I kind of got into it randomly. I mean, I've been drinking beer professionally for several years now, but I never actually thought about brewing my own. One day, a good while ago, while casually perusing a few book stores I came upon "How To Brew" by John Palmer. ( In case anyone is interested, a slightly older version, but almost identical to what I read, is available for free online in an HTML version here; http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html Very interesting stuff, if you're into getting a little deep, and want a better appreciation of your beers. )

So the book sat on the bookshelf for almost a year, then this past Christmas we were visiting family friends of Drummergirl and one of the girl's recent husband had his homebrew there. It was his first runnings he did with a few friends, a light brown ale, and it was pretty good. So I thought, "Hmm, maybe I should get that book down and finger through it." Started talking to a guy at work to see if he'd be interested in giving it a go with me. And here we are a few months later. Finally finished the book and ready to head to the local brew store one weekend here soon.

I'll likely start with just the basics needed for extract brewing, 5 gallon batches, but size the equipment with plans on moving to All-Grain after a we get a few batches under our belt. For instance, get an 8 gallon brew pot to handle the full wort instead of just the 5 gallon needed for extract, stuff like that.

I'm pretty excited. I even picked up Beer Smith 2 software, which is incredibly robust. There are TONS of recipes, with fully spelled out instructions, calculations all done for you automatically, etc.

I've got a buddy having a Bachelor party in about 6 weeks. I'd love to brew a quick fermenting and conditioning ale of some sort and have it ready to take down there as a gift. But I'm going to have to get on the ball if that's going to happen.

 

[eloydrummerboy]

I have one of those mini 2.5 gallon conical Brew Demon things. It works awesome and is stone cold simple to use.

That looks pretty cool. I wonder if they make 5 gallon plastic conicals. I've read up on the benifits and they certainly are nice, but there's no way in hell I'm spending hundreds on one of those Blichman ones. I think I'm going to jump right into the 5 gallon batches though, because I'd like to brew less often. Then again, 2.5 gallon batches would let you experiment a bit more with less damage when you screw up. Maybe it's worth looking into for the first several batches, and then upgrading. You could always continue to make smaller batches alongside the larger ones.

 

[eloydrummerboy]

I did my first homebrew when I was 14, which was 20 years ago. I still remember how bad it was

Recently started again (last 3 or 4 years) mainly do all grain beer, 20l batches or so. Also do some wine kits and country wines and ginger beer etc. I'll brew anything but the recipes I get more excited about are historic british recipes I think, things like scottish IPA and porters/stout porters

I bottled an 8% 'murican IPA thing today, I have high hopes for it. Used summit, cascade and amarillo hops

I usually brew stronger beers as they keep better - (apart from AIPAs etc which need drunk quick!)

I love a lot of different styles, and I'll probably end up brewing all over the map at first, but Stouts and Porters are my favorite beers. What I'm really looking forward to is brewing a good Stout or Porter and slowly altering the recipe one way or another in small interations until over time I've found my personal favorite beer, and it's something that I can brew for myself. The experimentation with the recipes is really what's drawing me in.


...and the beer.

 

[Tiltsta]

^^ Sadly, the don't make a larger size of the conical. I have room in my laundry sink to add a second one, so I may run two 2.5 gallon setups side by side one day. I've been toying with the idea for a while now. I think just the tank, stands and cap is like 35 bucks, which seems pretty reasonable for a small conical to me.

 

[micwalt]

I've got a 10 liter Beer Machine all-in-one unit. I buy ingredients online and half the recipes--usually grain/extract combos. Then I usually double the finishing hops. I also occasionally do cider. It's fun, and it usually produces some good results.

 

[eloydrummerboy]

^^ Sadly, the don't make a larger size of the conical. I have room in my laundry sink to add a second one, so I may run two 2.5 gallon setups side by side one day. I've been toying with the idea for a while now. I think just the tank, stands and cap is like 35 bucks, which seems pretty reasonable for a small conical to me.

It's reasonable. You're looking at around $40 for a 6.5 gallon glass carboy, or around $15 for a 6 gallon plastic food grade bucket with spigot. Throw in a few more bucks for airlocks and stoppers, etc. But if room is a factor, then yes, the bucket or carboy might not be an option. Honestly, I'm trying to figure out where the best place to put either a bucket or carboy is that has steady temperature, low light, and it out of the way. I am without garage or basement, so I'm going to have to get creative. That's one of the reasons I got the guy at work involved. He just built a new garage, and as long as it's temperature controlled, we're in titty city.

 

[GomezAddams]

I've been brewing for 20 years. The best book I've found is Papazian's homebrewing book. He cuts through a lot of the noise and tells you how to easily and cheaply make good beer.

My kit consists of a large (5 gallon?) soup pot for boiling wort, a plastic fermentor (with the two gallon point marked with a paint pen), airlock, 7 gallon bottling bucket with spigot installed, and a bottle capper. Oh, and I have about 50 old returnable pop bottles to hold the finished product.

I only do extract brews. I tried adding some grains to my extract brews a few times, but it wasn't worth the effort. I'm much too lazy to try a grain brew. Besides, lots of guys in the local brew club do grain brews and event though I'd never tell them, there isn't much of a difference.

I put two gallons of cold water in the fermentor. I boil 3 gallons of water add malt extract and about half my hop pellets. Remove the pot from heat when adding the malt - it WILL scorch VERY easily. About 40 minutes later, I add half the remaining hops. After 20 more minutes, I take the covered pot off the stove, and sit it in the stoppered kitchen sink. I fill the sink with cold water, and let the cold water continue to run at a drizzle. The warm water flows over the divider between sink basins. After about 30 minutes, I dump the wort into the fermentor and add two packs of dry yeast and the rest of the hops pellets [1].

I use about 3/4 cup of corn sugar to prime 5 gallons of beer.

I don't do any fancy sanitizers. No TSP or other fancy stuff. Before I start, I put about two cups of water in the fermentor and add a bit of bleach. I swish this around and let it drain.

Don't worry too much about the temperature. If you are comfortable, your beer will brew just fine.

Oh, and lastly, I brew differently from the way most people brew. I don't start off with a specific goal in mind when I plan a batch. I just find malt extracts and hops that sound interesting, and end up with whatever may happen. If I'm in the mood for a darker beer, I'll choose a darker malt. Lighter beer, lighter malt. I usually shoot for an a bitterness level of 10 alpha acid units. Up for more of a pale ale type brew, lower for an amber or stout. I find brewing much more enjoyable when the finished product is an adventure.

[1] This is called "dry hopping". Most books will tell you that the hops need to be sterilized before adding to the fermentor, but I've found it not needed. I love hops, and I always dry hop every batch I brew. I've yet to lose a batch.

 

[sunvalleylaw]

I started in the early nineties, and kept it up into the early '00s, when kids and responsibility caused me to take a couple years off. Brewed a couple batches over the last couple years. Will keep at it at about that pace for now. I am extract based, but like dry malts and enjoy specialty grains and other special ingredients depending on the brew.

I also started with, and still refer to the old Parpazian book, though I also look online now. I rarely follow any recipe exactly, but vary something based on what I think will taste good.