Has anyone here ventured into the world of home brewing?

[The Wayfarer]

I've been reading up on it a lot lately and this is something I would like to get into. After ordering plenty of tasting flights at brewpubs around the country, I'm just very bored with what I keep seeing -- always the same styles with varying success in interpretation. There needs to be some sort of progression and unique creation (and not just going "HOP CRAAAAAAAZY!"). Those certainly exist, but they're just few and far between.

Beyond that, it just seems enjoyable and rewarding to brew your own beer.

What I'm particularly interested in at the moment is equipment. I want to start out the right way and not with some cheap-o kit. A kit is fine, but I want one with more than just a modicum of quality. I want something that will last me awhile and capable of great results. So any recommendations? How about where to buy ingredients from?

 

[Piobaire]

It has been at least 15 years, but at one time I was a fairly active home brewer. Some things I found:

Stubbies pour off best (less turbulence, less yeast poured out)
You can "sterilize" your bottles in a dish washer with the "extra hot" setting
Get a good bottle capper
Do a two stage ferment, one in a big plastic bucket with air lock, then rack off to a glass carboy.
Do not use sugar, glucose chips, etc. Use dry malt instead.
Do a boil of your wort.
Infuse hops in at least two stages (one to bitter the beer, one to scent the beer)
Exposure of the wort to air = bad.
Bottle age the beer the prescribed time as a minimum.
Cleanliness is next to godliness, godliness = good beer.

I am sure there's been a ton of new things since my time, but hops pellets were grand. Malt syrup + dry malt, could make good beer. We made a "wort chiller" out of copper tubing and a garden hose. A few feet of garden house to screw onto a facet, several feet of copper tubing coiled with about a 12" radius, garden hose out to the sink. You immerse the tubing in the hot wort and run cold tap water through the tubing. Cools wort like a charm.

 

[Mbogo]

I, too, brewed my own beer many years ago, but with a simpler technique than Piobaire describes.

I had the cheap plastic bucket kit, re-used Grolsch (sp?) bottles I bought second hand from a beer store, used a can of malt syrup of some sort, some pounds of sugar, yeast, I guess. It brewed in a cold downstairs closet that it turned out was the perfect temperature for lager. Took three weeks.

When it was done, a friend and I each tried a bottle, a little nervous. We were stunned. It was the best beer either of us had ever tasted until that point. The closest thing I have had since was when I had my first Sam Adams Lager. It was like deja vu. (This was before the micro brews were common.)

It was so easy and cheap (like under $20 for five gallons of the stuff) that after my friends and I finished off the first bucket, I got busy on the second, third, and maybe fourth before I gave up. Each batch after that first one went sour for some reason- probably an air leak in the bucket or some other way for a bug to get in. I always thought I'd get a proper glass carboy system, but never got around to it.

It seems like it's really easy to make great beer if you are obsessive about sterility.

My recommendation is to keep it simple, at least at first.

Good luck!

David

 

[Ludeykrus]

I homebrew a lot. I have become a bit of a beer snob because of it.

Piobaire hit a lot of main points. Cleanliness is king. Then again, I do main fermentations in large plastic buckets and haven't had a bad batch yet, so ....... as they say when something goes wrong, "Relax, and have a homebrew!".

I do 5 gallon batches of extract/partial mash brews. I used to bottle in used Guiness, Newcastle, and cheap mexican soda bottles, but now I've stepped up to a mini-keg system.

 

[RedLantern]

Piobaire pretty much got it right. Of note- the best set up is still going to make crap beer if you dont keep everything clean.

I always liked using glass carboys just because you can see the crazy fermentation going on.

I also agree with Ludeykrus in that a partial mash is best to start out with because you can get some of the character of a full grain brew without the added equipment, technicality and mess of a full grain project.

The addition of a wort chiller can improve the quality of your brew so long as you are otherwise clean in your operation - lowering the amount of time the wort sits around (adding in wild yeasts and bacteria) before you pitch yeast is definately a good thing.

I have to disagree with Piobaire in that I think the use of adjuncts, honey in particular can be useful to add gravity to a beer without the usual corresponding color and body.
Good Luck!

 

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by RedLantern

I have to disagree with Piobaire in that I think the use of adjuncts, honey in particular can be useful to add gravity to a beer without the usual corresponding color and body.
Good Luck!

I can see honey, as it will add character and maybe malto-dextroses (can't remember if honey has them or not and too lazy to Google). When I first started, all the recipes were basically add regular cane sugar to malt syrup. Just replacing the sugar with dry malt made a world of difference in the body and character. I guess I should say to use adjuncts with a purpose and with discretion, not as an entire replacement that which makes beer great: malt.

You can try other things too, like berries (blue or straw in light beers are great). I did one recipe where I tossed some hot peppers into a brown ale for the boil stage. Not many, just enough for a tingle in the back of the throat when drinking. Get creative.

 

[shoreman1782]

Where do you live? There's a lot of homebrew shops around the country, and the guys who run them can be pretty hardcore. They're not going to sell you a Mr. Beer kit. I would recommend going to one if you have one within a reasonable drive and talking to the dudes abotu equipment before buying.

I brewed three batches in college before a drunk dickhead wandered into my basement and knocked over my glass carboy.

If you boil indoors, be ready for your house to smell like a brewery for awhile. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Teacher]

There are also a lot of misconceptions about brewing that are floating around. Go read www.homebrewtalk.com and become a member (I'm there). For example, while I do generally practice two-stage fermentation, a secondary really isn't necessary. It's been found that beer can be left on the yeast cake for months without any problems, and it clarifies just fine if left this way. Some brewers will say that autolysis will result, but it's a myth. Autolysis, which causes some off flavors, is virtually unknown in homebrewing.

Cleanliness is KING! In actuality, infections (what brewers call contaminations) are very rare, but there's absolutely no use in chancing it. In fact, even if you do get an infection, don't throw the beer out. Continue with it as planned and bottle. It might turn out quite good. There is an entire category of sour beers and, of course, the lambic family, and an infected beer might turn out like one or the other. If after the bottled beer still doesn't taste good after a few months in the bottle, then toss it. All you really lost was the little bit of time you spent bottling.

Call your city's utilities office and ask them about water qualities, particulary the sulfur, chlorine, chloride, and calcium/calcium sulfate contents. Then compare these numbers against numbers of the cities where the styles you are brewing originated. It's cheap and easy to alter the levels, and it can make quite a difference in the beer.

But most importantly, do what Charlie Pappazian has told us all to do, which is:

Originally Posted by Ludeykrus

I"Relax, and have a homebrew!".


Well, close. It's RDWHAHB ("Relax, don't worry, and have a home brew!"). In reality, it's actually pretty tough to actually screw up a beer.

 

[Teacher]

Originally Posted by Piobaire

I can see honey, as it will add character and maybe malto-dextroses (can't remember if honey has them or not and too lazy to Google). When I first started, all the recipes were basically add regular cane sugar to malt syrup. Just replacing the sugar with dry malt made a world of difference in the body and character. I guess I should say to use adjuncts with a purpose and with discretion, not as an entire replacement that which makes beer great: malt.

I use honey, but people who do should be prepared for a longer primary for some reason. Table suger is actually fine IF (1.) it is boiled in the wort, where the acids will convert it to invert sugar, and (2.) it does not make up more than about 20 percent of the fermentables (the percentage changes depending upon whom one asks). The finish is drier than an all-malt because it does not leave behind destrines like malt does. Corn sugar, of course, works well. I just made a porter with a little molasses -- which was common in early American beers -- and it is y-u-m-m-y. Maple syrup, flake maize, rice syrup, and fruit juices are also adjuncts brewers use, though I don't.

 

[Ludeykrus]

I have used normal table sugar simply stirred into the wort before, and have had absolutely no problems whatsoever. Not saying there aren't any, but I haven't noticed a difference between using inverted sugars or non boiled 'normal' sugars.

I second the 20% of fermentables not being straight sugar. Adding sugar-heavy addtives (sugar, honey, etc) will lighten the body of the beer while adding alcohol. This can make for more alcoholic 'bite' and a lighter bodied beer than expected. After ~20%, it also can add an unpleasant dry 'cidery' taste. I buy from and post over on NorthernBrewer.com 's site, and they claim that this is a myth, but I (at least up until now) have seen otherwise.

Shoreman, that is why I don't use glass carboys! They are large, heavy, and EXTREMELY easy to break when full. And harder to clean than a bucket!

 

[Dewey]

Can you cook? If you can't cook, you can't home brew. Most of the work is cooking work, and it requires that kind of experience to appreciate the finer details of beer making.

 

[The Wayfarer]

Originally Posted by Dewey

Can you cook? If you can't cook, you can't home brew. Most of the work is cooking work, and it requires that kind of experience to appreciate the finer details of beer making.

Yep, I can cook just fine. I've watched a lot of tutorial videos on homebrewing and, while the process may not be necessarily straight forward, it seems easy enough as long as proper procedures are followed. Really, if anything, it seems more akin to baking than cooking. You know, more of an exact science.

 

[The Wayfarer]

Are any permits or licenses necessary for selling beer to local markets and bars? I would assume so. If I manage to create a particularly compelling recipe, bottling and having it distributed locally is something I'd be interested in later pursuing.

 

[Ludeykrus]

I know to sell actual alcoholic product requires a license. Gifting is legal, I believe. Selling just the recipe would be legal, as well.

 

[lawyerdad]

Originally Posted by Ludeykrus

I know to sell actual alcoholic product requires a license. Gifting is legal, I believe. Selling just the recipe would be legal, as well.

What he said. ^^ Alcohol distribution and sales are heavily regulated, and in many locales bars and restaurants are restricted in terms of who they can buy from.