Home Brew

BigRedBuster

BigRedBuster

International Man of Mystery
OK.....In recent years, I have gotten more and more into minor brews to the point that I really don't even like the normal Bud Light or Busch Light anymore. They are like just drinking water.

So....I have been thinking about trying to brew my own and start a new hobby.

Last night I was reading at www.howtobrew.com. Sorry, for some reason that site is blocked at work so I can't make a link. The site was extremely informational to someone like me just thinking about starting.

Are there any home brewers here? Any advice for a first timer? How expensive is this to get into?

 
I'm also looking to get into this over the winter and talked to some friends who home brew around the country. Most mention midwest supplies as a good place to start and then focus on local ingredients.

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/

They have 2 starter kits one being 80 and the other 100. I'm hoping to get money towards or the actual $100 kit for Christmas and start brewing in the new year. Would be interesting to keep this thread up and discuss how things are going.

 
I'm going to start brewing after Christmas, too. I did a Mr. Beer kit a long time ago but I'm expecting one of the midwest supplies kits.

There are tons of home brew forums with good advice . . . and Patriot Homebrew Supply in Elkhorn seems pretty awesome.

Should be interesting.

 
[SIZE=13.63636302948px]I know there are several posters who make home brew. [/SIZE][SIZE=13.63636302948px]And it s[/SIZE]eems like there was a home brewing thread here a while back. Maybe a couple years or so. It's probly time for a new one if no one remembers it.

 
I home brew, been doing it for a few years now, homebrewtalk.com is THE best board for information on how to brew beer. Thousands upon thousands of threads on every different thing you can imagine. My best advice, read John Palmer's book "How to brew" This will get you going on the right track immediately and if you follow it your first beer will be a decent one. The biggest issue is the directions with the kits you buy aren't necessarily the best way to go about brewing beer. Timing of hops, cooling temperatures, etc. are usually modified by most home brewers. Sanitizing is a huge part of home brewing and most do not know how clean the process has to be so the beer doesn't get infected. Any questions you have, just ask, I'll do my best to answer them, but I'm by no means the most experienced brewer in the world. Sanitization and temperature control are key to a good beer.

Beers I've made:

American Wheat

Black Lager

Pumpkin Ale

Saison

Pilsner

Several others I can't remember off hand, don't go the Mr. Beer route, you can make a much better beer by buying a home brew kit from your local home brew store or from one of the online stores. Midwest is a site I use frequently, Austin home brew supply is another. Start with the box kits and move up from there if you want to, i.e. all grain.

 
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Are there some beers that are easier to brew than others? I would like to try something similar to a killians Irish Red.

 
Myself and my brother just bought a kit from northern brewery. We threw down about $200 for the kit, kettle, etc. They give you your first brew free. After that its about $30-$50 for a beer. Which is pretty good because you get about 5 gallons of beer for every brew.

We are have brewed two beers. Both brown ales. The first one we did was their "caribou slobber" kit. We had some problems because we didn't watch the video they provide with the brewing kit and had a boil over when putting in one of the hops packet. And we had a blow off when the yeast was fermenting. But when we tried it, it turned out better than we thought it would. We followed the recipe to a T and added three hops, had it in primary fermenter for two weeks, secondary fermenter for two weeks and bottled for two weeks. Im not a big IPA fan and with all the hops, it kinda tastes like an IPA, so it isn't my favorite, but the finished product turned out like it should.

We also brewed a honey brown ale that is bottled and will be ready to drink next week. We followed the recipe pretty much word for word with this one too, except added a little extra honey. Hey, everyone loves honey, right? Damn, Im excited to try this one. We had no problems whatsoever. We were very careful when adding the hop packet to this one and no boil over occurred. The yeast fermented perfectly and we had no problems transferring or bottling.

But like BRI said, make sure you sanitize correctly and watch the boil the entire time to make sure it doesn't spill over the kettle. Once you get the brewing process down, you can change recipes and add ingredients if you want. Its fun! The worst part is definitely bottling, but the initial boiling of the wort is fun!

http://www.northernbrewer.com/ This is the website we got all of our stuff at and you can buy recipes from this website also.

 
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BigRedBuster said:
Are there some beers that are easier to brew than others? I would like to try something similar to a killians Irish Red.
Click to expand...
Ales are easier because they can ferment at room temperature. Lager recipes require cold fermentation, so if you have someplace to store your fermenter at about 40 degrees, you can brew lagers.

 
Po Belini said:
Myself and my brother just bought a kit from northern brewery. We threw down about $200 for the kit, kettle, etc. They give you your first brew free. After that its about $30-$50 for a beer. Which is pretty good because you get about 5 gallons of beer for every brew.

We are have brewed two beers. Both brown ales. The first one we did was their "caribou slobber" kit. We had some problems because we didn't watch the video they provide with the brewing kit and had a boil over when putting in one of the hops packet. And we had a blow off when the yeast was fermenting. But when we tried it, it turned out better than we thought it would. We followed the recipe to a T and added three hops, had it in primary fermenter for two weeks, secondary fermenter for two weeks and bottled for two weeks. Im not a big IPA fan and with all the hops, it kinda tastes like an IPA, so it isn't my favorite, but the finished product turned out like it should.

We also brewed a honey brown ale that is bottled and will be ready to drink next week. We followed the recipe pretty much word for word with this one too, except added a little extra honey. Hey, everyone loves honey, right? Damn, Im excited to try this one. We had no problems whatsoever. We were very careful when adding the hop packet to this one and no boil over occurred. The yeast fermented perfectly and we had no problems transferring or bottling.

But like BRI said, make sure you sanitize correctly and watch the boil the entire time to make sure it doesn't spill over the kettle. Once you get the brewing process down, you can change recipes and add ingredients if you want. Its fun! The worst part is definitely bottling, but the initial boiling of the wort is fun!

http://www.northernbrewer.com/ This is the website we got all of our stuff at and you can buy recipes from this website also.
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Brewer tip on the boil overs, put a fan on the kettle blowing just across the top of it and your boil won't boil over. Boil overs suck to clean up!

To answer the question about what's easiest, Wheats and Ales will be easiest as long as they don't have a bunch of additional things to add, vanilla, coffee beans, etc. Ales can be fermented at room temperature, but you need to pay attention to the temperature of the beer, not your room temp. If the temp is too high in your beer while it's fermenting, the yeast will throw off flavors and you won't like the finished product. Saison's like to be fermented at a higher temp, but it all depends on your yeast strain. Find the manufacturer name on your yeast package and go to their website for the ideal fermentation temp, never trust the directions.

 
MLB 51 said:
Po Belini said:
BigRedBuster said:
Are there some beers that are easier to brew than others? I would like to try something similar to a killians Irish Red.
Click to expand...
Ales are easier because they can ferment at room temperature. Lager recipes require cold fermentation, so if you have someplace to store your fermenter at about 40 degrees, you can brew lagers.
Click to expand...
Don't go messing up Darin's off season.
Click to expand...
Not Darin, Parl Celini my other, less famous brother
default_biggrin.png


 
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Po Belini said:
MLB 51 said:
Po Belini said:
BigRedBuster said:
Are there some beers that are easier to brew than others? I would like to try something similar to a killians Irish Red.
Click to expand...
Ales are easier because they can ferment at room temperature. Lager recipes require cold fermentation, so if you have someplace to store your fermenter at about 40 degrees, you can brew lagers.
Click to expand...
Don't go messing up Darin's off season.
Click to expand...
Not Darin, Parl Celini my other, less famous brother
default_biggrin.png
Click to expand...
I don't give a sh#t about him.
default_biggrin.png
Listen to BRI. He knows how to cook that junk.
default_biggrin.png


 
Question on the kits.

So, I'm assuming that if I would go spend $100 - $200 on a kit, I get all the equipment I would need also. So, when I want to brew another batch, all I would need to do is get the ingredients....correct?

 
BigRedBuster said:
Question on the kits.

So, I'm assuming that if I would go spend $100 - $200 on a kit, I get all the equipment I would need also. So, when I want to brew another batch, all I would need to do is get the ingredients....correct?
Click to expand...
Basically yes, you just need to make sure you have something to brew the beer in as well.

Basic kit: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/brewing-starter-kit-1.html

Then a burner: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/the-dark-star-burner.html

And a brew kettle: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/tall-boy-brew-kettles.html

Those are the basic things and you don't have to get those items in particular, just giving you examples. To cool the wort/beer you can put it in the bathtub with a bunch of ice and cold water around it, but it does take 45 minutes to an hour to cool it down to "pitching" temperature for the yeast, which is a long time. The longer the wort sits before pitching, the more chance of issues occurring. Ice is really damned expensive too when you buy it from the gas station so in the long run you're saving yourself money by buying one out of the gate.

So, I use an immersion chiller: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/compact-8-copper-immersion-wort-chiller.html


If you do decide to make the beer on your stove just know that you can't really get 5 gallons of beer boiling to the point you need it if it's an electric stove. The burners make the process quicker and easier and that way if you have a boil over you aren't trying to get the sticky wort off of your stove, it's really damn sticky stuff.

Be careful with those floating thermometers as well, I broke one in my pumpkin beer last fall and had to screen the beer out to make sure I got all the glass. They are food grade so no, they don't have mercury in them, but it really thinned the beer out and took the body away. It's like drinking orange water which really sucks because it was going to be amazing!

Another brewers tip: While pouring in the malt extract make sure you are stirring at the same time or it'll stick to the bottom and burn and cause flavor issues in the beer.

 
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Had one of the Honey Brown Ale beers that we brewed about 6 weeks ago tonight. 13 days of bottling before we cracked one open. Perfect carbonation and taste. Holy crap was it good!

 
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