Homebrew
 

Any homebrewers out in the forum? I'm going to brew up my first batch this weekend and I'm really excited.

Any tips and recipes would be awesome.

Thanks,
-nogood

Yikes. Homebrew brings back memories from early highschool of stealing my friends dad's homebrew wine and chugging bottle after bottle. Ugh. Those were good times. Many a party were thrown at the expense of the homebrew.

My only tip would be keep it away from your kids if you have any :p

I homebrewed one batch. Nasty shiat and I followed all the instructions. Sorry no help here. Buys budweiser.

clean all your parts and pieces...

be patient

This will be the hardest part. I know it'll be several weeks before it's drinkable. But damn, I'm anxious to get a taste.

A website devoted to homebrewing:
http://www.bodensatz.com/
I don't know much about the subject personally, other than I've drank a good homebrew or two. =)

Don't use a vacant dorm room as your laboratory.

I've been making homebrewed beer for years.

I find that it takes me about two hours spread over six or seven days to brew and bottle a batch from start to finish that yields 48 half-litre bottles.

In other words, it's dead easy and not time-consuming at all.

The Cooper's beer kits from Australia are a solid choice if you're just getting into beer-making. You can snag 'em at virtually any supermarket. They're relatively cheap (under 20 bucks), easy to get going, and they'll give you a good feel for the homebrew process.

What gear do you have?

For equipment, all the items you really need are these:

--a five gallon food-grade plastic bucket
--a five gallon food-grade plastic carboy with a stopper and airlock
--a sheet of plastic to cover the bucket, with an elastic to keep it tight
--a siphon hose with a clamp on the end
--a hydrometer
--a plastic testing cylindar for taking hydrometer readings of the beer
--a plastic gravy baster for drawing out samples for testing
--a long-handled ladle
--six or eight dozen beer bottles with caps. (For ease of use, I prefer plastic beer bottles with screw-on caps. When I need these, I buy 'em from a local U-brew outfit.)

After five or six batches, you'll have the gear paid for.

I don't do beer yet but I do homebrew my own mead (can't find any commercially worth a damn), a apple cider based alcohol called Apple Jack by the guy who came up with the recipe and my own chocolate cherry cordial. I have to second far_side's comments though about it being easy with a low time investment once you get the swing of it. I am moving on to beer this winter, just to see if I can make anything there that will be drinkable.

I've been brewing since '98. I am a stalwart in my local homebrewing club. There have been a couple of threads on this already, though.

<a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=62535">Recipe for Traditional German Hefeweizen</a>

<a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=3917">This thread</a> has lots of good advice on how to go about it, and recipes for Oatmeal Stout, ESB, and Municher Dunkel Lager

<a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/member.php?u=1803">Ruprex</a> did a great series of threads on homebrewing from start to finish. <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=44795">Part 1</a>, <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=45661">Part 2</a>, <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=46714">Part 3</a>

Here's the <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=18460">Homebrew How-To</a> Thread, including recipes for Scottish Ale and Redneck Wine.

Finally, here's my <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=34316">Homebrew Labels</a> Thread

<a href="http://www.beertown.org/homebrewing/index.html">Beertown.org</a> is the Association of Brewers Page, of which the American Homebrew Association is part. Good stuff here. Here's their <a href="http://www.beertown.org/homebrewing/recipe.asp">Recipe Database</a>.

<a href="http://gotmead.org/">GotMead.org</a> is the equivalent site for mead making.

<a href="http://brewery.org/">The Brewery</a> is another excllent all purpose homebrewing site. It has links to <a href="http://brewery.org/brewery/gambmug/gambmug.shtml">The Gambrinus Mug</a>, and <a href="http://brewery.org/brewery/cm3/CatsMeow3.html">Cat's Meow 3</a> Recipe Collections, as well as many other useful data.

Happy brewing!

Tophat665,

Not to hijack this thread and turn it into something else, but as someone new to this board, thanks for listing all of the above homebrew links in one place.

Since I'm seriously considering doing a "from-scratch" batch of beer again myself after years of using convenient beer kits, I appreciate the info.