mizouse

I'm into homebrewing. As a hobby, for now. I've been making my own mead (honey wine) for about a year now and this week-end I'm finally making the venture into beer making. This is an adventure that I may not return from. But...

Does anyone have any recipies they might want to share?

PS - I'm planning on taking pictures and posting them if no one minds.

GM2

Lubbock, Texas Hub City Brewery Strauss & Braun Oatmeal Stout:

This recipe makes 2 gallons of beer, adjust your recipe accordingly if you make more.

2.8 lb pale malt extract
0.3 lb roasted barley
0.2 lb chocolate malt
0.1 lb crystal 70
0.1 lb munich
0.4 lb flaked oats
.5 oz chinook hops (bittering)
0.5 oz german spalt (aroma)
2 gallons of bottled or distilled water, or tap water. The water around here is full of calcium and magnesium, so I don't use it

yeast of your choice
priming sugar (corn sugar, also called dextrose) for priming at bottling

I guess you know how to brew? If not I'll post a tutorial about how to brew beer.

Empty_One

I don't know how, but I've always been facinated by brewing. I'd appreciate it if you would post your tutprial.

GM2

ok, here goes.

The first rule of brewing: Sterilization is very important. I use a bleach solution in the sink, although you can buy other types of sanitation chemicals if you want. First clean out the sink with soap and water and make sure there aren't any bits of food or anything in it. It doesn't take much bleach, and I probably use more than I need with around 1 cup of bleach per 2 gallons of water. Mix that around and put any utensils that are going to be touching the beer in the water to soak for at least 5 or 10 minutes. When you drain the water, it also leaves a clean surface to store your utensils. Be sure to rinse the utensils in clean water before putting them in the brew.


I brew 5 gallons of beer per batch, and for that you'll need at least a 4 gallon kettle to boil water in. Stainless steel is highly recommended because it won't rust or corrode and put bad flavors in your brew. A brew store will sell you one of these for about 40 bucks, but I saw one at United supermarket the other day for 15. I dunno if it was as high quality as this one is, though.


This is a 6.5 gallon glass carboy. A carboy is a fancy name for big glass jug. It is for fermenting the beer. Glass is better than a plastic jug, which you can also use, for a couple of reasons. First, it won't scratch easily, and bacteria can live in scratches even after cleaning. Second, if you make a dark beer in a plastic jug, and then want to make a light beer, you gotta scrub the hell out of your jug to get all the dark beer flavor off of it. Or buy a new one for light brews.


This is a pail in which to store ale. Notice the tap at the bottom. That is for bottling. After fermentation you will siphon beer from the glass fermentation tank into this plastic jug, then pour into bottles for another round of aging.


This is a bottling doodad... you can buy caps at a brew store and also bottles for it, or you can go pick up some Dos Equis at the liquor store and reuse those. The thing is, you gotta get pop-off bottles, not twist off, or this won't work. Alternatively, you can use plastic coke bottles, old 40 oz liquor bottles, or anything that is resealable to an airtight state.


This is priming sugar, also known as corn sugar or dextrose. It gives the yeast something to eat, which promotes body and alcohol content. The reason you don't use normal table sugar is that the yeasts will eat that and give the beer a very cidery taste. Normally you use this at bottling, but sometimes I use a little bit before fermentation too.


This blurry picture is of bittering hops. They go into the brew while it's boiling to give it a bitterness. There are also aromatic hops, which go in at the very end of the boil. I'll talk about those later.


A floating thermometer is handy for keeping the beer at 150 degrees while you are steeping your grains. You don't want it higher than that until later when you boil. The floating thermometer isn't strictly necessary, but handy.


This is malt extract. It's almost pure sugar, and a lot like molasses. It is food for the yeast to eat during fermentation.


Store your beer in a closet and make sure you have a way for extra carbon dioxide to escape. The thing sticking out of the plug is an airlock. It lets CO2 out without letting any oxygen in. A purple glittering hippie pillow to oversee your brew is optional, but recommended.


OK, here's the basic steps to brew beer. Your recipe may vary, but a lot of them are done this way. This is for a 5 gallon recipe.

You will go to the brew store and buy some grains, malt extract, yeast, hops, and anything else you need. Which grains you use depends on the kind of beer you are brewing. Grains give the water color and flavor, and also acts as food for the yeast to eat. Typical kinds are barley, wheat, oats, etc.

Put the grains into a cheesecloth. Bring 3 gallons of bottled water (or tap water if you want, but it might give your beer weird flavors) to 150 degrees. Steep the grains in the cheesecloth like it was tea for about 15 minutes. The water will take on a color depending on the grains you used.

After 15 minutes at 150 degrees, remove the grains and bring the water to a boil. When it reaches a rolling boil, remove it from the burner and pour in your malt extract, stirring constantly. It's very beneficial to have someone to help you at this point. After putting in the extract, put the pot back on the burner and bring back to a rolling boil. Add in your bittering hops and let it boil vigorously for 1 hour. During the last 5 minutes or so, add the aromatic (flavoring) hops if the recipe calls for any. Stir it a little bit, but the hops will dissolve in the hot water pretty easily.

What you've just made is called wort (pronounced 'wert') and amounts to immature beer.

After an hour of boiling, remove from heat and let it stand, covered, until the beer reaches about 120 degrees F. Add 2 gallons of cool water to your fermentation tank and pour the wort on top of it. Don't worry if some solids go into the tank; they'll settle out of solution. Shake the tank vigorously to aerate it, the yeast will appreciate it. Leave the tank until it is cool to the touch, then add your yeast. You can use liquid yeast, which cost about 6 bucks for one batch, or dry brewers yeast (don't use bread yeast like you get in the grocery store!) which costs about 99 cents for 1 batch. I've used the dry yeast with good results, but they tell me that the liquid yeast is very good. The act of putting yeast into the beer is called "pitching" the yeast.

Place the fermenter in a cool, dark place out of direct sunlight (I use the back bedroom closet) for 2 weeks, or as dictated by the recipe. Don't shake it or disturb it. It is normal for some gas to escape the tank while the yeast go to work. Sometimes even some liquid spews out, but don't worry about that other than to cover anything you don't want wet inside the closet.

After 2 weeks, use a siphoning tube and caning rack (a hard plastic tube so the siphoning tube won't curl up in the bottom of your fermenter and you can get all the beer) to drain the wort into your bottling jug. Mix up 3/4 cup of the priming sugar in 1 cup of boiling water and stir until dissolved, then add that to your bottling bucket.

Make sure you've sanitized some bottles with a bleach solution or something, and rinsed them thoroughly. They don't have to be 100% dry when you bottle, but make sure no bleach odor is present in them. Pour wort into the bottles to about 1 inch below their lip, then seal them tightly. Put the bottles into the closet for at least another 2 weeks, then chill and enjoy!

If you taste the wort at bottling, it should taste like flat, immature beer. Most of the carbonation occurs in the bottle part of the aging process. The solids that settle out of the fermentation tank are not bad for you, in fact they are full of B vitamins. So don't worry if some get into the bottles, though you might not want them in your glass.

Although the beer is ready to drink in 2 weeks, extra aging improves the quality of most beers. I had some that was in its bottle for 8 weeks and it was excellent, as good as I would expect from the Guiness tap at a bar.

mizouse

I finished the batch a little while ago. It is sitting in an Ale Pale in my closet. No activity yet, but that should happen in a few hours. I'm so excited.

Also, read the "New Complete Joy of Home Brewing" by Charlie Papazian. Great book. ISBN 0-380-76366-4

GM2

I have a book called Brewing Quality Beers by Byron Burch. Pardon my alliteration.

mizouse

GM2, that's a great tutorial you wrote up.

Empty_One

awesome tutorial GM2, thanks alot. You got me all excited to go out and try it now. It's probably going to be a bit before I try it, because I have to save up for the supplies, but I am definately going to try it.

One quich question, that I know the answer to varies, but about how much do you spend for ingredients when you make a batch?

mizouse

I spent about $30 for my first batch.

GM2

I think I spent about 27 dollars on ingredients for my last 5 gallon batch. I bought stuff for a 2 gallon batch and it was about 13 dollars. So count on 5-6 bucks per gallon you want to brew.

Tophat665

GM,
Good tutorial, but two things to add -
1) If you're making a light colored beer and want better clarity, 1/2 tsp of irish moss (from your friendly homebrew supplier) in the boil 10 minutes before the end will help precipitate a bunch of haze causing crud (protiens) out of the wort.
2) Worry about liquid coming out of the airlock. Well, not worry, but keep an eye on it. If you've got a 5 galon batch in a 5 gallon carboy, f'rinstance, you have to rig a hose from the neck of the carboy to a container half full of water - making sure the end of the hose stays under the water. If you've got solids in your fermenter - whole hops, oak chips, raspberries - you have to be real careful about this. My brew buddy did an IPA that got an oak chip lodged across the blowoff hose and blew the cork out and jetted foam up and across a 7 1/2 foot ceiling. Nasty business that. I've also had an imperial stout pop the top off an airlock 4 feet straight up.

One other thing - if you decant your wort into icy cold water while it is over 170°, you can run it through a sparging bag to get 99% of the crud out of it without fear of contamination, since 170 is pasturization temperature. Takes longer to cool enough to pitch the yeast if you do it that way though.

I just got a Doppelbock and a Munich Helles Lager cooked and in the buckets on Sunday, and they're bubbling away like gangbusters in the spare fridge - kicking off a ton of sulphur and dicetyl too - smells like a fart at a taffy pull in there at the moment (not unexpectedly). I'll give 'em a week of that in buckets and 50 - 55°, rack 'em to glass, rest them at room temp for a couple of days to blow off the last of the dicetyl and sulphur, then back into the fridge for two weeks at 45 - 50, rack again, then into the fridge again for a month at 33°. These will be silky smooth after a month of lagering. Might leave the doppelbock in the cold for 2 months.

My recipes and comments and labels used to be at The Gamma Hootch Brewing Co., but the site exceeded it's bandwith. I have a recipe for 70/ Scottish Ale on <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?s=&postid=776137#post776137">this thread</a> and I may post some more there or here.

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GM2

I've seen the Irish moss at the brew store but never bought any. I figure a tad bit of haziness gives the beer a bit of character.

As far as spewing while the tank is fermenting... hehe, I was sitting here one night listening to mp3's and kept swearing I was hearing a hissing sound. I thought maybe the cat had gotten trapped in the closet, so I opened it up and saw this:



I ran and got a towel to cover things up and everything is fine now.

I've never tried lagering; I don't really have a good place to keep the tank. My fridge is pretty full of regular food so I might have to wait a while on that. Someday I will, though.

Tophat665

<b>GM2</b>,
Lagering can be fairly easy and quite rewarding. The thing to do is let folks know you are on the look out for a spare fridge on the cheap. I managed to get two for free that way, and the one I use for lagering will maintain as low as 28&deg;, a fact I found out when I checked on a batch we had in a carboy in there and found the top third had frozen solid. Handy if I ever decide to make an eisbock (or an eismead... yum). Really fell on my feet there.

However, if you do get into lagering, make sure you have a place to put your fridge that is away from your living areas and well ventilated, because some of those German lager yeasts kick off a <i>ton</i> of sulphur. I mentioned earlier that the inside of the fridge smelled like a fart at a taffy pull, but now the whole damn garage smells like living in a hard boiled egg gone slightly off. It's pungent. I've had to light incense to cut it back enough that I can stand to <i>smoke</i> out there. The particular yeast this time is WLP833 German Bock Yeast. Be afraid of it.

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mizouse

I just bottled my first batch yesterday. I can't wait to taste it carbonated and chilled. I'm planning on doing a simple stout as my next batch.

duckduck

Very informative guide. Thanks.

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kenshee

Hi I'm planning on brewing myself and I'm wondering are hops really necessary? Thanks

Tophat665

If you use a hopped extract, no. If you use horehound or marsh mallow or scots pine or heather or grape tannin for bitterness to offset the malt sweetness, then no, but your beer won't stay as fresh as long since hops are a preservative. That's why IPAs are so hoppy; they had to endure a 10 month voyage mostly through the tropics to get to the people who drank them, so high alcohol and a ton of hops were the only way to keep it from turning to vinagre before it got there.

Do you not like hops? Try Froach heather ale or Kelpie seaweed ale. They make a scots pine ale too, but I don't recall the name.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

davik

Ok, i'm convinced, need to try making beer at some point in here; fortunately atleast some of the winemaking equipment should carry over (have gods only know how many 5 gallon glass carboys at home)

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Buzz

Love to home brew. Best of luck. I went to the mini kegs. tired of washing the bottles.

__________________
The Only BEER is a Cold BEER.

And a Single Malt will get ya every time.

Tophat665

Here's the one of the beers my buddy and I brewed last week:

Firewolf ESB
For 5 gallons:
<table border=0 cellpadding =10><tr><td valign=top><font face="trebuchet ms, verdana, arial" size="2"><b>Ingredients</b>
4 ¼ + lbs Extra Light or Pale DME
2 lbs Pale Ale Malt
⅛ lb Pilsner Malt
1 ¼ lbs 40º Lov. Crystal Malt
1 lb Flaked Wheat
⅛ lb Roast Barley
½ oz EKG (6.1%) Pellets @ T-60
¼ oz Northern Brewer (7.1%) Pellets @ T-60
⅔ oz EKG (6.1%) Pellets @ T-30
¾ oz EKG (6.1%) Pellets @ T-10
1 oz EKG (5.9%) Leaf @ T-2
½ tsp Irish Moss @ T-10
1 Vial WLP002 British Ale Yeast
6 gallons, 2 qts, 1 pt, Water

Target OG: 1.055
Target Bitterness: 41.33 IBU
</font></td><td valign=top><font face="trebuchet ms, verdana, arial" size="2"><b>Procedure</b>
* Add 1 gallon and 1 pt water to kettle, and bring to 160º
* Crush Grains and add, unbagged to water.
* Stabilize @ 152º and allow to sit for up to 75 minutes, making sure temp stays above 146º and stirring occasionally.
* Meanwhile, bring 3 gallons of water to 170º and hold.
* Line a colander with a sparging bag and place over brew kettle.
* Spoon grains into colander and pour remaining liquid over them.
* Slowly ladle the 170º water over the grains until all there is 3 gallons in the kettle.
* Discard grains.
* Bring to a boil and remove from heat.
* Stir in 4 lbs DME and test OG. Adjust to 1.092 with more DME.
* Return to a boil. Time for 60 minutes.
* Add hops at 60, 30, 10, and 2 minutes and Irish Moss 10 minutes from end of boil.
* Add 2 gallons cold water to the fermenter.
* Strain wort in.
* Top to 5 gallons
* Chill to 75º and pitch yeast.</font></td></tr></table>

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Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
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orange monkeyee

I made some ghetto wine one time, I took concorde grapes, smashed them into a plastic bottle, let them ferment and air out a little, strained it and had a nasty wine brew. I guess it would be a brew for homeless drunkards or something of that nature.

Tophat665

OK, another one:

<b>Monkey's Dunkel</b>
Munich style dark lager
Target OG: 1.061
Target FG: 1.015

5 1/2 Gallons Spring Water

8 lbs Liquid German Pils Extract (from MoreBeer.com, or 8lbs Ireks pale, or 6.8 lbs of extra light DME)

1/2 lb Caramunich Malt (70 Lov Crystal)
1/2 lb Chocolate Malted Rye
1 1/2 oz Tettnanger Pellets at T-60
1/2 oz Tettnanger Pellets at T-5
1/2 tsp Irish Moss @ T-10
1 vial WLP 838 Southern German Lager Yeast.
1 1/4 cup pale DME for Priming

This is an easy beer to brew, but the results have everything to do with how you ferment it, so you need a spare fridge with a temperature control to do it right.

1. Crack the grains and add to 1 gallon of cold water. Heat to a near boil (160 to 170°F) and allow to steep 20 to 30 minutes.
2. Strain to brewkettle and rinse grains with another gallon of near boiling water to get out all the malty goodness.
3. Heat brewkettle to a boil, remove from heat and stir in Malt Extract.
4. Return to heat, bring back to a boil, add the bittering hops (1 1/2 oz) and begin timing 60 minutes. Watch carefully for boilovers!
5. When 50 minutes have passed, add the Irish moss.
6. When 55 minutes have passed, add the flavoring hops (1/2 oz).
7. At the end of the boil, add 3 gallons cold water to a clean fermenter, and strain the wort into it.
8. Force Chill to 75° and pitch yeast.
9. Ferment for one week at 50-55°F.
10. Rack to a secondary and ferment for one week at room temperature (68-72°F) to drive off sulphur and dicetyl. This will remove oniony any butterscotch tastes from the beer.
11. Rack to a teritiary and ferment as cold as practial (down to 32°, but probably around 40° using a standard 'fridge) for a month to 6 weeks.
12. Bottle with DME. (If you're feeling saucy, boil the DME in a quart of water with a few pellet hops and skim the hot break. It might make a difference. Then again it might not.)
13. Condition for at least a month, more like 3.

This is one of the best beers we've ever made. The only negative feedback I ever got on it was that it might be too smooth. Long, cold lagering is what makes it happen.

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GM2

heyhey!

Maybe it's time we revived this article? I wanna know how everyone's brews turned out.

Myself, I got a kegerator for Christmas (man I love that girl!) and here are some shots from it:

<img src="http://members.cox.net/gmiscue/beer4.jpg">

<img src="http://members.cox.net/gmiscue/beer5.jpg">

OK, I didn't actually "get" the kegerator for Christmas, but she gave me the money to buy the parts for it and I built it myself. More rewarding that way It's actually really easy, if not exactly cheap; I'll put up a tutorial on that if anyone wants it.

Anyway, did anyone actually follow through on the claims that they were going to get into homebrewing? Got anything cool cooking, Tophat?

Tophat665

Actually, yeah. I have a couple of things on the rot at the moment.

Last weekend Will and I bottled the 5th incarnation of the Up All Night Extra Stout (with Espresso!), and racked our Imperial Steam Beer (or California Imperial Beer, if you prefer) - that one is plagued by a heaping helping of hops gunk in the fermenter, so it needs to be racked about four times to come mostly clean.

Last night, I racked our M&uuml;nchner Dunkel and Doppelbock (Monkey's Dunkel and Defenestrator, respectively). Unfortunately I did the primary ferment too cold (one of the buckets I used was too wide for the temp controlled fridge, so they had to go in the big fridge at 40&deg; ) so they're still very sweet and I am not sure how to proceed.

For those of you who do lagers, I normally do a week 50-55&deg;, then rack, then three days at 68-72&deg; to blow off the diacetyl, then two weeks at 40-45&deg;, rack again, and then lager for a month or two at 33-37&deg;. These guys have had a week around 40&deg;, and I am wondering whether if it's too early in the process for a diacetyl rest to do any good.

What else? We recently did the first IPA in 4 years to come out well (Invisible Duck), and a very nice (if slightly pale to my eye) Dunkelweizen with just the perfect amounts of caramel and clove, and banana esters (young as it is it's very remeniscent of Bananas Foster).

I also still have three meads that have been in the carboys for over a year, a straight up orange blossom with Montpelier yeast (still bubbling away, with some toasted oak chips in there for character), a straight up clover with champagne yeast (just about finished - threw som oak chips and a couple of cloves in there), and a super complex clover honey/peach melomel with vanilla beans, saffron, cardamom and allspice (which tastes like lighter fluid and isopropyl at the moment. I may need to dilute it a bit.)

Coming up, we have a smoked beer competition, and since neither Will nor I care for Rauchbier, we're thinking about doing a smoked porter and a peat smoked Scottish Ale (80 shilling).

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

Tophat665

** Removed and posted in <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?p=1550106&posted=1#post1550106">Homebrewing</a> **

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.