Homebrewing

[gar1976]

Hey all-
Been brewing my own beer for the last eight months, and was wondering if anyone has some good recipes to share, or sites with some.
Thanks
gar

[cheerios]

apolgise for the shuffling, hope you get some good answers!

[platypus]

I started brewing my own beer about 12 years ago after a friend in Australia introduced me to the concept.
I haven't ventured into my own recipes yet.
I mostly use <b>Coopers</b> brew kits imported from Australia and generally available locally or through the net.

I personally prefer the dark stout which is similar to Guiness, but I also like the lager, bitter, and classic dark.

[JStrider]

hmmm... almost nobody uses the community kitchen in my dorm... mebbe i should start brewing in there

[gar1976]

Tried the kits for a while, doing it from scratch now. Much better, IMHO.

Here's a site with plenty of recipes I've been using.

http://hbd.org/recipator/

(pardon my poor html skills).

ps - no prob about the shuffles.

[Adog]

Full grain is the way to go also...... much beter than extract.

[briana]

Dude, been brewing for about 10 years and the best guys I've worked with are up at Windriver Brewing company up in Minnesota. They have great recipes, great customer service (they'll ship anywhere in a heartbeat) good quality and their website is easy to work with.
Their website is windriverbrew.com

Their beer of the month club is the way to go, you get to try new recipes monthly for a pretty reasonable price.

[Brewmaniac]

Originally posted by gar1976
Tried the kits for a while, doing it from scratch now. Much better, IMHO.

Here's a site with plenty of recipes I've been using.

http://hbd.org/recipator/

I must agree with gar1976 The Beer Recipator has some great recipes and tons to choose from.

I order all my supplies from Northern Brewer,
http://www.northernbrewer.com/
They have everything from kits to grains & hops.

Happy brewing all! Cheers

[tinytim]

Good discussion board here.



http://www.brewhut.com/forums/

[Tophat665]

I've been brewing for about 5 years now. I find that I don't want to spend the time or the money to do an all grain right (though I do get about about a 60% extract efficiencies form a mini-mash set up with a colander and a sparging bag over the brewkettle, sparging with a ladle). However, I don't generally like to use kits - I like tio fiddle with the recipies it ways the condensed beer in a can doesn't really allow.

I did have a site with all my recipes up, but I started linking from here and Fark, and it quickly sucked up all the bandwidth and got booted, more's the pity.

However, I do have some recipes on my computer. Here's one:

<h2>Roughlie Guthrie Scottish Ale 70/</h2>
Brewed: 12/8/02 OG: 1.057
Bottled: 12/20/02 FG: 1.020

<b>Ingredients </b>
<ul>
<li>5 1/2 gal Bottled Water
(Dannon Sparkletts for Chemistry Reference) </li>
<b>Malt Extract </b>
<li>5 1/2 lbs Munton's Light DME </li>
<b>Grains </b>
<li>1/2 lb Breiss 40L Crystal </li>
<li>1 lb Munton's (I think) 80L Crystal</li>
<li>1/4 lb Weyermann Rauch Malt </li>
<li>1/2 lb Breiss Chocolate Malt </li>
<li>1/2 lb Breiss Biscuit Malt </li>
<b>Hops </b>
<li>1 oz EKG Pellets @ T-75 </li>
<li> 1/2 oz EKG Pellets @ T-10 </li>
<b>Additives </b>
<li>1 oz Gypsum (2 tbsp)</li>
<li> 1/2 tsp Irish moss </li>
<b>Yeast </b>
<li>1 vial WPL028 Endinburgh Ale </li>
<b>Priming </b>
<li>3/4 cup Corn Sugar </li>
</ul>
<b>Procedure </b>
<ol>
<li>Add 2 gallons water to kettle. </li>
<li>Add gypsum and stir. </li>
<li>Crack grains and put in 2 large hop bags. </li>
<li>Put bags in water and heat to 155F (In reality b/w 146 & 158) </li>
<li>Hold for 30 minuted then raise temp to 158F (b/w 156 and 165) </li>
<li>Hold for 10 minutes, then raise temp to 170F for a minute or two and remove and discard grains. </li>
<li>Bring wort to a boil, remove from heat, and stir in DME. </li>
<li>Return to a boil, and time 75 minutes. </li>
<li>Add hops at 75 and 10 minuted before the end of the boil </li>
<li>Add Irish moss with the second batch of hops. </li>
<li>Add 3 gallons cold water to bucket and strain in hot wort. </li>
<li>Cap and lock and allow to chill to ambient temperature overnight. </li>
<li>Shake vigourously for 5 minutes (count of 300. Nowadays, I'd use a sanitized eggbeater for this) </li>
<li>Pitch yeast directly from vial (left out on top of fermenter overnight). </li>
<li>Ferment 8 days at 67-70F (ambient temp in my kitchen in winter) </li>
<li>Rack to glass and allow to settle for 3 days (fermentation was complete at this point). </li>
<li>Bottle with 3/4 cup corn sugar. </li>
<li>Let age up to 9 months at room temp, longer at cellar temp, longer still refrigerated. </li>
</ol>

No, I'm not actually that anal retentive, but, if you want to fiddle with the recipe, it's best to know 1) exactly where it started and 2) that it produced a damn good beer. I had some brewers who regularly win prizes for their homebrews ask me for the recipe.

[Tophat665]

If you like that one, let me know and I'll write up some others.

As for creating your own recipes, the best tool have found for that is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060952164/qid=1068209188/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-8602071-8900966?v=glance&s=books">Designing Great Beers</a>, which has all the math you need and good pointers toward the art too.

[Paeder]

if anybody here is young and poor and looking to get drunk for cheap, i would recommend brewing wine. you can do it pretty easily by using grape juice, sugar, water, yeast and some gallon jugs. look for exact procedure/ingredients on google or something.

[Tophat665]

True, dat. Kosher grape juice, say 2 gallons, half a pound of sugar (or, better yet, 3 pounds of honey, preferably orange blossom) and 3 gallons water, with two packets of fleischmans yeast awakened for 15 minutes in 100 degree water. (Of course, if you can find good dry wine yeast on the ineternet or locally, do use that instead. It will make a world of difference and only costs about a buck a pack.) If you want to do this, though, do yourself a favor and get all of the water into a big kettle first, and bring it to a boil, then cut off the heat and pour the grape juice and sugar (and honey if you want to spring for the $10 that 3 lbs of good honey will cost you) and let it sit at 160 degrees or more (add more heat if it drops below) for at least a half an hour. This'll kill off any bugs in the juice and honey. Then take the kettle and put a lid on it and stick it in your sink or cooler or bathtub or kiddie pool, throw a couple 5 or 8 lbs of ice into the tub (not the kettle!) and run some water into the ice. Let it sit until the temp is down below 80 degrees, then pour it into your fermenting vessels.

Now, couple of things about fermenters: know you that yeast generates a ton of carbon dioxide, and that some strains also kick off a bunch of suphur. This means two things: 1) if you cap your fermenter tightly and do not leave a way for the gas to get out <b>IT <I>WILL</I> <FONT COLOR=ORANGE>EXPLODE</FONT></B>, and you will have the brewer's unique joy of getting to use a mop on the fuckin' ceiling. 2) If the place where you have your fermenting wine starts to smell like a farting contest at a taffy pull, fret not: that's the yeast making suphur. Let it run it's course unless you want your wine to taste like boiled onions.

Because a capped fermenter can explode, I strongly reccommend that you spring for an airlock or two and aa brew pail or carboy and funnel if you're going to do this more than once. Any clean, cappable, odor free, food grade plastic bucket will do for a brewing pail. go to the hardware store and get a rubber grommet, a short length of pipe that'll fit through that grommet, and about 4' of vinyl tubing that'll fit over that pipe (and a little hose clamp if the tube doesn't fit tightly) Drill a hole in the bucket lid to fit the grommet, wet the pipe and slide it halfway through, put the hose over it (clamp it if it's loose), and stick the other end of the hose in a half full container of water (I use a tupperware pitcher, but a mason jar or milk jug'll do so long as it's clean). This'll make sure that more or less the only microbe eating the juice and shitting the booze will be the yeast you put in.

Think I'm concerned about bugs? Get the wrong kind in there and you won't be able to drink the stuff. Before you put anything into your bucket (or carboy or jugs or whatever) mix up a batch of bleach water, 2 oz regular or 1 oz concentrated bleach to 5 gallons warm water, and let that sit in contact with anything that is going to come into contact with your wine for at least a half hour. then rinse the bejeezus out of it until you can only smell tap water.

If you do decide to ferment in regular jugs of some sort, remember not to fill them all the way up: some yeasts form a bigass head of foam when they get to workin', and do something to keep the bugs out. Punching a hole in the cap and stuffing it with vodka soaked gauze or cotton wool will work. (of course, if you have vodka, you're not going to bother with this involved crap.) Don't use rubbing alcohol. Kitty Du Cocktails are not what you're trying for here.

After you get your young wine (it's technically called <i>must</i>) into your fermenters, but before you cap them, sprinkle your yeast onto a cup of 100 degree water and let it soak for 15 minutes. Stir it gently with a spoon (bleach and rinse the spoon first) and divide it equally among your fermenters.

Last step before you set it in a quiet, dark place and forget about it for a week: shake the heck out of the fermenters. The idea is to get the must saturated with oxygen for the yeast to breath. I shake my beer (or use a bleached egg beater on it) of a count of three hundred before capping it.

In about a month, decant it into whatever you're going to drink it from (bleach and rinse the serving vessels), leaving the sediment behind.

Enjoy your redneck wine.

[alt0220bergeek]

Originally posted by JStrider
hmmm... almost nobody uses the community kitchen in my dorm... mebbe i should start brewing in there

You should. My friends and I did, and it was GREAT. Start with the easy levels of home brew and work your way up to using all grain and hops that you steep yourself. Heck you can even "harvest" yeast from some beers to use in yours.

A tip for the novice, ask the brew supply store about "spanish moss" (I think that is what it was called). It will help clear up your beer and some other good things that I can't remember.

Good luck, and great drinking.

[gar1976]

It's called "Irish Moss."

[Tophat665]

Irish moss can be a good thing. It's seaweed, believe it or not. For one reason or another it has a charge opposite to the long chain protiens that get into suspension during the wort boil. They all stick to the flakes of irish moss and fall out to the bottom of the brew kettle, and get largely filtered out by the hops when you strain into the frementer.

Throw in a half teaspoon 10 to 15 minutes before the end of the boil and it will significantly help clear your beer.

Another neat trick for clarity: Chill haze is a group of protiens that precipitate out at low (c. 40 degrees) temerature. If you have room in a nice cold fridge, stick your secondary fementer in there two or three days before you bottle, then siphon it expeditiously into your bottling bucket. You'll leave most of the chill haze behind.

Other than that, if clarity is your thing, use a yeast with high flocculation (check out the White Labs or WYeast web sites for information on the characteristics of their strains of yeast. Yeah, it'll cost you 5 or 6 bucks a batch, but it's worth it.)

OK, I was going to go on about gelatin and polyclar and isinglass, but the rodents are yelling, and it's time to put them to bed.

Have a homebrew, don't worry.

[renew]

I have been brewing off and on for 23 yrs (since it was legalized in CA). My biggest lesson learned is to not get involved with the mash. There is much more to life then spending the countless hours and expense mashing. The quality of the extracts available today is excellent. Unfortunately, it as all we could do back then.

[Tophat665]

renew,
Outstanding! 23 years of damn fine beer. You are the man!

My buddy and I just started doing partial mashes. (We've been brewing with extracts for 5 years.) While I definitely agree that one can make an excellent beer with extract alone, and an even better one with extract with a short grain steep (say, put bagged, cracked grains in cold, bring to 160, yank the grains and discard), the fine control one can get by using a mash for any significant portion of the gravity makes a streamlined mashing procedure worthwhile for some things. Munich Dunkel, f'rinstance, just doesn't work right unless you use at least some portion of Munich malt. Of course, the other thing about that one is that the authentic way to do it is with a triple decoction and the attendant caramelization, but you can get the same effect just by doing your boil on an electric stove.

I hear you, though. Our mash procedure has been single or double infusion, then pour through a sparge bag in a big colander over the brew kettle, then sparge with a couple gallons using ladles to slowly pour the sparge water over the grain. Takes half an hour to get two gallons of wort (to which we add extract to make up half or more of the gravity.) It's about a 60 or 65% efficiency.

We are going to try and do one all-grain batch in April or so, but, by and large, it seems to be too big a pain in the ass to bother with.

[renew]

Tophat- Definitely steeping grains gives tons of character. I did see a Williams brewing catalog a year so ago that had some great stuff to assist in mashing. Way back it was all trial and error and some crude irish recipes for the mash. Needless to say every batch took alot of time and creativity AND they all turned out great for us since we were under-age.

[Tophat665]

renew,
Most definitely. Figuring it out as you go along must've lead to some really interesting brews. Did you keep a log? I'd love to see some of the better recipes.

I just completed a zapap lauter tun. Next project is to build a spiral sparge arm. I need to work out measurements, but the way I figure it, I need to take enough copper tubing to spiral 4 or 5 times around inside the lauter tun, cap the end of it, and drill a bunch of smallish holes all along the length, then rig a wire doohickie to sit it on top of the lauter tun and hold it in shape. I figure I can set up a three step lautring bench with the sparge water on to siphoned through a copper cane and often replaced vinyl tubing into the sparge arm, thus to the lauter tun, and thence to the brew kettle.

Neat thing about this is that the bottom half of the lauter tun doubles as our bottling bucket. I just need to switch spigots between different uses.

[Tophat665]

So two things interesting next Wednesday: It looks like I am about to come in second in my homebrew club's Brewer of the Year competition, and it looks like I am getting (not unwillingly, but quite forcefully) dragooned into being the competition coordinator for next year. I have decided that I am going to win Brewer of the year next year, if at all possible (without cooking the books.) To that end, I have already started writing up my recipes, and I will share them here.

They will be:
Irish Red Ale, American Pale Ale, American Brown Ale, Dortmunder Export Lager, Berliner Weisse, Belgian Witbier, Bavarian Weizenbier, Mixed berry Honey Weizenbier (Four Wheat Beers in a row, that. Hrrm.), Hot Pepper Spiced Porter, Robust Porter, Ordinary Bitter, Vienna Lager (Como Dos Equis), A couple of Meads, and a Baltic Porter (aka Imperial Porter).

So, here's the Irish:
<u><b>Erin Go Brew</b></u>
Irish Red Ale
Target OG: 1.052
Target FG: 1.014 (1.012 with WLP 007)
Target IBU: 23

1 • Toast &frac14; lb pale ale malt on a cookie sheet in the oven at 350&deg;F for 10 to 15 minutes.
2 • Crack that, 1 &frac14; lb untoasted pale ale malt, &frac34; lb 40&deg; Lov. Crystal Malt, &frac14; lb 80&deg; Lov. Crystal Malt, and 1/8 lb Roasted barley.
3 • Heat 1 gallon of water to 165&deg;F in the mash kettle. Add cracked grains directly to water. Stabilize temperature at 154&deg;F and hold for 30 minutes.
4 • Bring 6 quarts of water to 170&deg;F for sparging liquor.
5 • At the end of the mash, pour the mash kettle through a sparging bag into the brew kettle, and slowly distribute the sparging liquor into the grain bed, taking 10 to 15 minutes.
6 • Add water to make 2 &frac12; gallons. Pull a half cup of wort and test gravity.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;• Gravity Should be about 1.022. (Shouldn’t be much more than 1.027, or less than 1.014.)
7 • The next step is to add sufficient Munton’s Extra Light DME to bring the Gravity in the brew kettle to 1.100.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;• For an after mash Gravity of 1.022, this should be 4 lbs, 3 oz. It’s about half an once for each point of gravity difference from that, up or down.
8 • Bring the wort to a boil, stirring constantly, and add 1 oz Fuggles hop pellets.
9 • Boil for 30 minutes, then add another &frac12; oz Fuggles pellets.
10 • Meanwhile boil half a gallon of water.
11 • Remove from heat and add &frac12; lb honey. Allow to sit covered for 30 minutes.
12 • Boil Wort another 15 minutes, then add &frac12; tsp Irish Moss.
13 • Boil another 15 minutes then remove from heat.
14 • Add 2 gallons cold water to a sanitized fermenting bucket.
15 • Add Honey solution to fermenter, then strain wort in through a sparging bag.
16 • Top off to 5 &frac12; gallons.
17 • Cool to 70&deg;F and pitch with White Labs WLP0004 Irish Ale Yeast. (Consider WLP007 Dry English instead.)
18 • Aerate for 5 minutes either with a sanitized egg beater or by shaking. (Cap and Lock before or after as makes sense)
19 • Ferment for 5 to 10 days, then rack to glass for 2 weeks.
20 • Bottle with &frac34; cup corn sugar.
21 • Allow bottles to mature for at least 2, preferably three weeks at room temp.

And Here's the American Pale:
<u><b>Pride of Calaveras Pale Ale</b></u>
American Pale Ale
Target OG: 1.055
Target FG: 1.013 (1.011 - 1.015 )
Target IBU: 40-41
1 • Bring 5 quarts Water to 155&deg;F in the Mash Kettle.
2 • Crack:
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1 &frac12; lbs American Six Row Pale Ale Malt
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&frac34; lb Biscuit Malt
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&frac12; lb Cara Foam
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&frac14; lb 40&deg; Lov. Crystal
3 • Add to mash kettle with &frac12; lb flaked barley. Stabilize heat at 150-152&deg;F and hold for 45 minutes.
4 • Bring 5 quarts water to 170&deg;F for sparge water.
5 • Pour Mash Kettle through sparging bag into Brew Kettle. Slowly distribute sparge water over the grains in the bag, taking about 10 minutes.
6 • Top off brew kettle to 2 &frac12; gallons and take a gravity reading.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;• This should be around 1.023.
7 • Bring brew kettle to a boil, then remove from heat.
8 • Add Malt Syrup and 2 lbs DME to brew kettle. This should bring the Gravity to 1.106.
9 • Adjust to 1.111 with DME at about &frac12; oz per point of gravity.
10 • Stirring constantly, bring to a vigorous boil and add &frac34; oz Centennial and &frac14; oz Cascade pellets. (Continue stirring until hot break.)
11 • Boil for 45 minutes, then add &frac34; oz Cascade Pellets and &frac12; tsp irish moss
12 • Boil 13 more minutes and add &frac12; oz Cascade Flowers.
13 • Boil 2 more minutes and remove from heat.
14 • Add 2 gallons cold water to sanitized fermenter.
15 • Pour Wort through sparging bag into fermenter.
16 • Top off to 5 &frac12; gallons.
17 • Pitch with WLP 001 California Ale Yeast.
18 • Aerate for 5 minutes. Cap and Lock before or after as method dictates.
19 • Ferment for 5 to 10 days.
20 • Rack to glass, adding &frac12; oz Cascade Flowers and ferment an additional week.
21 • If gravity is in target range, bottle. Otherwise, rack again and ferment up to an additional week.
22 • Bottle with &frac34; cup corn sugar and condition for three weeks.

[PDOUBLEOP]

Check out www.Listermann.com for a great resource for kits and equipment.

[gar1976]

Whoa - this thread is still active!

Update - entered some beer in the state fair, won third place in the "Fruit Ale & Beer" category with my Sweet Strawberry Summer Ale.

[Brewmaniac]

Great source for recipes:
The Beer Recipator!.

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipes

If you've got nothing to do check out,

Beer under a Microscope:

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/beershots/index.html

[Tophat665]

Bump!
Howdy, folks. Ever since my homepage went tits up for bandwidth, I've been trying to figure out a good place to out my recipes. Lately, I have started using my livejournal to keep them. Here's links to what I have there so far:

<a href="http://www.livejournal.com/community/homebrewing/182926.html">My standard Hefewiezen</a>

<a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/tophat665/2810.html">A Partigyle mash</a> For a witbier from the secnd runnings and a strong golden Belgian from tthe first. Very long post. Also, <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/tophat665/3289.html">an update</a> after the first racking,

<a href="http://www.livejournal.com/community/mead_lovers/21269.html">A Honeydew Melomel</a> (Fruit Mead)

<a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/tophat665/3848.html">Brewing notes for</a> a partial mash IPA and a Berry hefeweizen.

<a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/tophat665/5136.html">An all Grain Ordinary Bitter</a>

<a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/tophat665/6096.html">An All Grain Black Porter</a>

[JStrider]

man everytime i see this thread or something else to do with home brewing... makes me really want to do it...

over the summer i read all of this site http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html
lots of info there...

and since this thread has gotten bumped just recently i've been drooling over some of the starter kits and beer kits at the northernbrewer.com site...

for the glass starter kit 48 bottles and their sweet stout extract kit it would be $170ish shipped x_X lotsa money...

apparently theres a homebrew supply place in town... i'll have to swing by there and see what they have...

[Tophat665]

JS, it's like any other hobby: It takes a bit of money to get it going. I would say a minimal brew kit would be a 6 gallon bucket with a drilled, grommeted lid, a 6 or 6.5 gallon carboy with either a one hole stopper or a carboy cap (and spring for the extra $5 for a carboy handle. Beats the shit out of cleaning up shattered glass.) A racking cane and button, 4' of food grade vinyl tubing, an Emily Capper, a long wooden spoon, a food scale, a 3 to 5 gallon kettle, a carboy brush, couple of airlocks, a gross of bottle caps, and a copy of "The new Complete Joy of Home Brewing" by Charlie Papazian. All in all it comes to between $120 and $300 depending on how fancy you want to get.

Bottles are free. Save domestic brown glass pop top (not twist off) and rinse them after you drink them. Have your friends save 'em too. My buddy and I once had four batches to bottle and only four cases of bottles, so we went late night dumpster diving in the bar district (got permission from the bars who's dumpsters we were digging through.) Cleaned out the bottles and bleached them, and didn't have a single problem with infection.

Now, for a first beer, sweet stout might be a tad tricky. Or not. Hit <a href="http://hbd.org/recipator/">the Recipator </a> or google sweet stout recipes.

Or, I just hit the recipator and came up with this:<table border=1><tr><td><b>Style:</b></td><td colspan=5>Sweet Stout</td></tr><tr><td><b>Type:</b></td><td colspan=2>Extract w/grain</td><td><b>Size:</b></td><td colspan=2>5.5 gallons</td></tr><tr><td><b>Color:</b></td><td colspan=2>92 HCU (~33 SRM)</td><td><b>Bitterness:</b></td><td colspan=2>20 IBU</td></tr><tr><td><b>OG:</b></td><td width=50 colspan=2>1.050</td><td><b>FG:</b></td><td width=50 colspan=2>1.016</td></tr><tr><td><b>Alcohol:</b></td><td colspan=5>4.4% v/v (3.4% w/w)</td></tr><tr><td><b>Grain:</b></td><td colspan=5>1 lb. American victory
8 oz. British crystal 50-60L
6 oz. British crystal 95-115L
12 oz. Roasted barley</td></tr><tr><td rowspan=2><b>Boil:</b></td><td>60 minutes</td><td>SG 1.110</td><td colspan=3>2.5 gallons</td></tr><tr><td colspan=5>5 lb. Light dry malt extract
1 lb. Lactose</td></tr><tr><td><b>Hops:</b></td><td colspan=5>2 oz. Kent Goldings (5% AA, 60 min.)</td></tr></table>
Crack the grains. Put them in a cheesecloth bag in 2 1/2 gallons cold water in your kettle and heat to 155 degrees. Hold for 30 minutes then pull the grains, leting them drip out but not squeezing. Bring that up to a boil then remove from heat and add your extract and your lactose. Stir well. Bring back to a boil and add your hops. Boil for 60 minutes. Strain through a sparging bag into your fermenter and add another 3 gallons of cold water. Wait until the teimperature is below 80 degrees, shake vigorously for 5 minutes (or hit with an immersion blender for 2) and pitch one vial of White Labs Ale Yeast (London Ale or Irish or Calfornia would work well). Ferment for a week, then rack to glass for another week. Boil 4 oz of corn sugar in a pint of water, cool to below 90 degrees add to a clean bucket (with a bottling tap or with a racking cane handy). Rack the beer onto the priming sugar and bottle in aboutr 2 cases of 12 oz bottles.

[Mr Scorcex]

Hey Tophat,

I just ordered the glass starter homebrew kit from NorthernBrewer.com, and I'm eagerly awaiting it's arrival so I can start. However, I'm not sure I have a stainless steel pot, how important is it that the kettle be made of that material?

[Tophat665]

Originally Posted by Mr Scorcex

Hey Tophat,

I just ordered the glass starter homebrew kit from NorthernBrewer.com, and I'm eagerly awaiting it's arrival so I can start. However, I'm not sure I have a stainless steel pot, how important is it that the kettle be made of that material?

Stainless steel is not critical. I use aluminum. Copper works, so long as it's not freshly polished, and so does enamel, so long as it's not chipped. The only thing you really need to stay away from is Iron, which will give the beer a bloody taste.

[Mr Scorcex]

Excellent. Actually, the kit just got here today, and the first batch gets brewed on Saturday. Here's hoping for a sick Irish Red Ale. Any last minute words of advice?

[iccky]

So I'd like to start brewing, but I live in a relativly small two bedroom apartment and my roommate is a bit... fastdious. How much space do I need to get set up? Will it fit in a closet? Will it smell up the whole apartment at some stage in the brewing process?

[Mr Scorcex]

As far as I know you just need a kitchen and a dark, warm place like a closet. I'm setting up shop in a college apartment, 2 doubles and a common space. All I had to do was clear some space in the closet, which was admittedly, tough. My roommates have a lot of crap. About the smell, I've read that brewing lagers kicks off some nasty sulphur smells, but regular ales and the like shouldn't be a problem. Overall, I say go for it.
T-minus 2 days til first brew!

[Anxst]

I have words of advice for you:

Don't worry, have a homebrew. Since this is the first batch for you, it seems, have something else good in the meantime. A little patience and some luck goes a long way on your first batch.

Good luck!

[Tophat665]

What Anxst said - don't sweat it. Relax. You're new to homebrewing, so having a homebrew isn't an option yet, but, since you're trying to brew an Irish red, get yourself some Smithwick's and have one of those.

Stinking up the place: There is a particular aroma that goes with homebrewing, and there's no getting 'round it. It's not unpleasant by any objective standard, but no one has objective standards about odor. However, it doesn't linger. While you are brewing, it will smell something between baking cookies and making (and this is inadequate but the best I can do) making a good vegetable soup stock. Depending on what kind of hops you use, it might be even a bit citrusy or floral or herbal. It is not something your roommate should complain about, particularly if he can have a beer afterwards.

A closet is plenty of space to ferment in, don't sweat that.

The only thing you should be anything like worried about is sanitation. Clean everything. Clean everything again. Sanitize anything that will come in contact with the wort after it is cooled. If you use bleach, rinse rinse rinse until you can only spell the water. (And it will also be the smelliest part of the process.)

As for advice:

1) Chill the wort to room temperature as quickly as you can after brewing. If a chiller came with your kit, use it. If not, sanitize the bejeezus out of your siphon hose, and sit your (covered) brew kettle in a sink or tub of ice until it cools to around 80 - then siphon.

2) Make sure you get enough oxygen into the wort before you pitch the yeast. Shaking it for 5 minutes (a good count of 300) works just fine. The easiest way I have found is to use a sanitized immersion blender.

3) Take good notes. This will help you to make it right the next time.

4) Boil as much of the wort as you can - the higher the concentration of your wort, the lower your hop utilization.

Above all, have fun with it!

Happy brewing!

[Mr Scorcex]

Don't worry I'm not nervous. Excited would be the emotion, if I had to place it. Also the notes are brilliant. I didn't even think of it. Thanks for the advice guys, and I'll let you all know how it turns out.

[Mr Scorcex]

Well, Brewing day went well, I had no issues and made sure I sanitized the bejeesus out of everything that touched the wort, including the fermenter. There was a foam forming last night, and there's already bubbling going on in the airlock as of this morning. I'm so excited. But now, if you don't mind, I've got a couple more questions for you.

1. The instructions I've read say to transfer the brew to a secondary fermenter after about a week, when the foam has receeded. Given that I only have one fermenter at this point, do I let it sit especially long in the primary fermenter, or transfer it to the bottles sooner?

2. Regarding the bottles I've been collecting, whats the best way to go about cleaning/sanitizing them?

Thanks.

[Tophat665]

If you are fermenting in a glass carboy, you really don't need to rack to a secondary at all. If you're using a plastic bucket, and brewing a regular strength ale, then you really don't need to worry about it either. Two reasons for a secondary: Plastic buckest don't entirely block oxygen; they just slow it down. Over the course of a couple of weeks, there's not problem. Over the course of a couple of months, your beer will oxidize a little and pick up a wet cardboard sort of taste. Not an issue for a regular ale fermentation, definitely an issue for lager and strong ale fermentation. The other reason is that, if you let the beer sit on dead yeast too long, the yeast starts to break down (autolyzes) and imparts an off flavor to the beer. Again, a couple of weeks is not ptroblem, but longer than a month is.

When the bubbling stops, or slows way down, take a sample of beer and measure the gravity. Do that every 24 hours until you get the same gravity 3 times in a row. That means the yeast has fermented all the available sugar. The other way to have a pretty good idea that the yeast is done is that there will be no bubbles floating on the beer. At that point, you're ready to bottle. It shouldn't be more than 2 or 3 weeks for a regular strength ale.

For the bottles, to get them clean:
If you are using bleach as your sanitizer, mix a weak bleach solution with warm water and fill all the bottles. Let them sit for half an hour. Empty them and rinse with hot water. Inspect them for gunk. Remove any gunk with a bottle brush and resanitize those bottles. If you're bleaching, then don't get oxygen barrier caps. You'll have to boil them to get them bug free, and boiling the oxygen barrier type removes any advantage over the regular type.

On the other hand, if you are using iodophor, you'll need to cleen the bottles first:
If there's no visible gunk in the bottles, just run them through the diswasher. If there is gunk in them, soak them a couple of hours in hot water (Oxyclean will help, too) and then scrub them with a bottle brush, then run them through the dishwasher. Always inspect for gunk. Have more bottles than you need on hand, because some of them won't come clean with any reasonable amount of effort - that's what the recycling bin is for.

Once clean though, iodophore is easy: mix half a capful of iodophor in 2 1/2 gallons water in your bottling bucklet (should be the color of apple juice or good pilsner). Fill one bottle. Pour from one bottle into another. Top off the second bottle and set the first bottle aside to dry. Repeat until you've gotten all the bottles thoroughly wet on the inside and lip. Wait 5 minutes. Don't rinse. You're ready to bottle. (Don't forget priming sugar - you may want to boil your priming sugar before you start cleaning the bottles and set it aside to cool while you get your bottles ready.)

Hope that helps.

[Mr Scorcex]

Thanks for all the help, Tophat. If I could I'd give ya a six-pack of my brew. For the record I am fermenting in a glass carboy, so its nice to know that the secondary isn't really necessary. Also I'm not going for a high-gravity brew, so I'll just keep an eye on it.
As my sanitizer I have bleach but I also have an oxygen driven sanitizer. Given that I don't have a dishwasher, however, the bleach way seems like my best bet for dealing with the bottles.

[Mr Scorcex]

Good News, Everybody! Ok, so I bottled the brew last saturday, and I poured out a little shot of it for sample, and it tasted good, as good as flat beer can taste. Now today, being quite thirsty/impatient, and with only tonic and milk in the fridge, I decided it couldn't hurt if I tried one little bottle of my brew. So I fridged it for a few hours and gave it a go. Long story short, my first brew, I think, is a success. The beer was, a little flat, given that I had only given it 4 days to ferment, but overall, it tasted just like an Irish red ale should. I'm pretty excited about this. Batch two gets brewed this weekend.

[Tophat665]

WooHoo! Another boy for Gambrinus!
That's awesome. What's next?