Homebrewing
 

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

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

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.

http://www.cascadiabrew.com/images/stout.gifhttp://www.cascadiabrew.com/images/lager.gifhttp://www.cascadiabrew.com/images/bitter.gifhttp://www.cascadiabrew.com/images/classicolddark.gif

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

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.

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

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.

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

Good discussion board here.



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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It's called "Irish Moss."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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>

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...

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.

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.

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?

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?

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!

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Good question, I'm heading to the homebrew store tomorrow. I was thinking dunkelweizen, but if something else strikes my fancy I'll go with that. I also have a buddy who's a huge coopers fan, so I promised him if this brewing stuff works out I'd try and make him some Cooper's Ale. Cheers, and thanks for the help tophat.

I have never tried to brew my own but after reading this thread I feel a bit "inspired". I'll let everyone know how my first brew turns out.

I tried a recipe using 8 oz of black tea as an adjunct but something in the tea kept it from carbonating in the bottle, so I had a caffeinated, slightly too sweet, flat beer. I will probably go for a Heffe or Lambic next batch. I highly recommend a copper wort chiller if you don't already have one. Cuts the cool down time between sparging and pitching dramatically, and you don't have to use ice (which is not sterile).

I'm curious, I've done the homebrew thing before and had a lot of fun with it. But I've been getting really interested in doing home distilling. Does anyone have any experience with this? While I think it might be illegal in most states, I know that a few states have legalized it. I live in Nebraska and there is currently a law under discussion that would allow micro-distillery operations and home distilling. (Not that it being illegal would stop me from trying it anyway :P, just makes it a more comfortable affair.)

Brewed my first batch from an extract kit last night. I can't wait to get into all grain and kegging. I love beer.

Brewed my first batch from an extract kit last night. I can't wait to get into all grain and kegging. I love beer.

Hey there folks. Been a while.

You go Psychodad! What's your brew?

I've been pre-occupied with Aquaria this year, and my brew buddy has a new baby boy, so we've been on the slow side. We did win our Club's brewer of the year competition, taking firsts over the course of the year with, I think,an American Brown Ale, A coffee imperial stout, and a kick ass Double IPA with 15.8 oz of hops (6 different kinds, from in the mash through dry hoping, in something obscene like 17 separate hopping gifts) in a 5.5 gallon batch. I would have stacked it up against any Double IPA I've ever tasted.

Last couple of beers have been for our annual combined birthday party: An American Pale Ale with Amarillo hops, The Up All Night Extra Stout (Which we've brewer every year since 2000 at least once), The Purple Peril - a blackberry raspberry honey hefeweizen (chicks dig it - another perennial brew since 99 or 2000), and a weird beer. We do one odd one every year. Sometimes it's as ordinary as a Doppelbock - only weird because homebrewed lagers are thin on the ground hereabouts, sometimes it's a lemongrass roggen or a Hot pepper porter. This year we went with a hybrid (and I think may have snuck up on a Porter from the long way around) - It's a Rye IPA crossed with a Belgian Stout, and we used all German hops. Jon Snow's Black Bastard IPA (Named after the Night Commander of the Black Watch, not the former Treasury Secretary).

Sorry to have stayed away so long.

I brewed a wheat beer from a kit that the homebrew store I bought my equipment from sells. It is supposed to be a clone of Boulevard's wheat beer which I like, so I thought it a good choice to gauge how well I did (assuming that the store's kit is accurate to the original). So far everything is going well. Lots of airlock action going on right now. I can't wait to get it out of the primary so I can get my robust porter kit going.

Did they give you a liquid yeast with the kit? I know this is not the same yeast as for a German Wheat Beer, but that beer's going to want a yeast with low flocculation, and I don't know as they make any of those in a dry form. Still if you do have a dry yeast, you'll probably get a nice, clean taste from it. Maybe not quite what you expect. Should be good. Most wheat extracts make an excellent beer all by them selves with some minimal hopping.

The wheat beer kit came with a Wyeast liquid yeast pack and the Brewer's Best robust porter kit has a dry package. I smacked the hell out of that thing because I wasn't ever sure I broke the inner package for quite a while. By the time the wort was boiled and cooled, it had plumped quite nicely though.

At this point, I don't know enough about yeasts, malts and hops to really understand the difference each type makes on the finished product, but hope to eventuallly. And that will come in due time I suppose. There are a lot of resources for information on the 'net I'm finding for home brewing. I've got goals for all grain, my own recipes and kegging. I know this will be a hobby I will enjoy.

Racked into the carboy tonight. From what I gather with the wheat beer, I didn't really need to do that, but I hadn't seen any airlock activity for a couple of days and I wanted to see how things were. It smelled like beer and it looked like beer except it is quite a bit darker than the Boulevard it is supposed to be a clone of.

From my hydrometer reading, I gather why I see no more airlock activity as I have reached what the ingredient kit indicated FG would be. I can't get to the brew store to buy bottles until Saturday or Sunday so I figure it won't hurt to let it mellow those few days.

Of course I couldn't resist tasting a little bit from my racking cane after filling the carboy. I know that I shouldn't expect it to taste that swuft, but truth is, it wasn't that bad. Once I bottle and age it for a few weeks before chilling and serving I expect good things from this beer.

All in all, I was so pleased that after cleaning my primary, racking cane and other odds and ends, I went over and pulled a big one from the kegerator to reward myself. I can't wait for the day that I can take that commercial keg back for my deposit and enjoy my own home brew from the tap.

Good deal. Extract beer clones are almost always darker than the original. When I brewed a berliner weisse a few years ago, I stirred the kettle the entire 30 minute boil to keep it from caramelizing so I could keep that nice straw yellow color. And that was all grain.

Bottled today. And knock on wood... like most everything else thus far I think all is still well. I'd hoped to bottle sooner, but couldn't get to it and from what I gather, the beer does a better job of waiting on me than it would were I to hurry.

I almost enjoyed bottling it as much as the brewing.

After filling 48 bottles, there was just enough to fill a 12 oz glass a little more than 1/2 full. So of course I had to taste it. And from the taste of it, I'm going to have a long 3 or 4 weeks waiting and keeping myself out of it.

The color was beautiful too. I know I'm biased, but it has to be the prettiest beer I've ever seen.

My wife has some idea about me starting an exercise program tomorrow. If I can get out of it by Wednesday, I'm going to brew a porter extract kit.

I hate to blow my own horn so loudly... But I did damn good on this first batch. I was patient and stayed out of it other than a taste from the racking cane after bottling. From that taste I had high hopes. And those hopes were surpassed in more ways than I can describe. In fact the wife who to my knowledge has never had a beer other than Bud Light, loves it.

Sunday night I shall make my toast to The Beer Hunter with my very own first home brew.

I had thoughts of converting a recipe I found online to AG, but equipment and wanting to get a few more batches under my belt gave way to modifying it to something else.

Original recipe: http://www.realbeer.com/discussions/...threadid=15900

What I wound up doing:
This is my third batch and first since reading Palmer’s” How to Brew” and hopefully I’ve corrected some mistakes that while so far have not been a problem, will make a better brew. Previously I’ve apparently been at risk for HAS. This time I made certain to get my wort below 80 before trying any aggressive stirring.

I also hydrated the yeast and added a nutrient to the wort to try to get a reduced lag time. Next time I think maybe I’ll attempt a starter. I thought about getting a smack pack but I was hoping this flocculates as well as Muntons says and helps clear things a bit.

Speaking of clearing things, this is my first time with whole hops and didn’t use a hop bag. But I think I can get rid of a lot of mess when I rack to the secondary.

Overall I have great hopes for this beer. When I placed it in the fermenter, the wort had a nice smell of hops and honey. I hope the flavor does the same.

I think instead of the normal priming sugar, I'll use 4.7 oz of honey.

Damn, this thread is still going!

Note on the honey: it will result in a sweeter taste, but will take another week or two to carbonate. It tends to go slower than sugar.

I racked it into the secondary Sunday and it cleared up very nicely. It also smelled very good. I resisted the temptation to taste it, but when I bottle it I know damn well I will sample a bit of it.

I also tried a bottle of the porter I brewed the other night. It has had a couple of weeks in the bottles and carbonated very well. Three more weeks and chilling it to about 54 or so should make it a good beer to drink while resting when raking leaves.

It's great to see so many homebrewers here!
I'm just getting started - I've done about 6 batches of extract brewing, but I'm gradually adding equipment to move into partial mash, and hopefully all-grain one day. You guys are inspiring, and full of good tips. Thanks!

I have the stuff to make a mash tun and once I build or buy a wort chiller and get a turkey fryer, I'm heading to AG too.

A lot of recipes here: http://www.skotrat.com/skotrat/recipes/

Of course I haven't tried any of them yet, just ran across the site this morning, but there are AG mini-mash and extract recipes of several varieties.

Now my hopes are for it to mellow out. Bottled 4 bottles and kegged the rest. Pulled two glasses last night and was not impressed. The alcohol was very distinct and it had still not carbed well despite trying to gently force carb. I have a feeling in about four weeks or so I'll return to this and maybe be pleased.

alright, bumping this thread.

My friend and i are working on our first 5 gallon batch of wine. Granted, we used cheap ingredients, but we expect to ruin it somewhere along the way.

Any other vintners out there? This weeks batch will be dandelion wine since its that time of year! We're doing on 5 gal batch, and probably three little gallon combos. Not sure what should be mixed with dandelions, but who knows, we'll see what sounds good! (will post recipes)

Thanks!

i really have little idea myself which is a bit embarrasing as my dad is an award winning winemaker and 1/2 of our huge house back in au has been converted into a cellar. i think he´s raking at the moment with about 6 friends (there is a group of about 10 of them all up who make wine together.) i can certainly ask for any tips as i call my folks at least once a week just for the latest and i think my dad has wanted me to learn about wine making. i think the best experience was when he wanted to learn how to make bourbon a family firend´s 85 year old father came and spent a week at our house over a holiday and spent most of the time in the cellar teaching my dad the old-fashioned way of making it and the rest of the time telling us all the old war stories (i love the old war stories.) perhaps you just need to find someone who has been there done that and willing to let you in on one cycle to learn how it all works hands-on. from my perspective it seems to be a social event anyway.

thats what my frine and i are doing. we found a guy who ran his own business a while back and he's unloading all his equipment and knowledge on to us. Its been fun so far, but there is a lot to learn! that and i need to grow a big batch of patience, or make intermittent batches of quick wine....

A quick homebrewing question to those who might have done the same as me.
Alright, first I'll preface this by saying my mind was not in the right place to be bottling, with graduation and my last college test ever looming. Regardless, while I was bottling I forgot to add the damned priming sugar. So right now I have 48 bottles of flat pale ale that is unlikely to carbonate and I'm not too keen to dump it all out.
So does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Would it work if I sterilized some water and put the priming sugar in that, and then measured it out into the bottled beer as evenly as possibly? I'd sooner waste a bunch of caps than a whole batch of beer.

I have seen these little sugar pellets at my local homebrewing store that can be used to bottle carbonate beer. They are a tad spendy compared to priming sugar, but I'm sure you'd be able to open the caps, drop them in and recap without losing the batch.

+1 on the priming tabs.

Trying anything else is likely to either risk contamination or oxidation.

Good looking out guys, I'll check those out. Thanks everyone.

Do any of you have experience with kegging, rather than bottling? I've been having trouble getting the right pressure. Either too much foam, or not enough carbination. Any thoughts?

Just caught the Good Eats episode the other day, seriously itching to start brewing. I had a question about the kits available online, like the Apprentice Kit from Wind River Brewing Co. (I like the kit from WRBC cuz it comes with an included recipe kit). I'm cheap, but still want to be able to make as many styles I can from one kit (from oatmeal or coffee stouts to high gravity Belgians). Can I get away with this, or do I have to stop being such a penny-pincher? Thanks!

Take the Good Eats episode with a grain of salt. While I think one could make perfectly fine beer the way Alton Brown did, I don't think one could make great beer that way. Especially if you want to make Belgians.

One thing though is beer making isn't as hard as it looks. Here are a couple of links (THE POSTS ARE FINE BUT THE SITE IS NSFW DUE TO THE BANNER ADS AND AVATARS). However it is a pretty good nutshell opinion of brewing IMHO.

&bull; View topic - Beerntits Home Brewing Guide Pt 1
&bull; View topic - Beerntits Home Brewing Guide Pt. 2

The second link deals mostly with equipment. Good basic equipment kits like you linked to are fine. As you explore other techniques, you can add or upgrade equipment as you go along. Check to see if you have a local home brew store. You can often get better deals as well as personalized help from the shop owners. I have a LHBS an hour away from me and rarely buy on-line as I like shopping for my beer toys in a brick and mortar place. They do have a website. High Gravity Homebrew & Winemaking Supplies

This is the kit I started with: Beer Equipment Kit - Two Stage - Equipment Kits - High Gravity I now brew all grain, but still adhere to the home brewer's mantra RDWHAHB. Relax, don't worry, have a home brew.