Home Brewers

#26
#26
milohimself said:
Also, easily the biggest hurdle for home brewers is sanitation. That is by far the largest key to making a successful brew. Load up on bleach.
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I used to use bleach but there are several no rinse products out now like One-Step that make sanitation much quicker and easier. But your right, sanitation is a must.
 
#30
#30
Vercingetorix said:
I brewed for about six years when I was in my 20s. I knew I'd finally arrived when I started getting annoyed because my friends would show up and drink all my beer. When you start out, everyone says your beer is good but they really want to drink something else; eventually you get to the point where it's as good as a microbrew that you can buy for eight or nine bucks at the beer store. At that point I felt like I had two options: ramp up to 10 or 20 gallon batches to make the time/money investment per beer more reasonable, or make use of the fine division of labor we enjoy in modern civilization and let somebody else make the beer while I did other stuff. I lived in a small apartment at the time, so I chose the latter. I still have all my gear; one day I'll take it back up.

The two steps I took that improved my beer the most dramatically were: A) going to an all-glass, two stage fermentation (Lots of folks believe in a quick fermentation in plastic followed by aging it in a carboy; all I know is I had a lot less disappointment once I moved to all glass. Maybe my plastic bucket just sucked.) and B) and more importantly, going to liquid yeast. Liquid yeast is expensive. But it was night and day compared to the packets of the dry stuff.

I would seriously consider telling a new brewer not to bother bottling at all. Bottling is a nightmare. Saving the bottles, washing the bottles, sanitizing the bottles, filling the bottles. It's awful. I think for the new brewer I'd recommend starting with the Party Pig, which I had good success with. It's basically two big bottles per five gallon batch that you then get semi-draft beer from. The Grolsch-style bottles are way easier, but seriously: consider not bottling. If I ever start up again I'm going kegging-only.

Anyone who cares seriously about beer ought to brew for awhile. I can't tell you how much I learned about the process. It's like the guitar lessons I took in high school -- I never ended up in a band, and I barely got to the point where I was willing to let other people hear me play, but it's added an extra dimension to my enjoyment of music for my whole life. Absolutely worth it. It's even great before the beer's any good. There really is nothing like the feeling of craftsmanship you get the first time you're hammered on beer you made with your own hands.
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Excellent post. I've only been brewing bout a year, long enough to realize it won't work as my retirement plan. But it is fun and keeps me out of trouble. My dad was a US Army officer in Germany and he used to home brew back in the '70's. He swears by liquid yeast as well. Problem we have with it is it leaves a strong yeasty taste. I think the liquid packs are for larger batches. We do 5 gallons. What size did you use?
 
#31
#31
DarthVaul said:
Me too, plus my wife complained about the smell when I brewed in the house.
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Funny, buddy and I home brew and we use his house, he has a basement (I have basement envy) and it certainly makes the house smell. We like the smell but the ladies do not. A few months after we started brewing he and his wife split. I wonder if the smell had something to do with it. He says good riddance if she doesn't like the smell. Talk about dedication.....
 
#33
#33
DarthVaul said:
Good points Vercingetorix
I know what you mean about people drinking it all up. I have a few friends I dont mind sharing with but I dont break it out for the bud light crowd. I do 10 gallons at a time and and the price per 6 pack comes out around $3.

So did you use a carboy as your primary? Ive never seen a glass primary fermenter. I would like to get one of the stainless steel ones but they are very expensive. The most important thing about the fermenter is a tight seal. Any air leaking in around the lid can ruin the beer. You are correct about the liquid yeast.

I would like to get set up to keg at some point but the setups Ive looked at were pretty expensive. The process I outlined is the cheapest way to get started. I will check out the party pig. Bottling is the most time consuming step but sanitation products like One-Step make it go much quicker. Ive just got so many bottles and have always done it that way.
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My dad who starting brewing in the '70's in Germany does not like plastic. He says plastic has a negative impact on the taste. He has a fiberglass primary fermenter which he thinks tones down the plastic effect. His beers do taste better than ours but I'm not sure the fiberglass makes a difference. It is still plastic just with more glass in it.

We've only done the all plastic and don't age it as long as you do. First we did straight kits, now we are adding additional ingredients. I think you are right that more attention to the process and the kit material will make a big difference.
 
#34
#34
SmokeySteve said:
My dad who starting brewing in the '70's in Germany does not like plastic. He says plastic has a negative impact on the taste. He has a fiberglass primary fermenter which he thinks tones down the plastic effect. His beers do taste better than ours but I'm not sure the fiberglass makes a difference. It is still plastic just with more glass in it.

We've only done the all plastic and don't age it as long as you do. First we did straight kits, now we are adding additional ingredients. I think you are right that more attention to the process and the kit material will make a big difference.
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Aging makes a BIG difference. Its tough but the longer you age it the better it will get. Ive had brews that weren't so great after 3 or 4 weeks in the bottle but turned out quite good after 6 or 8.
 
#35
#35
SmokeySteve said:
My dad who starting brewing in the '70's in Germany does not like plastic. He says plastic has a negative impact on the taste. He has a fiberglass primary fermenter which he thinks tones down the plastic effect. His beers do taste better than ours but I'm not sure the fiberglass makes a difference. It is still plastic just with more glass in it.

We've only done the all plastic and don't age it as long as you do. First we did straight kits, now we are adding additional ingredients. I think you are right that more attention to the process and the kit material will make a big difference.
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I play around with the recipes alot too. I used to make changes and try different things and not document so if I liked it I had trouble recreating it. Now I keep a spreadsheet of all my brews and document every change I make.
 
#36
#36
DarthVaul said:
I play around with the recipes alot too. I used to make changes and try different things and not document so if I liked it I had trouble recreating it. Now I keep a spreadsheet of all my brews and document every change I make.
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Good call, think we should start that as well. We had a blast on our first adventure. I tried Dog Fish Head Shatea (sp?) which is based on an old 9th century Viking recipe. It had Juniper Berries so we went to Earth Fare (major granola store) who sell them in bulk. My buddy and I went there and basically started sniffing various herbs and buying the ones we imagined would work with beer. We ended up with Coriander, Juniper and Bilberry berries (like blueberries). We also bought something called Hors Hound, mainly for the name, it is horrible, just makes it uber-bitter, worse than an IPA on steroids. But labeling potential is great (*****in' Brew).
 
#39
#39
For the more experienced brewers, what have you found as the best approach when you add additional ingredients?

We dabbled is a few herbs and put them in the wort at the beginning so they cooked 30-40 minutes. This last time we dropped in the herbs in the last 5 minutes. We are not too happy with either result. Any tips?
 
#40
#40
Have you considered using the herbs like a dry hop...placing them in the secondary fermenter in a spice/herb bag...or distributing them and filtering later (this would give more surface area)? I haven't tried it...but it could be something to experiment with....
 
#43
#43
SmokeySteve said:
For the more experienced brewers, what have you found as the best approach when you add additional ingredients?

We dabbled is a few herbs and put them in the wort at the beginning so they cooked 30-40 minutes. This last time we dropped in the herbs in the last 5 minutes. We are not too happy with either result. Any tips?
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It depends on the type of herb as to when and how to add. I would say take really good notes. You don't want to hit that right combination and not be able to reproduce it. I would also do a google search for homebrew recipes with the name of the herb in question. Someone has likely used it before and posted the results.
 
#48
#48
my wife brewed a home-made ginger ale that turned out being more like ginger beer. We didn't drink much of it but it got me thinking, probably gonna get a kit soon. Can never have enough beer.
 
#49
#49
If I got apple cinnamon moonshine (with the cinnamon stick in the jar) why would it be a slight brownish tint, or was is the cinnamon stick doing the trick? Or could it be a Brandy type moonshine?
 
#50
#50
Escape Goat said:
If I got apple cinnamon moonshine (with the cinnamon stick in the jar) why would it be a slight brownish tint, or was is the cinnamon stick doing the trick? Or could it be a Brandy type moonshine?
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Its not going to be clear like regular shine
 
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