Learning to brew beer
solsovly
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I wanted to start brewing beer and am having some problems picking out equipment. I have a relatively modest apartment, no basement. Any ideas on what is the better kit for the price?
#1) http://www.midwestsupplies.com/everything-a-carboy-complete-brewing-package-equipment-kit-2.html
$205
#2 http://www.learntobrew.com/store/item/1l2h3/-_Equipment_Kits/Superior_Brew_Kit_Plus.html
$220
#1 comes with ingredients, roughly a $35 value. Do I want all that extra stuff from #2? Should I even just scale it down and get less?
#1) http://www.midwestsupplies.com/everything-a-carboy-complete-brewing-package-equipment-kit-2.html
$205
Instructional Homebrewing Video or DVD
• 71 page instructional book
• 5 Gallon Glass Carboy
• 6.5 Gallon Plastic Fermenter with Lid
• 6.5 Gallon Bottling Bucket with Spigot
• 8 Oz. of Easy Clean No-Rinse Cleanser
• Drilled Universal Carboy Bung
• Airlock (Keeps air out of the fermenter)
• Hydrometer (Determines alcohol content)
• Bottle Brush
• Carboy Brush
• Twin Lever Red Baron Bottle Capper
• Bottle Caps
• Liquid Crystal Thermometer
• Bottle Filler
• Fermtech AutoSiphon upgrade
• Siphon Tubing
• Shutoff clamp
• A 5-gallon Stainless Steel Brew Kettle
• Your choice (1) of the Irish Red Ale, Irish Stout, or the Autumn Amber Recipe Kit
• And 2 cases of 12 ounce bottles
• 71 page instructional book
• 5 Gallon Glass Carboy
• 6.5 Gallon Plastic Fermenter with Lid
• 6.5 Gallon Bottling Bucket with Spigot
• 8 Oz. of Easy Clean No-Rinse Cleanser
• Drilled Universal Carboy Bung
• Airlock (Keeps air out of the fermenter)
• Hydrometer (Determines alcohol content)
• Bottle Brush
• Carboy Brush
• Twin Lever Red Baron Bottle Capper
• Bottle Caps
• Liquid Crystal Thermometer
• Bottle Filler
• Fermtech AutoSiphon upgrade
• Siphon Tubing
• Shutoff clamp
• A 5-gallon Stainless Steel Brew Kettle
• Your choice (1) of the Irish Red Ale, Irish Stout, or the Autumn Amber Recipe Kit
• And 2 cases of 12 ounce bottles
#2 http://www.learntobrew.com/store/item/1l2h3/-_Equipment_Kits/Superior_Brew_Kit_Plus.html
$220
* 6 Gallon Glass Carboy for Primary Fermentation
* 5 Gallon Glass Carboy for Secondary Fermentation
* Food Grade, Alcohol Filled Thermometer
* Adhesive Fermentation Thermometer
* 3 Disposable Hop Socks
* 1 Large Nylon Mesh Grain Bag
* 7.8 Gallon Bottling Bucket
* Drilled and Grometted Lid with Inner Seal
* Bottling Spigot
* 1 Drilled Rubber Stopper
* Three-Piece Plastic Airlock
* Auto-Siphon Pump
* Racking Cane with Solids Reduction Tip
* Siphon Hose Shut Off Clamp
* 5/16" Food Grade Vinyl Tubing
* 30” Wire and Nylon Carboy Brush
* Triple Scale Hydrometer with Instructions and Plastic Case
* Durable, Double Lever Spring Loaded Bottle Capper with Magnet
* Bottling Filler
* 144 Bottle Caps
* 15” Wire and Nylon Bottle Brush
* True Brew Handbook
* Equipment Cleanser
* 24" Stainless Steel Racking Cane with Reduction Tip
* Carboy Hauler
* Carboy Stand
* Funnel
* 14 1/4" Hydrometer Testing Jar
* Iodophor Sanitizer
* Siphon Tube Holder
* Learn To Brew: More Than Just the Basics DVD
* 5 Gallon Glass Carboy for Secondary Fermentation
* Food Grade, Alcohol Filled Thermometer
* Adhesive Fermentation Thermometer
* 3 Disposable Hop Socks
* 1 Large Nylon Mesh Grain Bag
* 7.8 Gallon Bottling Bucket
* Drilled and Grometted Lid with Inner Seal
* Bottling Spigot
* 1 Drilled Rubber Stopper
* Three-Piece Plastic Airlock
* Auto-Siphon Pump
* Racking Cane with Solids Reduction Tip
* Siphon Hose Shut Off Clamp
* 5/16" Food Grade Vinyl Tubing
* 30” Wire and Nylon Carboy Brush
* Triple Scale Hydrometer with Instructions and Plastic Case
* Durable, Double Lever Spring Loaded Bottle Capper with Magnet
* Bottling Filler
* 144 Bottle Caps
* 15” Wire and Nylon Bottle Brush
* True Brew Handbook
* Equipment Cleanser
* 24" Stainless Steel Racking Cane with Reduction Tip
* Carboy Hauler
* Carboy Stand
* Funnel
* 14 1/4" Hydrometer Testing Jar
* Iodophor Sanitizer
* Siphon Tube Holder
* Learn To Brew: More Than Just the Basics DVD
#1 comes with ingredients, roughly a $35 value. Do I want all that extra stuff from #2? Should I even just scale it down and get less?
solsovly on
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A couple of questions you need to answer for yourself:
- What kind of stove do you have? Gas is best, but a good electric will do. It needs to be level and have a decent work area around it.
- Will a 5 gallon kettle fit on it? They are about the same size as a turkey fryer pot, so this is an important thing to take into accout.
- Do you have a room that you can isolate completely from light and keep at a constant temperature?
For a kettle, I see the first kit comes with a 5 gallon. Unless you have a large work area, do not use this. Get a smaller stockpot - a 3 gallon would do nicely.
Avoid glass fermenters - they will provide the most consistent brew, but they are heavy and break easily. Stick with plastic bucket fermenters until you decide you enjoy homebrewing enough to lay down the cash for a conical fermenter. Order a good no rinse sanitizer to make your life easier with the cleaning. Bleach is not a no rinse sanitizer.
I recommend you find a local shop to purchase a hydrometer from, as most are glass and tend to break during shipping. Out of the 5 I have ordered in my life only one has made it through UPS/FedEx/USPS intact.
And dont worry about a recipe kit - buy that separate. Find a beer style you like and order that.
Also, read this - How To Brew. The guy that wrote this book put it on the web for free so everyone could learn to brew. Good read, has lots of useful information.
Edit: I have a gas stove and it can fit a fairly large kettle. I don't have a room but I have some closet space that I could use.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
pheezer edit:
It is not cool to post entire episodes of TV shows to the forums. It's not really advice to do such but it's also entirely illegal and you can easily order the entire series of Good Eats at a very reasonable price, and all of you should because it's invaluable.
You have to go twice, the first time to actually mix all the ingredients (takes 2-3 hours, depending on your experience and the complexity of the beer) and again 2-3 weeks later to bottle after the fermentation is complete. Also they make delicious fresh bavarian pretzels.
It's definitely not the same as home brewing, but if you live nearby or there is a similar place near you it's an enjoyable alternative that doesn't require to buy all the equipment.
1) Sanitize. Sanitize. Sanitize! - Nothing wrecks a batch a beer more then unsanitized equipment. The last two batches I made before giving it up completely were horrible, and I thought I sanitized everything twice before starting. The last one had a nasty white crust lingering over the beer as it sat in the fermentor.
2) Carboys vs Plastic Buckets for Fermentation - While you're just starting off, plastic buckets for both primary and secondary fermentation will work just fine; they're cheap, they don't break, and they're easy to clean. If you find yourself really enjoying the hobby though, I would suggest going with glass carboys. Yeah, they can break and they're heavy, but they don't carry over any of the flavors from the previous batches of beer you made. It's not such an issue if you're just making the same stuff over and over, but you will probably want to replace the bucket after several batches. Glass is typically considered better overall; plus, they have harnesses/handles for carboys specific for brewing purposes.
3) Bottles - this is more of a personal preference, but after capping several cases of beer, you might find yourself wanting to do 22oz bottles, just to save time. I often did a case of 22's and 12's - gave out 12s to friends/family, 22s often for myself.
4) Sanitize.
5) Lagering - if your apartment has an outdoor patio (hopefully on the 2nd floor or higher), doing lagers might not be out of the question during the winter months. Just have to remember to keep tabs on the temp of the batch in the fermentor. Otherwise, I'd say it sounds like making lagers will be out for you (I wouldn't let that bother you though - there are plenty of great beers to homebrew).
As for your question, I'd say just go with the first - it sounds like it has the basics for brewing which is all you're going to be looking for anyway. If you find you like brewing, it's easy enough to upgrade the stuff you have as you go.
btw, did I mention sanitizing? I'm sure I did.
Honestly though, unless you're completely set on buying one of these two, I would just go to your local homebrew store and see what they have to offer. The employees at local shops tend to be super-friendly and helpful, and they'll be more than happy to walk you through everything and hook you up with exactly what you need. You'll probably end up with a better first batch, too, since they can guide you to the best ingredient kit instead of just getting a can of mix from some random internet site (and if you want to start out with malt extract + specialty grains instead of a can, you also have that option this way). The starter kit I got from my local store a while back was around $150 and had pretty much everything your first kit had minus the pot ($30 on Amazon), the bottles (saved my own), and the ingredients (bought higher-quality ones while I was there).
1) We drink a decent amount of IBC root beer. Would saving those bottles be a good idea for later using to bottle beer? Or would it be better to get something else?
2) I read that online book linked (great read, btw), but notice it mentions having yeast settle in the bottom of bottles and to not pour it out when pouring into a glass. Is that just a thing with home brewing, or is there a way to filter that before you bottle? I'd kind of rather pull a couple of bottles out of the fridge and offer to company, instead of messing with glasses.
1) As long as they're brown glass bottles (clear or green = good chance of letting in too much light), they're perfectly fine to use.
2) Unless you're kegging your beer, having the yeast inside the bottles is necessary for carbonation. You can still drink it out of the bottle just fine, just warn your friends to not drink the last swig or two.
Red'd for false. You add cane sugar to the brew and mix it in just before bottling. The yeast gives the beer its alcohol while the sugar gives the carbonation. Typically, it's included as well in most brew kits.
Also: These kits appear to both have stainless pots, which will save you the headache of cleanup. My brother went with an aluminum one to save money, and quickly learned the error of his ways when he spent 2 hours trying to clean his pot.
What?
You prime with sugar so the yeast have a little something to eat while in the bottle. They eat the sugar and produce a little alcohol, but mainly fart out gas. The gas carbonates the beer.
If you didn't prime with some sugar then the yeast would have very little to eat (only whatever residual sugars were left over after primary and secondary fermentation), and no fermentation would occur, so no bubbles would be made in the bottle.
You cannot really separate yeast and sugar. The sugar is there for the yeast to eat, and all yeast can do it eat sugar and produce alcohol and gas as byproducts.
Yeast is going to be in the beer (it was in the wort after you pitched it and remains in there throughout fermentation). Bottle conditioning to provide carbonation will result in some sediment collecting at the bottom. Just don't drink it (or do, there's nothing wrong with it and it has high nutritional value, it just tastes like [strike]butt[/strike] yeast). Have some chilled glasses that you can pour into, cause your buddies might not remember to leave the last sip in the bottle after they've downed a few.
If you're getting into home brewing you might want to hook up with local brewing clubs or co-ops. You can score equipment cheap from people upgrading or clearing out unused gear.
From what I remember when dealing with the brew kits I got from my local brew supply shop, there are two separate bags of sugar - one large for the actual fermentation with the yeast, but after the secondary before you transferred the beer to bottles, the second, smaller bag of sugar was added and stirred around before it was poured into the bottles to provide the carbonation effect.
It has been a while though - a brewer co-worker/friend of mine is in tomorrow. I'll confirm with him, but I'm almost positive that it was the case.
What you're saying and what Djeet is saying are basically the same thing.
Yeast eats up sugar and spits out CO2 and alcohol. While in the fermentation stage, the yeast spits out lots of alcohol, and all of the CO2 leaves your fermenting vessel via a CO2 airlock.
Carbonation is CO2 bubbles. So the easiest way to carbonate beer is to get the yeast to produce more CO2 in a setting that doesn't have an airlock (i.e. a bottle). In order for the yeast to produce CO2, though, it needs sugar to eat, and it already used up most of the sugar during fermentation. So when you bottle your beer you mix it (live yeast still intact) with some form of fermentable sugar and put it in airtight bottles.
If you were to filter out the yeast from your beer and then add sugar, you'll just have a bunch of very flat, very sweet beer (i.e. uncarbonated beer with sugar added). Without the sugar, you'll just have an uncarbonated beer with yeast in it. Long story short, both the fermentation AND the carbonation rely on BOTH yeast and sugars (although 'sugar' in a chemical sense, since that includes sugars found in grains).
What's also worth noting is that a lot of commercial beers DO have leftover yeast in them - there are certain styles that are traditionally bottle-conditioned, and there are lots of pubs that serve beer on cask (basically the same idea as bottle conditioning, except in a big old cask).
I've never had a home brew beer that was particularly great, but pretty much everybody loves my wine kits.
If I am not mistaken, IBC bottles are twist top. You can use twist tops, but you risk poor seals and bottle breakage. The twist tops were never meant to be resealed.
Well, the plan was to get a machine for crimping new caps or whatever onto the bottles. Is that feasible?
xbl - HowYouGetAnts
steam - WeAreAllGeth
You might be able to cap a twist-off bottle and provide a seal, though I think you're more likely to break the lip given the lip construction differences between pry-off and twist-off bottles. Probably best to just collect/buy pry-off bottles rather then being stuck ready to bottle a prepped wort into twist-offs only to find you cannot cap them properly. Or you can avoid capping entirely and buy swing tops. Or avoid bottles entirely and keg and used forced carbonation.
These options do get progressively more expensive though. If you want to collect pry-offs a lot of "fancy" beers (imports and microbrews) use pry-offs.
You may want to drop by Austin Homebrew Supply on Burnet if you have the time. They really know their stuff and can talk you through the procedures.
Awesome, thanks.