[Homebrewing] Or how I learned to stop worrying and brew my own damn beer

minirhyder

Cincitucky wrote: »

Just threw together the first Mr. Beer brew. Will see how it turns out after letting the yeast do its job.

I expect lots of pictures.

By the way, this is how my blondie turned out. My prettiest ale so far (also only the second, but still).

Cincitucky

Checked the fermenter, looking for signs of activity. Not seeing any foaming yet but the yeast is doing something at the bottom of the fermenter.

While I keep telling myself there's a chance of this first one not brewing correctly, there's a lot of excitement for this first one where I'm constantly checking in on the batch. Like I'm a little kid that can't sleep waiting to open up the Christmas morning gifts.

shadowane

Deadfall wrote: »

Eh I've used glass for three years and haven't had one problem. I'm not saying it won't explode but it's not as catastrophic as these guys are making it seem. The homebrew store near me that holds classes uses dozens of glass carboys every week, and the Indian brewpub here uses glass to ferment their five gallon special batches.

Most times I've read about glass is people avoid it due to the danger of dropping it, not really it exploding from fermentation. If you drop a plastic carboy, maybe the beer spills. If you drop glass, beware. But, if you're careful, you probably won't drop one.

minirhyder

Cincitucky wrote: »

Checked the fermenter, looking for signs of activity. Not seeing any foaming yet but the yeast is doing something at the bottom of the fermenter.

While I keep telling myself there's a chance of this first one not brewing correctly, there's a lot of excitement for this first one where I'm constantly checking in on the batch. Like I'm a little kid that can't sleep waiting to open up the Christmas morning gifts.

I check on my batches every day. It's still very exciting, even after a couple of successful brews.

How long has it been since you pitched the yeast?

Cincitucky

minirhyder wrote: »

Cincitucky wrote: »

Checked the fermenter, looking for signs of activity. Not seeing any foaming yet but the yeast is doing something at the bottom of the fermenter.

While I keep telling myself there's a chance of this first one not brewing correctly, there's a lot of excitement for this first one where I'm constantly checking in on the batch. Like I'm a little kid that can't sleep waiting to open up the Christmas morning gifts.

I check on my batches every day. It's still very exciting, even after a couple of successful brews.

How long has it been since you pitched the yeast?

Its been over 15 hours, pitched it last night around 7pm. Was reading about lagtime and it sounds possible that the foaming could take up to two days.

minirhyder

Yeah it could take like 24+ hours for the yeast to kick in, depending on the yeast, though in my experience liquid yeast takes long than dry. Anyway even if it doesn't start up, you can always re-pitch.
As nervewracking as it is, lack of fermentation is one of the problems that are fairly easy to fix, and you catch it within a day.

Deadfall

shadowane wrote: »

Deadfall wrote: »

Eh I've used glass for three years and haven't had one problem. I'm not saying it won't explode but it's not as catastrophic as these guys are making it seem. The homebrew store near me that holds classes uses dozens of glass carboys every week, and the Indian brewpub here uses glass to ferment their five gallon special batches.

Most times I've read about glass is people avoid it due to the danger of dropping it, not really it exploding from fermentation. If you drop a plastic carboy, maybe the beer spills. If you drop glass, beware. But, if you're careful, you probably won't drop one.

Ah I see. I use these harness things that makes it much easier to carry.

Cincitucky

Came home to find the fermenting foaming away. Was able to get a couple snapshots of MrBeer doing its thang...

Fermenter Base

Fermenter Profile

Fermenter Top

webguy20

How easy was it to set up? It looks fun.

Cincitucky

As a first time brewer, MrBeer was easy to setup. Though I would recommend reading the introduction of John Palmer's How To Brew. MrBeer has an overly simplified feel, probably in an attempt avoid intimidating first-timers, and it glosses over the entire process without going in depth to explaining anything.

Two things about my MrBeer experience. First, I almost got burnt by not having a two gallon container. I was able to improvise with two one gallon containers (which have to be sanitized!) to refrigerate the water. Second, I now understand the uses of ice baths or cooling systems to bring the tempatures down after boilings. While MrBeer didn't have instructions to boil water before refrigerating, I boiled the tap water for my brew. Where I got hosed was I didn't have a way to bring the temp down quickly. It took FOREVER to cool off!

minirhyder

Man look at this sexy ale

Cincitucky

What type of ale is that? It has a porter/stout appearance and jeez look at that head. I'm starting to think you're getting these great looking beers via another's store bought sixpack. :mrgreen:

Checked the fermenter, I'm curious why the contents have lost their opaqueness at day five. It's taking me some will power to fight the urge to mess with the brew but I'll let it sit for another week.

minirhyder

I used this recipe, but subbed in Styrian Golding for Fuggles because my shop didn't have Fuggles at the time.

It lacks the full body of a stout - it's a bit on the light side, but quite nice all the same. Very strong coffee/chocolate taste.
Don't you wish you could taste stuff over the internet? When's technology gonna get on that?

Cincitucky

Got the brew bottled. Will be showing the results in a couple weeks.

Cincitucky

This is a pleasant surprise... my first homebrew turned out to be Newcastle Ale!

kuhlmeye

I was looking for this thread.

Here's my double starter for the imperial ipa I'm brewing on Wednesday. Oh, and there's a batch bubbling happily away in the background.

Cincitucky

@Koldanar here's the homebrewing thread.

Koldanar

Cincitucky wrote: »

@Koldanar here's the homebrewing thread.

Excellent! This didn't pop up for me in my search, oddly enough.

My lovely wife got me a gift certificate to a local brew shop for Christmas, and my first attempt (Brewed on their equipment) is finally bottle conditioned and ready to drink. I made a dry, standard stout (Heavy on the malt, next to no finish) that came out fairly well, though the bottles are a little inconsistent.

My next attempt will be a wheat beer, close as I can get to Troeg's Dreamweaver. Me and the wife both love the flavors the yeast bring to that beer, and it seems fairly straightforward to do.

kuhlmeye

Oh man, another convert! Glad to hear your first batch came out okay!

I haven't attempted a pure wheat beer yet, but I also really enjoy the yeasts used for Hefe's and saisons. Last night I brewed up the imperial IPA I mentioned above. A total of 10lbs of fermentables and 6 ounces of hops , should come out to around 8% ABV and 100+ IBUs when it's done. The yeast I'm using is a saison yeast, which I'm hoping will add an interesting note to the final product. I also plan on dry hopping it after about 2 weeks.

Last weekend I brewed a pumpkin ale I received as an accident, and will be brewing a coffee vanilla stout this weekend, making my week total up to 15 gallons brewed. It's the most I've brewed in one week!

CaptainPeacock

So I'm really nervous about brewing my first batch. Maintaining sterility so that I don't spoil it with infection is what's worrying me. Any tips? I've heard that during the boil and decanting into the carboy I should use the bucket to sterilize every instrument since I won't need the bucket until bottling day. Can I leave the instruments in the sanitizer fluid the whole time during the boil?

Cincitucky

Hefeweizens are great warm weather brews. What's does the recipe look like for your wheat batch?

That IPA is going to pack a punch at 8% ABV.

Cincitucky

Holy hell I messed up editing that post.

Found a recipe recipe link that uses the Mr. Beer St Patrick's Stout extract, planning on using this to get a stout batch in the fermenter this weekend.

Cincitucky

CaptainPeacock wrote: »

So I'm really nervous about brewing my first batch. Maintaining sterility so that I don't spoil it with infection is what's worrying me. Any tips? I've heard that during the boil and decanting into the carboy I should use the bucket to sterilize every instrument since I won't need the bucket until bottling day. Can I leave the instruments in the sanitizer fluid the whole time during the boil?

There's actually nothing to worry about. I've only been through one homebrew and the final product turned out well.

Yes you can leave your instruments in the sanitizer fluid. You can also pour some of your sanitizing solution onto a large plate or bowl so you can keep your brewing items close by on a countertop while you're working. Saw a video on youtube where the guy was keeping it sanitized items in a wallpaper trough which is ingenious.

Best thing to keep in mind approaching your boiling day. Stay calm... getting worked up won't help your brewing process. Even better, have a beer before you start.

minirhyder

CaptainPeacock wrote: »

So I'm really nervous about brewing my first batch. Maintaining sterility so that I don't spoil it with infection is what's worrying me. Any tips? I've heard that during the boil and decanting into the carboy I should use the bucket to sterilize every instrument since I won't need the bucket until bottling day. Can I leave the instruments in the sanitizer fluid the whole time during the boil?

You can. Or you can quickly rinse it. Or you can put some sanitizer into a sprayer and do it that way.
Don't worry about it too much. If you put the sanitizer on your equipment, it's good to go, doesn't matter if it soaked for hours or just got quickly rinsed.

Do be OCD about sanitizing, do not be OCD about the process itself.

CaptainPeacock

So the setup I'm planning has my boil happening on my kitchen gas stove, the move it outisde where my immersion chiller will be, hooked up to an outside water hose. Run that until it's cooled, then siphon into the carboy. I guess another worry I have is that doing the chill outside would allow things from the air (spores, etc) a chance to fall in. Is that something I shouldnt be too concerned about?

Koldanar

Cincitucky wrote: »

Hefeweizens are great warm weather brews. What's does the recipe look like for your wheat batch? That IPA is going to pack a punch at 8% ABV.

I plan on doing something like this, converted to extract (or steeping some grains, if that's possible)

4 lbs. German 2-row Pils
3 lbs. German Vienna
3 lbs. German Wheat Malt Light
.5 oz. Saaz (Pellets, 5.00 %AA) boiled 60 min.
Yeast : White Labs WLP300 Hefewizen Ale

Cincitucky

CaptainPeacock wrote: »

So the setup I'm planning has my boil happening on my kitchen gas stove, the move it outisde where my immersion chiller will be, hooked up to an outside water hose. Run that until it's cooled, then siphon into the carboy. I guess another worry I have is that doing the chill outside would allow things from the air (spores, etc) a chance to fall in. Is that something I shouldnt be too concerned about?

There always is a chance of something floating in the air, inside or outside, that can infect your batch. Best thing to do is to place a sanitized lid on your container to prevent contamination. When you do your flame out, place your lid on your container when you move outside to do your temperature drop on the wort and you should be fine.

Out of curiosity, what sanitizer are you using?

Edit: removed stout recipe. Its not worthy of posting until I can get it up to a better quality.

Cincitucky

Just finished brewing. Not sold on the recipe. Thinking the amount of water used for steeping and boiling the extract is way to low.

Checked the OG, it clocked in at 1.068. We'll see what happens after the yeast has done its job.

kuhlmeye

Well, it's been a long week. 3 separate brew days, culminating in 15 gallons of beer fermenting in my spare bedroom.

Daedalus

So I generally keg beer but I'm considering doing a batch of blonde ale in bottles to take to places over the summer. One of those places does not allow glass bottles, and I can't exactly use aluminum cans, so that leaves plastic.

Has anyone here used the brown plastic beer bottles that homebrew stores sell? Mine is selling them for like $23 per 24-pack, which is pretty pricey. Are they really worth the premium over, say, cleaned and reused Diet Mountain Dew bottles, which I always seem to have an abundance of?

minirhyder

I'd be concerned about regular soda bottles because they probably won't have an airtight seal and your conditioning won't happen.

Cincitucky

Are the brown plastic bottles 1 liter and what size are the Mountain Dew bottles? The only advantage to the brown plastic bottles over the Dew ones is you could reduce the total number of bottles based on volume.

My brewkit came with eight of the 1L brown plastic bottles and they worked just fine.

kuhlmeye

Also, you need to be careful about the Mountain Dew bottles and skunking. Brown would not have that problem.

Deadfall

Gingerbread Brown and Coffee Coconut Stout fermenting now.

So excite bike.

Aioua

Me and the housemates dragged the equipment into the driveway for our first brew of the season. A nice, simple, red ale. One of them bought a pretty sweet brewstand off a co-worker who was moving.

The plumbing arrangement is kind of silly, we're going to probably re-build it from scratch. But two pumps, two burners (and a spot for a third), and the counterflow wort chiller make up for it.

kuhlmeye

Aioua wrote: »

Me and the housemates dragged the equipment into the driveway for our first brew of the season. A nice, simple, red ale. One of them bought a pretty sweet brewstand off a co-worker who was moving.

The plumbing arrangement is kind of silly, we're going to probably re-build it from scratch. But two pumps, two burners (and a spot for a third), and the counterflow wort chiller make up for it.

That is a sweet set up! Do you know how much the stand cost you?

Aioua

kuhlmeye wrote: »

Aioua wrote: »

Me and the housemates dragged the equipment into the driveway for our first brew of the season. A nice, simple, red ale. One of them bought a pretty sweet brewstand off a co-worker who was moving.

The plumbing arrangement is kind of silly, we're going to probably re-build it from scratch. But two pumps, two burners (and a spot for a third), and the counterflow wort chiller make up for it.

That is a sweet set up! Do you know how much the stand cost you?

I think it was something like $600 for the stand, burners, plumbing, pumps, and chiller, plus some other misc gear.
I didn't have to pay for it so what do I care. :P

kuhlmeye

Pricey! Although you bring up a good point...

I really wish I had room for a brew stand like that. I'm still brewing on the stovetop, and I can't wait to move up to a standalone burner.

Aioua

We used to use an outdoor propane cooker, you can get them pretty cheap.
We needed it, too! The first time we brewed we managed to boil over like 4 times. Would not want that to happen on a stove :O

Daedalus

Cincitucky wrote: »

Are the brown plastic bottles 1 liter and what size are the Mountain Dew bottles? The only advantage to the brown plastic bottles over the Dew ones is you could reduce the total number of bottles based on volume.

My brewkit came with eight of the 1L brown plastic bottles and they worked just fine.

The brown plastic bottles are 500ml, same as the Dew bottles. At almost $1 per, they seem overpriced.

And I'm pretty sure the Dew bottles will be airtight, since they held carbonated soda.

Maybe I'll reuse the bottles but get new caps? Caps are cheap.

I will need to worry about skunking.