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Gonna start Home Brewing

Bottling does suck ---, but you had to experience it to know it firsthand. If you continue to bottle, I'd suggest you take a peek into a Blichmann beer gun. I don't have one, but I've heard nothing but 5 star user reviews of it, and I'm thinking of picking one up. 'Cause even if you do take up kegging, you're gonna wanna bottle here and there for portability, pass on to friends and family, enter into contests, blah blah blah.

Glad it went well for you. Keep up the good work. :thumbs:
 
badhangover said:
Bottling does suck ---, but you had to experience it to know it firsthand. If you continue to bottle, I'd suggest you take a peek into a Blichmann beer gun. I don't have one, but I've heard nothing but 5 star user reviews of it, and I'm thinking of picking one up. 'Cause even if you do take up kegging, you're gonna wanna bottle here and there for portability, pass on to friends and family, enter into contests, blah blah blah.

Glad it went well for you. Keep up the good work. :thumbs:
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If you enter competitions, then a beergun would be something you'd want to consider. But to just take some bottles to a party or to a reletives house, it's not needed. I just put a piece of tubing over the faucet on my kegerator and fill bottles or growlers with that, I just make sure the tube goes to the bottom of the bottle/growler to minimize any splashing.
 
Ahhh, how I would love to homebrew. I mentioned it to the wife earlier this week and her response was "Sure, but you would need to give up one of your other EXPENSIVE hobbies!" haha. Pipes, Cigars, Beer, Scotch.. Someday, maybe..

PS: It didn't help that 2 cases of beer had just arrived from Northern California earlier that day that she had signed for but hadn't told me about yet! Bad timing. :(
 
denverdog said:
Ahhh, how I would love to homebrew. I mentioned it to the wife earlier this week and her response was "Sure, but you would need to give up one of your other EXPENSIVE hobbies!" haha. Pipes, Cigars, Beer, Scotch.. Someday, maybe..

PS: It didn't help that 2 cases of beer had just arrived from Northern California earlier that day that she had signed for but hadn't told me about yet! Bad timing. :(
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This is how you do it....

you just trade onr type of beer hobby for a new one. All those craft beers you are paying to have shipped to you house you can brew at home. for about $20-25 for 2+ cases.

I got started a month or 2 ago, just finished my second 5 gallon batch and have spent less then $300, and that has been spred out over 4 pay days, and includes the stuff for my 3rd brew.

Tim
 
I am going to start doing my own brewing around Christmas and I was wanting peoples thoughts? I have heard a lot about bottling and kegging the beer. I don't want to take the time nor the effort to bottle so how easy is it to put it into the keg?? And does it taste different then in the bottle. Also, is this a hobby that you guys have enjoyed and are you still enjoying it?
 
I love it!!!

I can not afford to keg right now, but it is a easier than bottling. Bottling is not that hard, just takes a little more time and one more ingredient.

As far as keging, you just siphon into the keg, cap it and pressurize it. That simple.

Tim
 
A couple of thoughts:

Bottling - Bottle on the open door of your dishwasher. I put the clean bottles through the sanitizer cycle then bottle right on the open door. Easy clean up for the inevitable overfills. I use the brown, grolsh type bottles with the rubber gaskets stopper for the cap.


Kegging is great, and I haven't bottled in quite a while, but there is added expense for the kegs, hoses, fittings, gaskets and co2. You also have to have space to keep the kegs cold. You can also use the kegs as a secondary, which cuts out a step. If you want to get really fancy, you can use the co2 to transfer from primary to keg in a closed loop and eliminate contamination issues in the transfer.

Lastly, StarSan is your friend!
 
Wow, some good advice here....I might have to try my hand as well. Seems like it may take more patience than I can muster though. :laugh:
 
MX said:
As far as keging, you just siphon into the keg, cap it and pressurize it. That simple.

Tim
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Pretty much. You do have to carbonate the beer in the keg. You could either carbonate with sugar or force carbonate with CO2. With the force carbonation you will have to chill the beer first to get the CO2 to be absorbed better. The problem with the sugar is sediment, but if you pull the first pint or so and dump it, it should be clear after that. Chilling, as mentioned is the biggest problem. I bought a chest freezer and an external temp/power control that keeps mine at whatever temp I desire. You could also push through a chiller plate or a jockey box.

Brewing can end up being another source to deplete your funds on, depending on how far you want to take it. I've been brewing for some time and am always coming up with something new to spend my time making, or buying to help reach the perfect beer.
 
Nice post!

And I agree about the $$$.

Other than cigars, I have 3 main hobbies; Homebrew, 35mm/digital photo, and console gaming. Good thing I have a machine that prints $12 bills. My next big purchase will be an immersion chiller, then maybe a single tier brew stand.

Tim
 
MX said:
Nice post!

And I agree about the $$$.

Other than cigars, I have 3 main hobbies; Homebrew, 35mm/digital photo, and console gaming. Good thing I have a machine that prints $12 bills. My next big purchase will be an immersion chiller, then maybe a single tier brew stand.

Tim
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Go with a counterflow chiller. You will end up getting one eventually. The immersion chiller, I have found, is not very efficient when compared to the CF. I made my own for about $25. Bought 50 ft of copper line and a crappy 50 ft hose. There are plans somewhere on the intertubes. This chills a 10g batch of piping hot wort to pitching temp in about 20 minutes. If I did that with an immersion chiller, it would take about an hour. Plus the oxidation of the hot wort, the chance crap can fall in while you are stirring the wort around to help cool, etc, etc.
 
Bottling - Bottle on the open door of your dishwasher. I put the clean bottles through the sanitizer cycle then bottle right on the open door. Easy clean up for the inevitable overfills. I use the brown, grolsh type bottles with the rubber gaskets stopper for the cap
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Where were you when I first started homebrewing?!! That's a great idea!!
Go with a counterflow chiller.
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Yeah, counterflow is the way to go.
Also, is this a hobby that you guys have enjoyed and are you still enjoying it?
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Absolutely. I started homebrewing in '95 and enjoy it more today than when I first started. I have been fortunate to meet some great people, go to various fests, worked briefly in a brewpub, and now am studying to become a certified beer judge.
 
I prefer a pre-chiller and immersion chiller combo over a counterflow or plate chiller. Maybe it's just 'cause I'm used to it - and cheap, as both were acquired on the cheap. The pre-chiller helps quickly bring the wort down to pitching temp.
 
Don't knock plate chillers until you try them. I use ground water during the summer and knock 10 gal batches down to 100deg in about 6mins.

I then toss a bag of ice into my HLT and recirculate that ice water thru the plate chiller and chill down to pitching temps in another 6mins.

Being able to chill 12gal of boiling wort to 62deg in 12mins is a huge time saver. (Well at least compared to my first batch that I tried to cool in the sink with ice and water)

No matter what you use, I think most people will benefit from recirculating ice water. A simple solution is a old bucket w/ a cheap sump pump from Harbor Freight (about $25). Add a couple bags of ice, some water and then connect that to the water in on your IC or CFC and just direct the hot output water back into bucket. You might have better luck sending that hot water to the ground and adding water back to the bucket. Couldn't tell you as I haven't done it that way.
 
Don't knock counter flows either, as I simply use gravity and chill my wort to 60ºF in about 20 mins from boiling.
This proves once again that theres as many ways to do things in homebrewing as there are homebrewers!
Happy Holidays!!
 
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