Who is a Home Brewer

[smoke76]

I have tryed home brewing in the past and noticed some of you guys have some pretty technical setups compaired to the kit I bought at the local hb shop. Does it make a difference to transfer like I've seen you guys do? Also what is the best way to cool the wort after boiling. The first batch killed the yeast so I gave the next one a Ice bath in my tub. The wife really loved that idea! I want to try it again so would it be better to build something bigger or keep using the 5 gal bucket?

George

Hi George,
As with all hobbies start small and learn as you go. The transfer of your wort to a fresh carboy after a week or so will help improve the flavor of your beer. Leaving the wort on the "trub" gives it a chance to pick up off flavors. Plastic buckets also are not the best fermentaton vessels they can scratch easily and hold bacteria that can ruin a batch. My advise to you is to buy at least one glass carboy, preferably two. After your wort blows off ( We usually wait a week or two ), transfer your fermenting wort to the carboy and wait for it to finish fermenting. Be sure to keep it out of the light, a blanket or jacket can be used to protect it. As a long time brewer I always use a carboy for my initial fermentation also. One of the benefits of the secondary fermenter is that you don't need to rush it into the bottle or keg.

As far as chilling, the faster the better. I used an ice bath (snow bath in the winter) for a while , but it took forever to chill. There a basicly two types of chiller to look into. An imersion chiller is a copper tube that you can hook to your water supply. You imerse the SANITIZED chiller into your boiled wort and run cold water through it. the other type is a counterflow chiller, the wort runs through a copper tube that is threaded through the Garden hose. Both types work well. We chill 10 Gallons in about 20 Mins with a counterflow. Be careful of sanitation regardless of which method you use.Always try to get as close to 68F before you pitch your yeast.

Did you like the beer that you made? If so, you can use some of these methods to make it better, but relax and make your investments as you feel like it. If you didnt like it there are many things you can do to make it better, get some advice from other brewers and try again.

Here is a link that shows our set-up Three Dog Brewery It took me 15 years to get to this point and I am still learning!

Keep on Brewin'

Mark

Thanks for the advise, all of you! The beer I made was ok. It was a lager and had a nice smooth start on the palate but had a sharp bite at the end.I had a friend who was from Germany and she loved it. She said it reminded her of the local brews back home. I know I'll be my worst critic and I need to move on. After reading the posts I' ordering a kit for Belgium Wit. I have been drinking a lot of belgium beer latley and want to try my hand at it. I think i'm going to go with the imersion chiller. A carboy is also on its way. I'll do the first fermentation in the bucket and transfer it to the carboy. My local b and m has events all through the summer so hopfully some will be ready for one of them. I saw your pics earlier and it looks pretty wild. Any way I could buy a sixer to check it out? Or mabey a trade when mines ready? Let me know.

The wifey is a liitle ipset about another hobby. But hell I have an extra 2 minutes a month I need to fill!

 

[davidr2340]

I have tryed home brewing in the past and noticed some of you guys have some pretty technical setups compaired to the kit I bought at the local hb shop. Does it make a difference to transfer like I've seen you guys do? Also what is the best way to cool the wort after boiling. The first batch killed the yeast so I gave the next one a Ice bath in my tub. The wife really loved that idea! I want to try it again so would it be better to build something bigger or keep using the 5 gal bucket?

George

Hey George!
Here is what I have...

It came with my kit, and makes thing much easier! I can cool in about 15min. I just drop it in the boiling wort with about 20min. left in the boil to sanitize... Never had any troubles!
How did you ferment the Lager you did? Doesn't a lager have to ferment in the low to mid 50 degree range! I would love to try my hand at a lager, but have no way to keep it that cool.

Good luck bro, and keep us posted!!!

Mark, good to see you around bro!!!
How goes the battle?

 

[smoke76]

How did you ferment the Lager you did? Doesn't a lager have to ferment in the low to mid 50 degree range! I would love to try my hand at a lager, but have no way to keep it that cool.

It probably does need that temp and mabey thats why it didn't turn out like a lager. I don't know. It was 5 years ago now. But moving on! I was told a lot of this is going to be trial and error. So far beer 2 George 0.

 

[smoke76]

Look what the beer fairy droped off today!!!!!!

Lets just keep or finger's crossed!. The brew will commence on Sunday!

George

 

[davidr2340]

Look what the beer fairy droped off today!!!!!!

Lets just keep or finger's crossed!. The brew will commence on Sunday!

George

Awesome bro!
Take some pics of the big brewday, and keep us posted how things go!!!

:thumbs:

 

[smoke76]

Awesome bro!
Take some pics of the big brewday, and keep us posted how things go!!!

:thumbs:

Thanks for the info Dave. I will def. be taking pics on Sunday. Now to pick a smoke.... I'll be drinkin a Leffe so mabey a mild one.

G

 

[HarvInSTL]

Anyone else brewing this weekend? I've got 10gallon of German Pilsner planned for Saturday and 10gallons of an Oktoberfest for Sunday. Hopefully I'll have some time in between then to work on my upcoming 10tap chesterator.

I'll try and take some pics this weekend!

 

[davidr2340]

Anyone else brewing this weekend? I've got 10gallon of German Pilsner planned for Saturday and 10gallons of an Oktoberfest for Sunday. Hopefully I'll have some time in between then to work on my upcoming 10tap chesterator.

I'll try and take some pics this weekend!

Sounds awesome bro... I would love to see how that "chesterator" turns out!!!
Do you post over @ HBT?

:thumbs:

 

[cody5thou]

Bump!!

Lets get this thread going again. I want to know what people are brewing these days?????

 

[MX]

Well count me in.

Tim

 

[cody5thou]

I will be buying my first kit before the end of the month. I am looking at buying the Ultimate Starter Kit from Northern Brewer, yes the family will be helping. My great great grandfather Conrad Seipps was in the brewing business in Chicago so we thought it would be neat to try brewing a family beer again. I want to see what you guys suggest and love to brew!!

 

[suprchunk]

I will be brewing a full barrel of Old Rasputin clone in about a month to set aside and age for a few years. I will have to brew a few batches before that to collect enough yeast for such a big batch of high gravity beer. Any suggestions? Will be brewing about 5 batches before the RIP, all ales, and all pretty large batches. Will be willing to pay some forward for great suggestions. No flavored beers as I don't want to impart those tastes into the RIP.

 

[cody5thou]

That sounds interesting. I wish I had some thoughts to share, but I do not know a whole lot yet. Good luck.

 

[MX]

I will be brewing a full barrel of Old Rasputin clone in about a month to set aside and age for a few years. I will have to brew a few batches before that to collect enough yeast for such a big batch of high gravity beer. Any suggestions? Will be brewing about 5 batches before the RIP, all ales, and all pretty large batches. Will be willing to pay some forward for great suggestions. No flavored beers as I don't want to impart those tastes into the RIP.

Are you looking to brew something other than RIS to collect from? I would say that anything you can brew with the California Ale yeast (White Labs #WLP001) will work. Just wash it, and then rebuild the starter. You are gonna need a lot of yeasties. How big of a starter do you plan on pitching for the barrel?

Tim

 

[half full monty]

Did a 10 gal all grain batch of Rye Pale Ale last weekend, first brew of the season.

9# Munich
6# 2 row
4# Rye
1# Carapils
1# Crystal 80

1.75 oz Chinook at 60
1.75 oz Cents at 30
2 oz Cascade at 5 min

Have to wait till the house temp drops below 70 to ferment.

Looking good so far. Using WLP001 Cali Ale yeast for 5 gal and WLP005 British Ale yeast for the other 5 gal.

Now the hard part, waiting four weeks to drink.........(tapping foot....) :whistling:

 

[MX]

1.75 oz Chinook at 60
1.75 oz Cents at 30
2 oz Cascade at 5 min

That is is a good hop bill. To hoppy for my taste, but that is just me. What did the IBU come out as?

Tim

 

[half full monty]

1.75 oz Chinook at 60
1.75 oz Cents at 30
2 oz Cascade at 5 min

That is is a good hop bill. To hoppy for my taste, but that is just me. What did the IBU come out as?

Tim

Around 65 IBU, but it will be a little more since I fell a little short on my SG. Efficiency was 70%, I assumed 75 when I created the recipe in ProMash.

Jim

 

[suprchunk]

I will be brewing a full barrel of Old Rasputin clone in about a month to set aside and age for a few years. I will have to brew a few batches before that to collect enough yeast for such a big batch of high gravity beer. Any suggestions? Will be brewing about 5 batches before the RIP, all ales, and all pretty large batches. Will be willing to pay some forward for great suggestions. No flavored beers as I don't want to impart those tastes into the RIP.

Are you looking to brew something other than RIS to collect from? I would say that anything you can brew with the California Ale yeast (White Labs #WLP001) will work. Just wash it, and then rebuild the starter. You are gonna need a lot of yeasties. How big of a starter do you plan on pitching for the barrel?

Tim

Oh yeah, I'm not going to build up to the big one with more RIS. A lot of ales before I collect about 1gal of yeast slurry, maybe a little less. I don't want that much beer sitting without some fermentation starting as soon as possible. Was looking at maybe a couple pales, red, then maybe a big IPA/APA before I collect for the big guy.

 

[ChiTown_Huck]

I have an IPA in secondary. I am trying to get a brew date set up with BitterRat soon. I'd like to have a couple batches around for Christmas. We'll see if I can accomplish that.

 

[Not A Nice Person]

Great thread!

I haven't tried my hand at beer yet, but have been brewing mead for about 5-6 years now. Have a three gallon carboy of Mata (Horny Goat Weed) Metheglin almost ready to bottle, and two smaller batches---a Red Zinger disaster that's finally come around, and a cyser---that really should've been bottled ages ago.

That's what I like about mead. No hurries, no worries.

~Boar