Topic: Home Brew Thread

[Neutral Milk]

So we have another old thread on here which was in large part dedicated to talking about home-brew beers. The thread was also a general discussion of Beer. The thread is Speaking of Beer. The bulk of the discussion of home brew beers is on pages 13 to 20.

Anyway, since that is more of a general thread about beer I decided to start a new one specifically to discuss home brewing.

My girlfriend had remembered me getting enthused about the idea of brewing my own beer a year ago, and I guess at that time I had mentioned that thread. Anyway, being the  wonderful girlfriend that she is she recently located that thread and found the home brew kit recommended by whitedevilbrewing, and purchased it for my birthday.

I got the kit, which is this standard kit. My girlfriend also knew of a home brew store, and decided she wanted to take me there to pick out the kind of beer to brew.

I went to the homebrew store, and the guy behind the counter was ridiculously unhelpful. Our conversation consisted of me making a question and him giving me a smarmy/dick response.

"I'm looking to get some starter kit or something, I've never done this before."
"Are you looking to can?"
"No I was gonna bottle the beer."
rolls his eyes "No are you going to can it?"
"The kit bottles the beer."
"Ugh. Can it. Are you going to be using a can or going off a recipe?"
"What? Uh.. I don't have a recipe."
"Cans are back there."

Turns out a can isn't what I wanted. When I got home I looked into the catalogue that came with my kit and it says

MorePhilosophy!
-We don't sell "canned" kits because they can't and don't make great beer.

My plan had been to go to the home brew store, and have a nice chat with the friendly employees. They would teach me what I wanted to know, they would be so excited to inform a new generation of brewer who was eager to learn. Instead I wanted to get out of the store as quickly as possible.

Another exchange...

"Can I use tap water to make my wort?"
"HAH. No. It's got chlorine in it"
Pause
"So then what kind of water should I use?"
"The kind that they sell at the store."
Pause
"OK but what kind, distilled?"
"No."
Pause
"What kind then?"
"Ugh. Spring water, of course!" Rolls eyes.

And...

Looking at the books
"Oh I've heard of this Papazian guy."
"That's a good book if you're serious about recipes."
"I read the book that came with my kit."
"Oh the pamphlet that came with your kit? Those are worthless"
"It was like 60 pages..." Bows head in shame

I'm ordering my supplies from catalogs from now on.

Anyway. Some questions for the veteran brewers:
-Ever tried canned materials? Are the differences that noticeable?
-What online stores sell the best product? Is MoreFlavor a good source?
-What are some good ways to start out, and what are some good ways to get into recipe-design?

[Iron Chef - Skeptic]

Well, my experience in homebrew stores has been quite the opposite.  The guy(s) were really helpful & knowledgeable, as well as very willing to help out even a newbie.  Don't let that deutsche bank ruin it for all those types of stores.

However, speaking as someone who has brewed a batch or two in his day - all grain is absolutely the way to go.  At the beginning, use some of the canned malt extract stuff, just to get experienced w/ the whole process.   But there really is no comparison - the quality is in all grain, for sure.

[DarthCaitSith]

I like brewing all grain, but there is no reason you can't make great beer if you get a good extract.

The guy at the homebrew store sounds like he doesn't really know anything either, and is covering for his lack of knowledge with douchiness.

There are only four ingredients in most beer so iut all about good quality ingredients and good process.

I wouldn't really trust canned extract myself. Liquid Malt Extract (LME) needs to be fresh for best results. Dry Malt Extract (DME) can sit for a while, but really is best for adding more sugar to the beer, not as a base for your beer.  And unless you are making a very simple beer, even with good LME you are going to want some extra specialty grains to give you beer flavor and complexity.

Hops need to be stored frozen in airtight packaging or they go bad very quickly. I like pellet hops because they resit oxidation much better then whole hops and they work in my system better.

Water makes up over 90% of most beer so it is something you need to pay attention to.  It is even more important for all grain brewers as the extract company will have made addidtions to thier water so the extract whould have all the nutrients you need for fermentation. If you are doing an extract beer distilled water would work great. For all grain beer you there needs to be some though given to the compoisition of the water.  Unless you have crazy water though your tap water should work great if you use a carbon block filter to get out the chlorine.

Yeast is the unsung hero of beer. Really as a homebrewer i only make wort, yeast makes beer.  Pitching the ruight amount and right type of yeast for your style of beer can really affect the finished quality of the beer. The temperature of fermentation is also very important.  Anyone can make a decent wort with an extract kit and a big pot of water. Great beer is all about fermentation.

The fifth ingredient in beer is cleaning. 90% of beer is all about getting things clean and getting them sanitized. But again this is really about fermentation, if you don't get things clean you're gonna have bacteria and wild yeast ruining your beer. (sour styles aside)

[Neutral Milk]

Reading through the literature I have been so freaked out about  getting things clean. I have a plastic bucket as my fermenter, and my roommate dropped my capper into the bucket, and I got insanely worried there may have been a tiny scratch where bacteria might flourish and destroy my beer!

[Neutral Milk]

Oh I have a question that I haven't found a clear answer to:
I bought about a lb of corn sugar which is meant for priming. Do I add that to the bottling bucket, or directly to each individual bottle?

[DarthCaitSith]

OK what you do is take the quareter cup or whatever amount of sugar you are using, add a little water, boil it, let it cool a bit, add it to the bottom of the bottling bucket and then rack (transfer) your beer into the bottling bucket, using the transfer to stir the sugar throughout the beer carefully trying to get as little O2 into the beer as possible.


You do not want to add the sugar to the bottles as it would be very difficult to be precise or accurate at the amount of sugar that would be in each bottle.

[Chew]

Or buy a keg, a bottle of CO2, and associated hosing. Roll the keg on the ground while pressuzing it. Chill it for a few hours and it's ready to drink.

[Neutral Milk]

Not adding O2 is accomplished how? I've got two buckets, both with spigots at the bottom, I'm unclear on how to transfer the liquid from the fermenter to the bottler without contaminating with O2. Does simply siphoning do a good job of that? Also, why change buckets to bottle? Why not bottle from the fermenting bucket directly?

Sorry.. lots of questions.

[DarthCaitSith]

OK, you put the bucket the beer is in higher then the bottling bucket, attach some tubing to the spigot and then put the tubing to the bottom of the bottling bucket.

 
The reason you transfer is #1 to get rid of most of the trub (yeast and other crud at the bottom of the fermentor) and #2 to mix in the priming sugar.

[DarthCaitSith]

A good resource for begiing brewing questions is http://howtobrew.com its the first edition of the book How to Brew by John Palmer.

[Neutral Milk]

A good resource for begiing brewing questions is http://howtobrew.com its the first edition of the book How to Brew by John Palmer.

Excellent section on brewing from these can kits.

[Karyn]

My boyfriend's favorite place to go for beer podcasts:

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/

especially the jamil show.

He did the all grain for a bit, but decided it was just a bit too cumbersome for the mildly better results.  He usually gets together with 3 or 4 friends and they will spend an entire day doing 3 or 4 brews.  Also, they are all extremely anal about being sterile.  I don't think it's ever bad to be too anal about that.

[pandamonium]

*just noting this thread. It is relevant to my interests.

[DarthCaitSith]

My boyfriend's favorite place to go for beer podcasts:

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/

especially the jamil show.

I listen to a lot of thier podcasts as well, though i think Brew Strong (also hosted by Jamil) is the best

[whitedevilbrewing]

BN ARMY 4LIFE

I'm actually sort of looking forward to unemployment, cuz at least I'll be able to spend time brewing, which I haven't done in a while.