Homebrewers

[deathmatch782]

Good to know that there's a bunch of homebrewers here.

I've been AG for 4 years now, did one year of extract kits to learn first.

[Jim916]

What would be a good beer kit to begin with ? I usually drink light beers or corona.

[solbes]

What would be a good beer kit to begin with ? I usually drink light beers or corona.

If you're just starting like me, Brewers Best has complete ingredient kits available for $24-$40 depending on specific brew. I just checked it out and there appears to be 2 that might meet your criteria.

American Creamy Ale is an ale version of American Lager (Corona). Very light color and low bitterness (16-18 IBU).

American Light is another light beer, also an ale, and with even less bitterness (13-16 IBU).

[sparkyaber]

Solbes- propane is the way to go. It heats much faster. It also depends on the burner- I have 2 hurricanes that will bring tap water to boil in no time. I see you live over in ramsey- I am pretty close, so you could come over on a brew day and see about the all grain set up. I have a brew sculpture with 10 gallon capacity. Remember- time is always your friend, when you think it is done, give it a week, you will thank yourself for it.

[solbes]

Sparky - Thanks for the tips. I might just take you up on the offer to see how you do the AG processes. Maybe a little later on in the year after I get a few more extract batches under my belt. I'm also seeing how many different types and styles of kits are out there. Impressive list. I'll probably order another 2 or 3 for my followups soon. Any recommendations on extract kits? Can't wait to try out some of the Belgian or German clones out there after I get more experienced. I remember coming back from a couple of business trips over there and wondered why I couldn't taste my beer

Heating with propane has to be quicker than my electric stove. I'll probably try that on my 3rd or 4th batch on a warmer March or April day. We just bought a 2nd carboy yesterday so I can at least have 2 batches going at once. Don't think I'll get to 9 or 10 though...

Question on brewing lagers. Do you really have to finish the conditioning in the 35-50 F range? I have an unheated basement room that gets to 52 or so during winter. I don't have a spare fridge big enough to fit a 5Gal carboy. I suppose I could crack the window and close the door?

[sparkyaber]

I tend to drink more English and American style beers, so am am not much of a help with the German and especially with the Belgians. I would recommend trying the Kolsh kit from midwest, very tasty, and a stepping stone between a lager and an ale. Temp and taste wise. Your basement would be perfect.

As for the lagering, you will still make beer, but it may have some off flavors. I know guys who keep lagers in the garage next to the interior wall. If space permits, you can get freezers for a small amount of money on the craig site. Using a temp controller, you would be in good shape. I brew year round, but more in the spring and summer.

My email is aberodrigue at hotmail

[solbes]

I think I figured out a way to use our basement mini fridge to cold crash ales and also perform lager duties once I get there.

My first batch, an American Amber, is looking pretty good in the secondary and is starting to clear some (now 2 weeks from start of process). I will probably put it into the fridge over next weekend to drop out some of the yeast before bottling.

I also placed an order for our next 3 batches. On deck is a Kolsch ale, as recommended by Sparky. Figured that would be good to ferment in the basement during the cold weather. Then lager it in the fridge set a little warmer. Should be plenty tasty by start of warmer weather. Next up after that is a flavored wheat beer with German yeast and cranberry flavoring (wife's choice). I might flavor half the batch as I'm not 100% sold on cranberry. Up after that is a Belgian Tripel, which I'm kind of excited about. Should be in the 7-8% range with a Belgian candi sugar addition to the wort. Making good yeast starters should be easier for me by then, as I ordered the more authentic liquid yeast for all 3 batches. Do most people upgrade to the liquid yeast, or do some stick with the standard dry yeast? Any other tips for the three beer types mentioned above for a novice? Thanks

[sparkyaber]

Not too much info on the wheat and Belgian, since I don't really brew them. As for the Kolsh, cool and slow. Use the liquid yeast for this batch. It will turn out nice. About the liquid, I use both liquid and dry yeast in my brews, but I lean to beers that the yeast characteristics should be less evident. On the Belgians and wheats, I usually recommend trying a batch twice one without the liquid and one with. That is where 10 gallon batches really come in handy. pitch one yeast in one carboy and the other yeast in the other carboy. Set them next to each other and the only variable that changes is the yeast.

[solbes]

I moved the amber in carboy into the basement fridge for 4 or 5 days to clear it up just a tad. Already this morning had gotten significantly clearer and appeared to be a thicker yeast band on the bottom. Onto bottling on Monday. Why does time pass by SO slowly on your first batch?

Looks like my next order was just shipped, so I may be starting the Kolsch soon as well. Glad I have 2 carboys because both the Kolsch and Tripel will sit there for awhile.

I can already see that I am going to need MORE long neck brown bottles. I got an initial 48 empties as a Christmas present, but I'm not into paying $15 for 24 empty bottles when you can pay just a tad more to have them filled with commercial brews. Twist-offs are obviously out. So far I've found that Schells beer match the style of the ones I have exactly. Schells is kind of hard to find on a consistent basis (and I'm not talking GrainBelt or Nordeast which ar T/O). Anyone else have advice for which brews match this style of bottle?

[pureinsanity]

I moved the amber in carboy into the basement fridge for 4 or 5 days to clear it up just a tad. Already this morning had gotten significantly clearer and appeared to be a thicker yeast band on the bottom. Onto bottling on Monday. Why does time pass by SO slowly on your first batch?

Looks like my next order was just shipped, so I may be starting the Kolsch soon as well. Glad I have 2 carboys because both the Kolsch and Tripel will sit there for awhile.

I can already see that I am going to need MORE long neck brown bottles. I got an initial 48 empties as a Christmas present, but I'm not into paying $15 for 24 empty bottles when you can pay just a tad more to have them filled with commercial brews. Twist-offs are obviously out. So far I've found that Schells beer match the style of the ones I have exactly. Schells is kind of hard to find on a consistent basis (and I'm not talking GrainBelt or Nordeast which ar T/O). Anyone else have advice for which brews match this style of bottle?

I cant remember if blue moon is twist off or pop off. but that is similar to the shell bottle I think. St paulie girl? its a green bottle though

[sparkyaber]

Solbes- it depends if you are looking to keep the bottles exactly the same? Matching ones are hard to keep up on. I have a mish-mash of every brand bottle that I can think of. Bottles will break, you will give them to people to try, they don't last forever. Keep an eye to the craig site for empty cases. Especially returnables- by far the best + the good cardboard case to boot. Have you tried Rum River Wine and Spirits? Right on 47 just north of Bunker. They keep a good stock of craft beers and also shells beer. The other liqueur store that always has Shells is the one in Andover next to the Festival Foods and Target. I think it is called NorthGate?

The other option- KEGGING. Much more convenient.

Oh, one last tip- take a short section of the hose they give you to bottle with, cut it about 3 inches long. slide it onto the bottling spigot and the other onto the bottling wand, butting the end of the spigot to the top of the wand.Clamp if necessary. Set the bottling bucket on a sturdy table. Then push the bottles onto the wand instead of pushing the wand into the bottles. This makes life much easier. When you find out how painstakingly long a 5/16 takes to fill 50 bottles, I discovered a 1/2 in bottle filler that works much faster.

[solbes]

Great tips everyone. I checked into Blue Moon because I really enjoy wheat beers. Apparently since Coors bought them they switched to a twist-off.

Good point about trying to keep everything the same. That was my thought, but who knows if it really matters. I found some other brands on a site that someone had dedicated to "pry-off" beers only. Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, Smithwicks, Big Sky, Red Hook, and New Belgium are all brands that I currently enjoy and are brown with pry off. So I guess I don't need to drink 100 bottles of Schell's

I will check out the Rum River store north of bunker, I've been there before. And someday after I have enought brewing equipment, I'm sure I'll move to kegging in cornies. I'm already trying to convince the wife we will have a bar in our future lake cabin someday. A tap would be a good starting point!

[solbes]

And to your bottling tip, I had already done that modification, although the two don't quite butt up to each other. Guess I'll find out how slow this process really is. I plan to dedicate some hours to the task on Monday holiday so I can finally start the [PoorWordUsage] countdown!

I wanted to boil our next batch too, but that can probably wait.

[sparkyaber]

good luck tomorrow- it won't take you that long- at the most a few hours.

[solbes]

Just got 'er done. Sanitized the new bottles last night. On subsequent bottle cleanings Palmer's book suggested the heated drying cycle of dishwasher is sufficient for sanitizing bottles, so that would be awesome. Just need to get them really clean right after pouring the bottles.

My wife helped me cap the bottles and the whole process took may 1-1.5 hours today. Not bad for a first attempt. Beer was pretty good too even without carbonation. Maybe we'll get that Kolsch going in a few days. I need to buy a 2 quart starter jar. I think Brew and Grow (on my way home) had them for under 5 bucks.

[sparkyaber]

solbes- you want me to save my commercial bottles? I have so many now that I just chuck them into the recycling. We had Sausage-fest 2011 ( meat processing, for you sickos )last weekend and went through at least 3 12 packs of pop tops. I threw them all in to the recycle bin.

[solbes]

Yeah, I think I'd be interested in those. I'll send you an email to see if I can pick them up when you're around. Just bought 3 twelve packs of Schells variety on Wednesday for pretty cheap. I acutally like 4 of the 6 included quite a bit (Zommerfest Kolsch style, Hopfenmalz (really tasty), Schmalz's Alt, and Firebrick). I guess their Pils and Oktoberfest are okay.

We'll still come up short though, so getting some additional ones would work out well.

We bottled our first batch on Monday, 53 bottles total. They are sitting on our basement bathroom floor since it's heated. The Kolsch starter is bubbling away right now, and I hope to boil the main batch tomorrow or Sunday. I will probably brew up the Tripel in a few weeks as it will sit in the secondary and bottle condition for quite a while.

[solbes]

Sparky, email sent. Let me know if it doesn't show up.

[solbes]

Sparky,

How did that Stout turn out SG wise? Smelled delicious.

Got a question for you. I made a 3.5 quart starter last night for my 5 gall Tripel using the WY3787 yeast in my 1 Gal glass bottle. Thought I had plenty of headspace for the foam, but I guess not. Had to switch to a blowoff tube this morning and it pushed some of the foam out. Is this a problem at all, losing yeast out the top? Probably it'll work out fine, but wanted to be sure before I pitch into the main batch. That Trappist 3787 is a beast!

[sparkyaber]

Solbes- don't worry about it. The biggest problem is the mess. I usually put NoFoam in my big starters to avoid that problem.

As for the RIS og- 1.102 it started krausen after about 2 hours. It blew over like crazy- even with no foam in the fermenter.

Tomorrow is a two for day. An Indian Brown Ale and a American Pale Ale. You are more than welcome to stop over if you are board.

[goblueM]

i'm doin a two-fer today as well - black ipa and RIS

plus watching Michigan-Indiana basketball and working on my thesis.

somehow I don't think I'll get to it all... I wonder which task will suffer

[sparkyaber]

i'm doin a two-fer today as well - black ipa and RIS

plus watching Michigan-Indiana basketball and working on my thesis.

somehow I don't think I'll get to it all... I wonder which task will suffer

Kind of a no brainer isn't it! Hope your brew day went well.

I also need to apologize for my spelling before- I had a few Home Brews in me. bored-board mmeh.

[solbes]

Lesson learned on foaming fermentations. I opened up the starter and siphoned some out so that it stopped foaming out of the bottle. Hopefully I didn't introduce any infections, it tasted slightly sour and a little fruity before pitching into the main wort. Probably just yeast type more than anything.

I did wise up and bought an anti foam packet from Brew and Grow on the way home. It's single use, so I'll have to buy some Fermcap Nofoam drops at Midwest or NB the next time we place an order. That tripel is fermenting like crazy, but so far the foam hasn't reached the top of the bucket.

[goblueM]

well the new Northern Brewer catalog arrived the other day - I can't believe they have actual collaborations with Surly!!

the Smoke recipe makes me wanna go find an old chest freezer lying around and start lagering

Might have to brew up a batch of Furious, I miss that stuff

[Redlantern]

Just got done bottling a batch of hard cider. Not going to be too strong, about 4.75 % but that's fine with me, I drink too fast. Thinking about going back to Granny Smith frozen concentrate. It gives a lot more of an apple flavor. This last batch I used some apple juice I got from Target, rather bland.