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TOPIC: How to Brew

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ben

How to Brew
2 Years, 3 Months ago

I can't do better than Charlie Palmer. How To Brew is the best resource for beginning and getting an idea of how things work. It's a book, but the whole thing is available online for free.

Once you find that you're not scared away by the introduction, I would:

find a homebrewing club and attend a meeting where you might get to try some hand crafted beers, meet some brewers and get a hand getting started.
visit a store to get an equipment kit and your first ingredient kit.
give it a shot.

Our club has many guys who brew together which offers a chance for new guys to bring their stuff to brew with help. We also have AHA events like Teach a Friend to Brew Day in November and Big Brew in May.

It doesn't take much to make good beer. It can take decades to perfect a recipe.

If you want to take some shortcuts, I'd invest in a keg system early and plan to go to All Grain pretty quick. You can make good beer using extracts, but to make it really good, you need to do a lot of work making sure you get the right extracts from the right places. You can get what's called an Extract Twang if the extract is caramelized or aged.

I'm far from being an expert, but I do what I can do to share. I'm a BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program) beer judge and I think I'm pretty good at that.

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Captain Willard

Re:How to Brew
2 Years, 3 Months ago

I second all of this. Kegging will make your life so much easier, and you get to enjoy your handiwork three or four weeks sooner! Definitely go all-grain as soon as possible. It's not as difficult as it may seem when you read about it - beer is pretty forgiving. The one thing I'd like to add is that if you're getting started with extract, the best thing you can do to improve your beer is to do full-volume boils instead of boiling a gallon or two of wort and diluting it in water before fermentation. That extract twang is no joke, and it mostly comes from burning the wort on the bottom of the kettle, which is much more likely with concentrated wort. If you do partial boils, you will get the twang, guaranteed.

Also, brewing can be an expensive, gear intensive hobby, but it doesn't have to be. There are plenty of resources out there that can help you get started brewing world-class beer at home without breaking the bank.

Prost!

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ben

Re:How to Brew 2 Years, 3 Months ago
For Inspiration:

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ben

Re:How to Brew
2 Years, 1 Month ago

I got a 60 quart kettle for Christmas. Made good use of it yesterday by brewing a high-end American Stout. Split a 10 gallon batch with a friend who has been asking to split a batch for months. The real down side was the constant 18mph wind that made the 25° feel bitterly cold. We had a good time, though.

I also got to taste three beers I brewed over the summer. They've all aged very well. I'm thinking about entering all three in competitions in February.

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ben

Re:How to Brew
2 Years, 1 Month ago

And in a measure of efficiency, I let my mash sour overnight. Drained out 3+ gallons of wort and then ran another 5 gallons through to get the rest of the sugars out. Using the basic style goal of a Berliner Weiss it got boiled for 15 minutes with 3 pounds of liquid malt extract and a hop addition and then was chilled. Fermenting it with some nondescript yeast and quarter of it also got a dose of Brettonomyces lambicus. That will give it a good hit of acidity that is supposed to be a lot like tart cherries.

I'll have about 8 gallons of something. There's a Belgian style called Flander's Brown Ale or Oud Bruin that this should be similar to. Berliner Weiss is a light colored, thin bodies wheat beer that is lightly soured. It has the refreshing effect of a lightly sweetened lemonade. Because this has a good deal of roasted malt character, I expect it to have more dark fruit flavors like dark cherries and plums. It takes about 6 months for the Brett to mellow down. It should make a great lawnmower beer.

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ben

Re:How to Brew 1 Year, 11 Months ago
I think I'm in trouble. After today's brewing session, I got several "You owe me"s. Next weekend she may sell some of my organs. Get your bids in early. (And stay away from the liver. It'll get well used next weekend.)

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ben

Re:How to Brew
1 Year, 11 Months ago

I didn't mention here that I won two golds and an Honorable Mention at the contest that weekend.

The honorable mention was the one I thought might win the whole competition, but it was undercarbonated. I'm fixing it in the three remaining bottles and then rebrewing it on Monday with a minor change or three. Then one of the repaired bottles goes to the National Homebrewing Competition and I'll have plenty to send if it moves on to the final round in Minneapolis.

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bobjr79

Re:How to Brew 1 Year, 11 Months ago
Congrats Ben! I'm sure that's some fine beer. I've found a local home brew shop and I'm now in the process of convincing my wife that if I spend $2-300 on equipment that I will be saving money on beer in less than a year. She wants to do some serious scrap booking with some fancy shape cutter. Who will get what they want first....IDK I'm sure it won't be me.

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ben

Re:How to Brew
1 Year, 11 Months ago

I don't know, Bob. Maybe you could find a club near you and see if anyone will help you brew a batch with their equipment so all you have to buy to start is a Better Bottle carboy (and accessories) to ferment in and then a month down the road, get a box of bottles and caps to bottle in. You'd be in for less than $100 and it would all be stuff you could reuse. Using the Alton Brown method (but modified), you might be able to do it yourself with very little additional equipment than you already have.

I bought my first equipment kit for $35.

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ben

Re:How to Brew
1 Year, 8 Months ago

Ah. I'm about to get two port barrels for aging alcoholic beverages! One is staying at the lake. The vineyard is only about 20 miles from there. 10 by air. It will get 53 gallons of cider. The other will come home with me. It will get beer. First something to take on the port-ness of the barrel and then it will go to "Funky Town". I'll be doing a series of sour beers. The idea is that you brew one sour beer and a lot of it. 55 gallons. That sits and ages with wild yeast and bacterial doing it's thing in the barrel for 18 months. Then you remove 25% and refill with new beer. That new beer will ferment for a while and age along with the rest, resulting in a more mature beer 12 months later when you brew more beer and remove 25% of the finished product. It's like an annuity. Once that up front investment of getting the barrel, brewing the beer and waiting 18 months is paid, you get splendidly soured, barrel-aged beer every year.

Do you have any idea how much work is entailed with brewing 55 gallons of beer?

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ben

Re:How to Brew
1 Year, 4 Months ago

Brewed up a monster today. The boys fell asleep on the way home from preschool, so I took the opportunity to swing by the homebrew store to get what I needed to make this dream reality. I've got less than $6 in this batch.

The malt extract all came from a woman at church. Her husband died in 2005 and he apparently had recently bought the stuff for a beer recipe. She wanted to see if someone could do something with it, so I did. Just tasting the wort (unfermented beer) made my mouth cry out for mercy. It's incredibly hoppy but it's also sickly sweet. As the fermentation eats up the sugars it's just going to get more and more bitter. Also very alcoholic. I added some spices to make it more of a Winter seasonal beer. Smoked malt is in this to give it a head start on a fake bourbon barrel aging that I haven't completely settled on for this. If I did it, I would also treat it with some Brettanomyces to get some tart cherry flavors and some funk. Adding some toasted oak chips might make it a nice historic replica ale.

We'll see.

Photos here.

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pfanndad

Re:How to Brew 1 Year, 3 Months ago
I had a Brew-pub Smoked Ale once... too smokey. But to each his own. I'll be making the Christmas 'Celebration' Ale just as soon as I can find the time. And my ESB just got bottled two weeks ago. Still a little green when I tried it the other night.

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