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Beer, mead or wine makers.

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    • I have brewed my own beer. It has been many years since I have brewed any, my problem is too many hobbies and very limited time. I can buy truly great craft beers now, so I have been taking the lazy way. But when I first started brewing I felt that the beers that I made were as good as anything I could buy.

      My advice to anyone starting out would be to avoid the cheep Wallyworld style kits and do it right. No sense putting all this effort into some crap that tastes like Budweiser. I am not suggesting you need expensive equipment, just quality ingredients. If there is a craft home-brew shop near where you live, ask them for some advice. Many places run Newbie classes. Be willing to experiment and have fun. Once you get hooked, you won't want to stop.
      “Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
      the saddest are these, 'It might have been.”


      John Greenleaf Whittier
    • I brewed beer for maybe 25 years or more. Haven't in the last couple. It can be as easy or as complicated as you want. If I were starting from scratch and wanted to make beer that is a good as possible with as little special equipment as possible using methods that are as simple as possible, I would advise making 3 gallon partial mash batches. You would need:

      A kettle (stainless or enameled steel) you can heat on your kitchen stove that will hold 5 gallons or more.
      Two 5 gallon food-grade plastic buckets with lids.
      An air lock that can be fitted onto one of the lids above.
      A racking tube with hose.
      A thermometer (a floating one would be best)
      A bottling wand (this is not required, but it's real nice)
      2 Cases of reusable 12 oz Long Neck beer bottles (not with a twist off cap)
      a bag of caps for the bottles (this is really a supply, not equipment, since you will have to replace them as you use them)
      a grain sock (optional, but hand, also a supply, not equipment, minimal cost at the homebrew supply store)
      A twin-lever capping device
      A home-brew supply store where you can buy your stuff. You can do mail order, but a good store is a bonus.
      You'll need other stuff, you you probably have lying around the house (1 gallon zip bags, big spoon, bleach, large colander, aluminum foil, etc...)

      Do not buy pre-made kits. They are usually crap. You will want to formulate your own recipes from fresh ingredients (not hard, really). Partial mashing is the way to go. Not hard to do if you know the tricks - better and more versatile than all extract, much easier than all grain.

      Let me know if when you are ready to buy ingredients.

      I've never made mead, but I have friends that do. It's pretty easy so they say, but takes longer to ferment. You need a good source of honey. A good homebrew store may have that.
    • TrafficJam wrote:

      EdDzierzak wrote:

      I found this not too long ago. It looked interesting...

      Home brew site

      no endorsement, yadda, yadda
      Thank you, not just informative but entertaining as well. :D
      I think I could do that, just have to figure out some of the terms...carboy? water airlock?
      Carboy is a large glass (usually 5 gallon) glass jug. You can get by with out one if you use plastic buckets.
      Air lock is a gadget you put on the top of the bucket/carboy when it is fermenting to allow CO2 to escape without letting oxygen in. Cost $1.00, lasts forever.

    • Odd Man's Out advice is dead on. Partial Mash is a sweet spot of desired complexity in the results and simplicity in equipment.

      Start saving Belgian/ Grolsch flip top bottles if you can, those come in handy.

      Get your first IPA under your belt, and then be willing to experiment. I had my most fun after I threw away all the recipes.
      “Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
      the saddest are these, 'It might have been.”


      John Greenleaf Whittier
    • odd man out wrote:

      I brewed beer for maybe 25 years or more. Haven't in the last couple. It can be as easy or as complicated as you want. If I were starting from scratch and wanted to make beer that is a good as possible with as little special equipment as possible using methods that are as simple as possible, I would advise making 3 gallon partial mash batches. You would need:

      A kettle (stainless or enameled steel) you can heat on your kitchen stove that will hold 5 gallons or more.
      Two 5 gallon food-grade plastic buckets with lids.
      An air lock that can be fitted onto one of the lids above.
      A racking tube with hose.
      A thermometer (a floating one would be best)
      A bottling wand (this is not required, but it's real nice)
      2 Cases of reusable 12 oz Long Neck beer bottles (not with a twist off cap)
      a bag of caps for the bottles (this is really a supply, not equipment, since you will have to replace them as you use them)
      a grain sock (optional, but hand, also a supply, not equipment, minimal cost at the homebrew supply store)
      A twin-lever capping device
      A home-brew supply store where you can buy your stuff. You can do mail order, but a good store is a bonus.
      You'll need other stuff, you you probably have lying around the house (1 gallon zip bags, big spoon, bleach, large colander, aluminum foil, etc...)

      Do not buy pre-made kits. They are usually crap. You will want to formulate your own recipes from fresh ingredients (not hard, really). Partial mashing is the way to go. Not hard to do if you know the tricks - better and more versatile than all extract, much easier than all grain.

      Let me know if when you are ready to buy ingredients.

      I've never made mead, but I have friends that do. It's pretty easy so they say, but takes longer to ferment. You need a good source of honey. A good homebrew store may have that.
      good info thanks....I raise honey bees.
      bacon can solve most any problem.
    • @sheepdog, I had some hives too. Till the mites took them. It has been a few years now, but it is about time I got back in. Like I've said, I have too many hobbies.

      I have a friend I use to give some of my honey to, and he would return some of it in the form of Mead. He could make some good stuff. It was a fair exchange
      “Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
      the saddest are these, 'It might have been.”


      John Greenleaf Whittier
    • IMScotty wrote:

      Odd Man's Out advice is dead on. Partial Mash is a sweet spot of desired complexity in the results and simplicity in equipment.

      Start saving Belgian/ Grolsch flip top bottles if you can, those come in handy.

      Get your first IPA under your belt, and then be willing to experiment. I had my most fun after I threw away all the recipes.
      I came up with a stupid easy way to partial mash. Bring your 3 gallons of water to mash temp (155 F) in your pot on stove and turn off the heat. Put your grains in a grain sock inside a 1 gal zip bag. Ladle hot water from pot into the bag to get a good mash consistency. Massage the bag to soak the grains. Seal the bag, leaving an air bubble in the bag. Then float the bag in the pot and let set for an hour. The grain will be suspended right in the middle of the pot. The large volume of hot water buffers the mash from temperature fluctuations (too high or low). Turn the pot on low if the temp drops, but with such a large volume of water, little monitoring is necessary. After conversion, heat the pot to mash out temp (180 F). Fish out the bag, dump contents into colander suspended over bucket, and ladle water from pot over grains to sparge. Pour contents of bucket into pot. Stir in extract syrup until dissolved. Add bittering hops. Boil.
    • Here's my other stupid-easy beer making hint. Do not sanitize your bottles in a sanitizing solution (waste of time and effort). Instead take your clean dry bottles and cap each with a small square of aluminum foil, crimped around the rim to keep it in place. Stack you bottles on their side in a cold oven. Turn the oven on low (200 F) for about 30 min. Then turn up to 300 F for another 30 min. Turn off and let cool to room temp (I do this in the evening and let them cool overnight). Take the bottles out of the oven and put in your case (don't let the foil caps fall off). You have clean dry and sterile bottles on the shelf ready for bottling any time you want. You can store these and they will stay sterile indefinitely.
    • mental note wrote:

      Cool, an auto clave of sorts.
      yes. An autoclave is basically a pressure cooker and required for sterilizing liquids, but some liquids react badly to the high temps of the autoclave and boiling is not hot enough to sterilize in all cases. You could sterilize cold liquids with your Sawyer filter if you wanted too, but it would probably gum up the filter quickly. But to sterilize DRY glassware (empty beer bottles) you just need dry heat (aka an oven) and it is easy to get it hot enough to sterilize (well above boiling)
    • meat wrote:

      once I ate a large piece of red velvet cake a friend had made, next day I thought I was having a colorectal emergency during my morning constitutional...scared the crap outta me. Truth! :D
      Sounds like the day after I first discovered picked beets!
      Dogs are excellent judges of character, this fact goes a long way toward explaining why some people don't like being around them.
    • Not sure if I posted this already, but my buddy who's a homebrewer got carried away again and built himself this contraption, now he can brew an entire batch without having to lift a single pot. The pump can constantly recirculate and be used to transfer when needed, the first pot has a heat exchanger and automatic temperature controls and the middle pot had a false bottom that filters the mash.

      Dogs are excellent judges of character, this fact goes a long way toward explaining why some people don't like being around them.