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Thread: The Homebrewing Thread (Wine and mead too)

  1. #1
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    The Homebrewing Thread (Wine and mead too)

    Anyone else here brew their own beer? What about wine or mead? Me and a group of guys started brewing our own beer in January of 2009. We'd been brewing about one batch every other week when we would actually meet. This year has been an off year, but we got back together today and brewed ourselves what I like to call a Baltish Porter. It's the second recipe that I completely made up, with the first being a Black IPA (which I had the idea for before it became popular this past year or so). Anyway, this porter should be a strong mother, weighing in at a predicted 9% ABV. I've personally been involved in making almost 50 batches of beer, and pretty much all of them have been good.

    We started off just making premade kits and using recipes to make clone batches. After we got an idea of what ingredients go with each other, we started to experiment by adding and substituting stuff from the kits/recipes. It wasn't until these last two batches as a group that we actually used something completely original. Some of the other ones I'd like to mention are:

    Triple Nut Brown - Imperial Nut Brown kit with nutmeg and coconut added. This one refermented when we added the coconut.
    Chocolate Peppermint Porter - Just enough peppermint to know it's there and have it in the aftertaste.
    Don Cherry Ale - Belgian style dubbel that we added tart cherry juice to, causing it to referment.
    Ol' Fezziwig clone - Clone of the Sam Adams style that is only available in their Winter Classics Pack.
    Breakfast Stout - Oatmeal stout base with brown sugar and raisins added. The brown sugar kicked up the fermentables too much for the yeast and it didn't fully ferment. We are going to try it again.

  2. #2
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    Never made my own, but for four or five years I've been helping others with their projects. I really want to pick up some gear and start doing it myself, but working a job where you could find out you've leaving for months on 24 hours' notice is not exactly conducive to letting things ferment in your basement.

    Sounds like you've got some interesting brews going. We've got a small brewery here that does a Peppermint Stout, and I kid you not, it tastes exactly like a cold York patty in a glass. Slightly disconcerting at first, but an outstanding dessert beer.

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    I know a handful of people who brew, i have wanted to for some time just have never gotten around to doing it yet. I was fortunate enough to go to a birthday/4:20 party this past april where they had some pretty good homebrew. Speaking of which this kid i know said he was gonna hook me up with some for tossing him rides when we worked together.

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    Brewing beer is something that has been piquing my interests lately. I think I'm pretty close to buying a kit and doing it this month. Goldfoot, what would you recommend for a first timer?

    Those sound like some great and interesting brews. The Chocolate Peppermint Porter sounds delicious.

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    Quote Originally Posted by blackholesun View Post
    Brewing beer is something that has been piquing my interests lately. I think I'm pretty close to buying a kit and doing it this month. Goldfoot, what would you recommend for a first timer?
    What do I recommend in terms of equipment? This is the kit we got as a group and two of my friends got. That is basically everything you need to ferment and bottle, but you will probably need to buy an actual auto-siphon if you want to use one of those. (and I recommend you do) Fuck it, here's a list of everything we use:

    Making wort
    4-5 gallon pot to steep/boil in
    water (if you have crappy water, look into purchasing purified or spring water)
    long handled spoon to stir wort with
    *thermometer (weighted so it doesn't float)
    timer to accurately steep and boil
    *hydrometer to check specific gravity of wort/finished beer
    wire mesh strainer to separate hops/other ingredients from wort after boil
    moslin bag

    Fermenting
    *5+ gallon bucket with hole in lid
    *5+ gallon bucket with spout for bottling
    *air-lock to go in hole in lid, which allows CO2 to escape but prevents outside contaminants from getting in

    Transferring & Bottling
    5+ gallon carboy (another bucket will work, but glass is preferred if doing the secondary stage)
    auto-siphon
    50+ empty bottles (we re-use pop-off bottles from beer we've drank, but they must be de-labeled and cleaned)
    50+ bottle caps
    ammonia
    (if you have to de-label bottles)
    priming sugar
    *capper (the kit includes a hand held model, but there is a stand up version available also)
    *bottle brush
    iodophor sanitizer
    *oxygenated cleaner

    Items with an asterisk come in the starter kit I linked to. Pre-made kits are available that usually include all the grains, malts, hope, yeast, moslin bag, caps, and priming sugar needed for that particular batch. The initial investment to get everything you need is the biggest part, and after that the ingredients per batch can be anywhere from $30-$50+, depending on what you want to make. This is all for 5 gallon batches, obviously, and each batch makes around 50 bottles worth of beer. And though I didn't list it, you will need some way to cool down the wort after the boil period is over. I probably forgot some things, so I will add them if I think of anything more. Other than that, shoot me any other questions you have. I look forward to seeing what you make.
    Last edited by Goldfoot; 12-06-2011 at 02:12 AM. Reason: Ugh, not even 2 minutes later

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    Wow thanks for that post! I'm definitely going to use this as a reference when I start. Thanks!

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    I mentioned cooling methods for the wort, so I will discuss the various ways we've done it and which seem to work the best.

    Ice Water Bath - The first method we did was fill a sink with cold water and put a bunch of ice packs in it, place the pot of wort in the water, and run cold water into the sink while it slowly drains. This allows a large surface area of the pot to be cooled by the water.

    Stick It In The Snow - Being in Michigan, winters can bring a lot of snow, and snow is cold. The problem here is that the heat of the pot melts the snow immediately around it, leaving a buffer of air between the snow and the metal. The only part that is still touching the snow is the bottom. This was the worst method we tried because you have to keep pushing snow to the sides of the pot.

    Add Ice Directly To Wort - This worked really, really well but there's apparently risk involved. It is by far the fastest, but you have to take into account where the ice comes from. Some forums have people suggesting not to use store bought ice because of the potential for bacteria to be in it. I didn't think bacteria could survive at that temperature, but I guess it's possible. They suggest boiling water and then freezing it to make ice if you are going to use this method.

    Wort Chiller - This is the one we have used the most and it works pretty well. Better than the first two. A wort chiller is coiled piping that is placed in the wort itself, and then cold water is pumped through it. This is effective because it is constantly putting cold water in and since it is actually in the wort, it has a lot of surface area touching the liquid. Just make sure to sanitize it before placing it in the young beer. It's best to sanitize everything that is going to actually touch the beer.

    Edit:

    I just made a recipe for an oatmeal breakfast stout we are going to brew on Sunday. Hopefully it turns out better than our last breakfast stout, which didn't seem to ferment all the way. It's still decent, but nowhere near where it should be. Also, last night we did some rotating of stock as we bottled another batch of beer. Here is the result, and the bottom row goes 5 deep, all homebrewed beer. I also did an estimated inventory of what we have on reserve, and for both store bought and home brewed, we have something like 500 bottles of beer in this house.
    Last edited by Goldfoot; 12-15-2011 at 01:15 PM.

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