Anybody brew their own beer?

I've been looking into brewing my own beer. There are many kits available that - supposedly - supply you with everything you need. Does anybody here brew their own beer? Do you use one of the commercial kits, or did you make your own? I understand that it probably takes a few tries to get it right, but does the beer from the kits ever taste good? I'd appreciate your input. Thanks. -Will

 

Homer did it on the Simpsons once, till has bath tubs started exploding.

 

My friend/classmate did it in college. He didn't have a kit though, his friends father actually built a small brewery in one of their rooms. Then again, this is what he is looking to do as a career, open his own brewery. We also did our final class project on beer, so his knowledge helped.

The beer was great, and as you can imagine we had A LOT of it after our final project.

I know this doesn't help you, but thought I thought it was a good story.

 

bruce brews his -- calls it north jersey swill -------



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Check out the Good Eats episode where Alton Brown brews his own Beer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlv1wBy7Z5w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7jQ6Wwnqk

 

home brewing is a great hobby to get into. check around your area, there probaly is a home brew club already in existence. there's alot of info available. there are different levels of invovlement when starting up but they all require the same basic equipment. most starter kits use a concentrate which will result in an average tatsting brew. once you get the process down you can move on the making your own wort. that's when the fun begins. brewing is an art and a science. it requires good recordkeeping and good technique. if you enter into it with the right intentions you can get some teriffic results. you can also get some horrifying results too. either way it's alot of fun and what better excuse to get drunk.

 

And the anticipation!!! Grandma used to whine about spending all morning fixin' turkey dinner and then it was gone within ten minutes. Imagine waiting days or weeks for your brewkit to "ripen" and then see how long it takes to finish that off

BTW, don't forget to consider your water source. Crap water = crap beer

 

This is true, but also don't go the other way and buy ultra reverse osmosis hepa filtered water (or whatever they call it at the grocery store). Good ole filtered tap water is what you are really looking for...you need the minerals for the water for the final product to tast right.

There are brew stores popping up all over the place. Start with an extract kit (the malt extract has already been processed) after you get a little exerience you can work from there and start doing your own extractions. You can get all of the equipment that you will need for a little over a hundred bucks (plus the cost of the brewing ingredients) at a minimum you'll need a fermenting bucket, air lock, hygrometer, thermometer, a bottle filler, bottle capper, tubing and a brew pot.

Remember that the enviornment where yeast turns malt into wort is a prime enviornment for bacteria to colonize and multiply so cleanliness is next to drunkness. Use a 10:1 bleach solution to sanitize your eq before you start and I always run my bottles through the dishwasher before I bottle (take the lables off the bottles first as I can tell you you don't want to disassemble the dishwasher to clean lable residue from the filters...long story there).

Above all, have fun. The beer that you brew at home is at least as good as the stuff that you buy from the mass producers.

 

Yes. There are starter kits that provide everything you need. Many will include 2 food-grade plastic buckets for Primary and Secondary fermentation. The kit you buy may or may not come with ingredients for beer.

I do. I have used commercial kits. I have also used my local homebrew stores "house" recipes. They have a binder to look through with names of beer styles and a section of "clone" beers (a recipe that duplicates a commercial brew). I have also put together my own recipes, but that was a hard cider...that turned out really well.

To increase your chances of getting it right the first time, buy a ready-made kit with printed instructions. My first brew was a store recipe from a place that sold homebrew supplies as a sideline. We got verbal instructions that resulted in bottle bombs. The bottles built up way too much pressure and exploded. Don't let that scare you off, just be aware that it is possible.

Does the beer ever taste good? You betcha! I love Porter and I've made a few really good batches. One batch was a Chocolate Porter that had raspberry added to half of it. That stuff was damn good. That's the great thing about homebrewing; you can make whatever crazy idea pops into your head. I've got 3 gallons of hard cider brewing up right now that's getting a little Maker's Mark bourbon added for flavor.

You can learn a lot on the forums at www.northernbrewer.com . I'm a member there and I've mail-ordered from them numerous times. You'll have no worries buying from them. Be sure to look through the different books they offer. I ordered lots of books while deployed to Afghanistan (it was boring as hell over there. Lots of time for reading)

This is my LHBS (Local HomeBrew Store): http://www.austinhomebrew.com/ Also great people. Very knowledgeable and friendly, and they mail-order as well.

Here's a great magazine: http://www.byo.com/ . Every issue has recipes as well as articles on new brewing gadgets, how to make your own gadgets, brewing history, etc.

I also get "Zymurgy"; the magazine of the American Homebrew Association. It's another great magazine for the serious beer drinker. It has LOTS of recipes. Check it out here: http://www.beertown.org/homebrewing/zymurgy.html

I hope this helps, and I hope you try it out. I think it's a lot of fun making my own brew.

 

My brother once tried to brew beer, it tasted like fermented wood

 

My batches turned out pretty good, except one incident. Went fruit crazy and threw in some stewed blueberries...well, they rode the foam to the top of the wort, plugged the air lock...pressure built up during fermentation...and BAM! blueberries on the ceiling! Despite that even that batch turned out ok...

 

I've brewed about 40 batches of beer. I concurr with others, start simple with a packaged, hopped extract for the style of beer that you want, light/dark, heavy/mild (alcohol content), hoppy or light.

Most failures are due to inadequate cleaning and sanitizing, so, follow the instructions and clean, clean and clean, don't forget to rinse well.

One of the first things you can do to improve your beer, (besides using more extract for more alcohol), is to use some fresh hops in the boil, (strain carefully), or finishing hops during the last few minutes of the boil to produce a great aromatic beer, again, strain the beer through cheescloth bags to prevent a lot of debris in the beer.

Home brewing is great fun and usually is improved by consuming a few of the prior batch, while watching the pot boil I'm serious here, if you do it inside the house, you need to watch the boil so it doesn't boil over and stickify the stove, the floor and cause considerable friction with she who must be obeyed - ask me how i know.

best,
chris

 

You know, I've heard this "it's great fun and easy if you keep things clean" crap for years. It's really frustrating that apparently others have having such success with this and I just don't have the apparent magic to make beer. In my life I've probably made a dozen batches (lets say, over about 10 years). I think 1 or 2 might have been semi-drinkable, all the rest were odd at best, a few I even dumped right down the drain. Many of my beers typically have this odd "bubblegum taste".... just a foul aftertaste that throws of the experience.

I started with bottles and found that going into a corny keg is far easier, but it still doesn't taste as good as a professionally brewed beer. I've sterilized everything to the max.... if I'm still not cleaning enough then I'm sorry, but I don't have an industrial clean room at my disposal to make beer. Also tried various cleaning agents. BTW, for the guy who said to rinse everything really well, not true in the case of Star sanitizer (the label says not to).

Forget about all these crazy custom brew concoctions and raw ingredients.... I can't even do it with a simple extract kit. Very depressing.
The only common element during this entire experience has been the cook pot that I use. It's stainless steal pot.... should be fine, but that's the last commonality with all my failures.

I only care because I'm starting to get that itch again and think I might try it, ONCE AGAIN!
Don't know why I think it will be any different this time around; if it is, then I wouldn't be able to tell you what I did differently either.



BTW, the keg investment wasn't a complete loss. For the money and very little hassle, I've found several brew pubs that I can take my keg (5 gallon) and they will fill it for about $50. Last me weeks on end and is a heck of a lot cheaper than buying bottled beer! So.... that's my contribution to this thread: "buy a keg setup and let some other poor sucker brew the stuff".

 

I brew mine at an on-premises brewing/bottling facility.

http://www.brewsouth.com/

 

I brewed beer for years. Everyone thought it was cool that i did so until they drank the beer.

I stick with the stuff off the shelf now. Had a few batches turn out ok but most were drinkable but not great.

 

i was involved with a lot of homebrewers and the key to successful brewing is keeping detailed notes. times, ingredients, amounts and temperatures are critical. documenting every step may seem anal but if something works why question it. remember you're dealing with a living thing. you're not making soup. every variable makes a difference. it certainly does call for a degree of commitment. you need a love for the art of it. perserverance furthers. happy brewing.

 

I've been threatening for years to brew my own at Shenandoah Brewing Company in VA. I'd like to make my own 120 minute IPA.

I used to know a guy that brewed his own but the bastard would never share it with anyone.... it probably sucked anyway. Glad I'm over it... ha ha.

 

Buddy and I homebrewed for 5-6 years. 10 gallons every two weeks. Sold half to friends which covered expenses and split the other half. We used recipes from assorted books and experimented with adding our own flair.

Start with a kit to see if you like it. As your knowledge increases, branch out to try different recipes that appeal to you. You will always want to have a batch going on some time interval to be able to backfill as you drink what is ready.

We only had one batch blow up a few bottles. Clean, clean, clean again. You cannot be too clean. Wait until you boil over your first batch onto the stove top. Ugh.

 

I have been brewing for a couple years now.

To answer your first question, I started with a kit. I got the kit online, which cost me ~$100, came with buckets for fermenting, hoses, siphons, measuring tools, and even an ingredient kit for an amber beer.

Secondly, I have used the kits several times. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the process, but there are two basic kinds of brewing: 1) using grain extract as your base, or 2) extracting the fermentables from the grain yourself (a much more involved process.)

I highly advise beginning with the extract kits. Using an extract kit and assembling your ingredients on your own really will not yeild a strikingly different quality of beer, seeing as they are simply premeasured and assembled ingredients that you would buy on your own-- that is, they aren't of some poor quality or something. In the ingredient kit, you will recieve a bag or can of dry or liquid grain extract, some grain for steeping, hops, yeast and any other additives. Simply follow the directions provided with your equipment kit and you will have a great beer.

however, I must stress this: SANITIZE SANITIZE SANITIZE. You will receive sanitizing chemicals in your kit, use them as directed and use them thoroughly. I have lost over 10 gallons of batches due to poor sanitation resulting in bacteria outbreaks.

The ingredient kit will cost you $30-50 depending on your recipe, and assume a very similar price if you assemble the ingredients yourself... in a typical 5 gallon batch, you will have 45-50 beers. So, assume a little less than a dollar/beer.

You will also need bottles. You will most likely receive a capper and caps in your equipment kit. Now, you can go buy bottles online, but they are pretty expensive, and I advise you simply go buy a couple 24 packs or 4 twelve packs of beer that have POP-OFF tops, not twists.

Shoot me a PM if you would like, I consider myself well researched, and have helped organize and moderate a brewing forum in the past.

Good luck!

 

And to add, as a rebuttle to a previous comment about the quality of beer produced, I have assembled recipes of extracts such as an IPA and ESB, and they have been appluaded by many of my beer drinking comrades. Not to toot my own horn-- simply to exhibit the potential quality-- but I have had experiences brewers and tasters tell me the ESB was one of the best ESBs they had ever tasted.

You can do it!

 

I've brewed a few batches. Some were drinkable, the others not so much. Lots of fun to learn how to do it though. Gave up after my last two batches got infected with wild yeast ( and yes, I sanitized EVERYTHING)...one batch had bottles exploding in the middle of the night, the other batch... well, you've heard of Pete's Wicked Ale? I should have named the last batch Gary's Wicked Ail, because it gave you a sick feeling to drink it!!!
After reading this thread though, I might give it another shot.