Second that with a bullet. Lager is not for beginners.
Porter is a great first beer and the one-can-and-yeast kit (Ironmaster?) works just great. You’ll be amazed.
But buy the glass carboy.
Stouts are ales, so no, you don’t have to wait too long to brew one.
I probably shouldn’t disagree, given your moniker, but I believe stouts usually taste much better if allowed to age for a longer time than most other styles.
Not necessarily. There is a wide variation in stouts—sweet stout, dry stout, imperial stout. The only real defining characteristic is a dark malts and a certain percentage of unmalted roasted barley for character. The body, hoppines, and alcohol content varies quite a bit.
Contrast a light-bodied stout like Sam Adams Cream Stout and a heavy imperial style like Deschutes Obsidian or Grant’s Imperial.
But yeah, the stronger styles do benefit from more aging.
Compared to other ales*, yes. But not compared to typical lagering times, which are often measured in months.
*Excluding, of course, Barleywines, which need to age for years.
You might want to go to www.foodtv.com and check out Good Eats. Alton Brown did a segment on home brewing beer and the instructions seemed simple and easy to follow. Hope this helps.
I saw that episode a few months ago. It WAS very interesting and informative. In fact, come to think of it, I think that’s where I got the bug to try it out.
There was a show on the other day (Unwrapped, maybe? The one with Marc Summers (name?), and they were discussing homebrewing) I missed the first half and didn’t catch the repeat.
This thread has been very helpful so far. Thanks, everyone! I can’t wait to start!
The book that got me started was Brewing the World’s Great Beers by Dave Miller. It goes through different brewing methods from simplest (extract with specialty grains) to most complicated (all grain, CO2 systems, etc.). The instructions are straightforward but not as casual as Papazian’s.
John Palmer’s free online book How To Brew is also a good tutorial.
The biggest recommendation I would make on basic equipment is to get a racking tube with some sort of siphon starter built in. They profoundly reduce the mess and effort involved at several stages of the process.
We had problems with that too, then we came up with an easier way to get the siphon started. We used a turkey baster and a tube clamp. The plastic kind that fits around the outside of the tube. You squeeze the bulb of the turkey baster (outside of the tube and away from your wort to avoid contamination) then stick it in the tube and release the bulb, as soon as it expands fully clamp off the tube. Pull the baster out of the tube and repeat. It’s definitely a 2 person job, but we didn’t have to screw around with sucking on the tube risking contamination and we didn’t lose a drop.
Pebs
Hey, I’ve been thinking (for about 15 years) about doing this, too. I’ve read and enjoyed all the posts and advice.
How much of an initial investment is this? the cheap-first-timer set up?
Ah yes, the siphon starting problem…
I have to admit, without actually recommending this procedure, that I eventually gave up on all that and just used good old mouth suction. I know it’s not quite sanitary, but I haven’t had any contamination problems, and it’s a hell of a lot easier. (I take a sip of beer before hand to kill the germs.
)
Pablito,
Initial investment varies a bit depending on what you want, as some of the earlier posts talked about. Figure roughly $50-100 for equipment and $15-30 for ingredients. (Not considering the Mr. Beer or whatever that some folks are talking about—I don’t know anything about those.) The most expensive single item is the brewpot, which needs to be a big pot of at least 2.5 gallon capacity (bigger is better). If you already have a large soup pot, you’re set for that. Plus you can usually find them at a second-hand store for relatively cheap.
Ferrous–thanks.
Now, once I’ve got the initial investment out of the way, which, by the way, sounds incredibly cheap, how much will each beer cost me to brew and about how many will a beginner-sized batch make?
(You can see the wheels turning in my mind here, excited about justifying this fantastic hobby not only because
- I’ll be making my own beer; and
- it’s fun; but also
- think how much money I could save!)
You will save money *, but keep in mind that it takes time to do it. Brewing a batch is pretty much an all-day affair. Say 4-6 hours. Then another big chunk of time to bottle it. But it’s fun time, if you’re into it. And you can be drinking beer while you do it, so it’s not like work. For preference, you should drink homebrew while you make homebrew, but you can’t do that with your first batch.
Anyway, as I said, ingredients run around $15-30 per 5 gallon batch** (which makes about 48 12-ounce bottles), depending on the quality and quantity of ingredients you use. Towards the low end for a basic beer—you can make a perfectly good beer for the $15 figure—and towards the higher end for a fancier one—premium ingredients, imported hops, liquid yeast, more malt (which means more alcohol content).
Of course, you may pay a little more for really special ones, with fruit or whatnot. I think the most expensive batch I ever made was a raspberry beer, for around $45, about $15 of which was fresh raspberries (5 lbs.). It was good!
*Note: You’ll save money as compared to buying premium microbrew beer. Basically, you get really high quality tasty beer for about what you’d pay for cheap mass-produced beer.
**5 gallons is pretty standard. That’s the most common size for glass carboys and plastic fermenters. At one place I lived, with 2 other brewers, we also had a huge 7.5 gallon carboy, but it was pretty expensive (around $70, IIRC) and also extremely heavy when filled.
Oh, one more thing (can you tell I love this topic?), those figures I gave for prices and brewing time are for extract brewing—using malt extract (with additional whole grain added for character) rather than mashing (readying for fermentation) whole malted barley—which is what I usually do (extract brewing, that is). If you do the mashing yourself (which I personally consider more trouble than it’s worth, but some folks love it) then you will spend less money but more time.
(I’m also rather fond of parentheses.)
One important ingredient for the first timer which I don’t think has been mentioned yet - BEER.
Go out and buy several cases of your favourite commercial beer. Nothing is going to put you off the hobby faster than sitting around at home thirsty and wishing you had some beer, then thinking, “Hey, I DO have some beer! Sure it’s not aged quite as long as they said, but I’m positive it’ll be okay…”
Uh uh.
Age your brew well. You’ve been drinking mass-produced beer for years, so another few weeks won’t kill you.
This is a good point, but make sure you get a brand that has pry-off caps instead of screw tops. You’ll be needing lots of cappable bottles soon enough.
Regarding racking canes…the best one I’ve used has a small tube with a plunger inside a large tube. You pull back on the small tube and then push down on it rapidly. The plunger forces the beer through the small tube and starts the siphon. This allows one person to do the entire operation and you don’t spill any beer while you’re removing the turkey baster.
Ok, anyone who repeats this out of context isn’t getting any homebrew.
Another siphon method I’ve heard of but never tried is installing a one-way check valve in-line on your siphon tube. Then as you push the tube down into the brew it forces its way up the tube, but cannot fall back down (because of the one way valve) as you raise the tube to push it back down into the liquid to force the level higher.
Hmm. That’s a really good idea, provided the check valve is completely disassembleable (is that a word?) so you can clean it. Otherwise, you’d build up bacteria in all the little spaces between parts.