Yep. You just gotta be careful, and use good stuff.
Best advice I ever got:
CLEAN your equipment. Then clean it again. Dish soap doesn’t cut it.
If you have a friend who has a homebrewing store, you’ve got a great start. I’ll just recommend the Homebrewing 101 DVD video from Northern Brewer, and check out their other videos in their comment section; they walk you through what the different components of brewing involve.
Oh, and the emphasis on cleaning and sanitation is because you’re creating a wonderful medium for bacteria/wild yeasts/fungi to grow in. You’re making a liquid sugar solution with some other ingredients. Now, nothing will grow in your beer that’ll kill you, but it’ll ruin the beer. You’re adding a lot of yeast to give the yeast a head start, but you need to brew in a clean and sanitary fashion to avoid adding anything else in.
The two other things besides insufficient cleaning and sanitation that’ll make your beer taste funky are bad recipes, and bad temperature control
Bad recipes are entirely within your control- stick with published ones and you’ll more than likely be fine.
Temp control is because as yeast ferment, they produce byproducts besides alcohol and CO2. As the temperature rises, so does the level of these byproducts. Some are desired- the clove & banana tastes in a hefeweizen are an example, and so is the fruitiness in some English ales. Some aren’t- imagine that same clove/banana taste in an IPA, and you see what I mean.
Temp control is harder to control on a budget than most anything else home brewing related, but if you’re not brewing lagers, it’s not as big of a deal; most ale yeasts can handle the low side of room temperature (70-ish) without throwing off too many esters and fusel alcohols. And if you like Belgian ales, their yeast like it hotter anyway.
You can make beers just as good as what you buy at home- I made a lager that was primarily extra light malt extract with a micro-mash of Munich malt (like 1 lb), and I fermented it at 50, lagered at 30, and it gets kudos from non-homebrewers and people who don’t like beers that aren’t ‘light’ and whose idea of a strong beer is Dos Equis Premium. I’ve made stouts that confirmed Guinness drinkers loved.
Homebrewing isn’t really a way to cut costs, especially after you account for your own time, but you can tailor your beers to what YOU like, and make beers you either can’t get commercially, or that are rare/hard to find with no variety, like Classic American Pilsners, rauchbiers, Kolsch, Alt, California Common/Steam, Baltic Porters, and the endless variety of beer styles that haven’t even been dreamed up yet.
You could start by watching Alton Brown’s Good Eats episode where he makes beer (here). Like others have said, he REALLY emphasizes the need for sanitation.
Yes, but he made one fatal mistake in that episode. (Unless it’s a different one than I’m thinking of.) He steeped the barley in 53 degree water for a while, but then he cranked it up to a boil without first removing the barley. That kind of defeats the point of temperature control.
I don’t have anything new to add, just to say that as a relative newbie to home brewing, I’ll echo that it’s pretty damned easy, and yes, you can end up with quality beer as good as any large-batch, large-distribution beer.
The hardest and most time-consuming part is the cleaning/sanitizing, particularly the bottles. Like others said, kegging it can be a much easier method, but I know that for me, I’d rather have bottles, both because I don’t drink in high volumes, and because it’s nice to be able to continue to drink the beer 6-8 months on, and I wouldn’t want to keep a keg on tap nearly that long.
Also, one thing I learned the first time I brewed is that it can take time for the beer to be ‘ready.’ I did a Belgian ale, and two-three weeks after bottling it was pretty flat and mediocre. A little after a month it was ready and tasted awesome, but I admit I spent a while being disappointed that my beer didn’t turn out well. It just took time.
My brew cost a little under $50 (IIRC), for an extract brew with 2 or so pounds of grain, and I think I bought a few bits of hardware I didn’t own as well, for that $50. I already had some pieces (carboy, plastic bucket, stoppers and things like that). After the initial investment of what are basically containers to put stuff in, you end up saving money, or at least breaking even. That $50 (probably $40 of ingredients) got me 54 bottles.
All good information. I signed up for a class this Sunday with my friend. I called him and he just happened to have a class he was teaching this Sunday, so he signed me up for it. I am also quite sure for (hopefully!) a reasonable cost he will set me up with what I need. It is nice to have a resource like that as he only lives about 1/4 mile from me too!
Not doing this to save costs on beer, I only have a beer at home 2-3 nights a week at max, typically if I drink I go to a nice little brew pub near my house. But I thought it would be an interesting hobby to get into. My goal is to retire in 4 years or so, and new hobbies are always a good thing. So I started thinking about things I like to do, and drinking beer sort of popped up on that list!
I have been checking out a bunch of sites and it is clear that sanitation and being prepared beforehand is critical. So I think I am going to try and be as prepared as I can be, knowing I will forget something. But I think of myself as a fast learner and I am quite sure I will pick things up quickly.
One of my employees several years ago made some homebrew and it was terrible. As I recall it had a slight pickle taste! Turns out he didn’t purchase a new clean bucket, but just used a bucket that previously held pickles and obviously didn’t get it as clean as he had thought! Pickle beer, surprised it never caught on.
We’ve done it, but we’ve a finished basement that stays pretty cool regardless of season. Putting the fermenter in the bathtub in the basement helps keep it cool (our tub is cast iron), too.
Yeah, when I brew during the summer I just put my carboy in a big cooler full of water. If it’s REAL hot then I dump some ice in in the afternoon.
For me, brewing is about doing things that I can’t buy.
For example,
Magic Hat #9 with cherry flavor, rather than the apricot they use.
A 8.5-9% ABV version of Ipswich Ale (my hometown brew), or even the original (Have to drive into MA to get it.)
Sleeman Steam Ale. Can’t buy it locally.
Beer using hops grown in my back yard.
Hard & pale lemonade (a hard lemonade / pale ale mixture. Originally created by accident, but damn good)
Things your imagination hasn’t even considered yet.
I’ll agree with everyone else on sanitation. It’s a disappointment when you get a batch that goes bad, but just do a great sanitation of EVERYTHING, then run through your normal cleaning & sanitation process, and try again!
etc.
For internet forum help, homebrewtalk.com is the best one I can recommend. They helped me get started and people are incredibly helpful and knowledgeable.
Sigh, this ALWAYS happens to me. I wander into a thread on a hobby and wander out with a few hundred bucks worth of stuff. The people at the homebrew store were very nice and now I’m boiling all damned day.
This computer is my toy for the year. You people need to shut up about how great your beer is.
If you want recipes, let me know. I’ve got plenty that have won me quite a few ribbons.
Do you have what to do if you’ve gone through all this pain and suffering, finally put the beer in the bucket, and the FUCKING LID WILL NOT CLOSE ALL THE WAY AROUND? Because I almost painted the kitchen in wort just now. I sat on it. Didn’t help. Then the little rubber grommet thing fell into the fucking bucket and I couldn’t get it out with my sterile spoon, and you don’t even want to know.
The lid will fit. Just work at it. The grommet is not going to harm the beer. Leave it in there. Once the yeast kicks in, there will be positive pressure in the bucket, so any gas leaks will do no harm.
Well, I already washed my hand and stuck it in there, so let’s hope I only harbor tasty tasty bacteria. My second batch will surely go better - my kit came with sanitizer you have to rinse, and that was a giant pain in the ass (I assumed I had to boil the rinse water first? Surely?) so I’ll have to take another trip down there to get some of that no-rinse stuff. Would have made things a hell of a lot easier.
oh man, that stupid cheepo bucket lid. You can’t get that fucker on and then you really can’t get that fucker off. This too shall pass. I tells ya, use the plastic carboy that bottled water comes in. It’s food safe and you just pound in a airlock in the top. then you can just throw it away if you don’t feel like cleaning it. It’s probably good for a couple of reuses.
Also for future reference, www.homebrew.com is based in Charlotte so it isn’t too far from you and they ship stuff in a couple of days.