Do you brew your own beer?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m just going to heave a big gob o’ questions, feel free to answer any, or none. :slight_smile:

Are you any good at it? How long did it take you to learn the ropes? How much total money do you have, um, invested? What kinds of beer do you make, and how often, in what quantities? Is it cost effective versus retail?

Is it at all possible to homebrew stout akin to Guinness? I’m guessing not without fancy nitrogen charges.

How much should one expect to pay for a decent starter setup? Any recommendations? Hints, tips or tricks?

2

The first gift I ever gave my boyfriend (now husband) was a beer kit - $35 for basically 2 chlorine buckets. It’s still in service although he’s moved on to using glass carboys for the secondary fermentation process. We’ve probably spent less than $200 on equipment over the past 7 years. It’s a cheap hobby unless you want to get into lagering or kegging. We did buy one of those turkey fryers and use the propane burner to boil the mash. Now we stand outside and make alcohol in front of the neighbors.
Yes you can make “Guinness”, and any other ale, bitter, stout, porter, IPA, etc… Lagers have to be kept cold and require additional equipment. We make Octoberfest and Marzens mainly. The kits are easy to use, and once you get the hang of it, you can start experimenting. One trick we found is to use malt instead of priming sugar before bottling. It gives the beer a smoother finish. We also like the White Labs liquid yeast in the smack packs.
We get our supplies from Maryland Homebrew, but there are a bunch of other places online.
Hope that helps.

3

One other thing… We save any beer bottles we buy that require an opener. You can sterilize them and use them for your own beer. Twist caps won’t work.

4

Yes, but it took about three batches of “okay” beer before I made one that me and my wife thought was really microbrew-quality. The first was a simple bitter that was good in the sense that it was better than Coors, but otherwise nothing special. I didn’t like the second one at all. Starting with the third, however, they’ve all been awesome.

In terms of equipment, I’ve probably spent less than $120. My BIL gave me two 6.5-gallon carboys and a few bottles. I’ve spent about $20 on two plastic buckets with spigots, $30 on two 5-gallon carboys, $30 on a wort chiller, and the other $40 on a couple of brushes, tubing, an auto-siphon, bottle capper, bottle filler, corks, airlocks, etc. For bottles, in anticipation of brewing we only bought non-twist off bottles when we bought beer for many months. Bottle caps are about $2.00 for 144.

In terms of ingredients, expect to pay between $20 and $40 per batch, depending on if you are making a simple pale ale or bitter or complex barleywine. I usually spend about $30 per 5-gallon batch for the malt extract, specialty grains, hops, and yeast. If I’m doing a mini-mash, it’s a little more; if I’m doing an all-extract batch, it’s a little less. The other cost is sanitizer: I keep some bleach around, but I mostly use one-step or star-san which are both no-rinse sanitizers, but much more expensive than bleach.

My favorites to brew are IPA, Porter, and ESB, in that order. If my wife didn’t like Porter so much, I’d brew much more IPA and ESB! I try to brew every weekend, but I may skip a weekend every now and then if I’m busy. At the very least, I brew every other weekend.

There are entire books and websites dedicated to “cloning” all types of beers, including Guinness! The hard part about Guinness, however, is that they add a bit of soured beer from a previous batch as an ingredient–getting a kegging system with a Nitrogen tank will be a piece of cake compared to successfully reformulating their technique.

The posters at forums.homebrew.com are incredibly helpful. That MB rivals this one in terms of openess and helpfulness. Meanwhile, you can pick up two plastic buckets with spigots for about $11/each, a couple of #2 corks and 3-piece airlocks for a couple of dollars more, and you’ll be well on your way! You’ll also need a nice large pot–I started off with a 2.5-gallon pot, but quickly upgraded to a 4-gallon pot to prevent boil-overs.

5

Oh, on cost-effectiveness: about $25 worth of ingredients makes two to two and a half cases of beer, resulting in a unit cost of $0.42 to $0.52 per beer, or roughly $2.50 to $3/six. Once you get past the initial expense of equipment, that is!

6

Well…I’ve been brewing for 25 years or so. I have won awards for my homebrew in 13 different states, in every category the AHA recognizes. My investment in equipment has been…substantial over the years. :smiley: Cost effectiveness varies, depending on what you brew. The heavier, or more-complicated the brew, the greater the relative savings. You are NOT going to be able to compete with Bud on a “cost-per-beer” basis.

7

I went the other way (money wise). I just started brewing, but I started with a keg system. I polled about 6 guys that I work with who all are/were into brewing at one time, and they unanimously said that bottling was the worst part. So I bought a $250 kegging system. (the bottling system was about $125). It’s beautiful. (now I need a kegerator, though)

As for the quality of beer, my friends have made a cherry stout that I would have paid for. It made Guiness seem ‘average’. If you’re careful (sanitation wise) you can make much better beer than you can buy.

8

I was lucky, my stepfather, who was once a research microbiologist, gave me his equipment when he got out of homebrewing. About $200 for equipment sounds about right. I spend $20 to $30 per brew & yield about 2 cases. In November-December I did a Christmas/winter style ale. I’m hoping to brew again in the next weekend or two.

I keep it simple and do extract kits, not mini or full mash. So far with excellent results. Everybody complains about bottling. I personally don’t have a problem with it.

I live close to these guys, but I hear their phone and online support is good, and the mail order delivery is prompt. Their ingredients are fresh, although some of the equipment is pricey. More Beer dot com

The only tip my old man ever gave me was not to ‘trip’ on sanitation. Just ‘keep the population(of bacteria) down’. They’re everywhere, so you can’t wipe 'em out, just try to keep the numbers down.

9

I think so. The beer I brew is quite tasty

I started out as an extract brewer…over the period of a few years I migrated to all grain brewwing.

Well I do have a used fridge dedicated to homebrew…with a kegging setup. I’ve aquired bits and pieces of equipment over the years (propane burner…big kettle…built a mash/lauter tun etc…)

Five gallon batches of primarily ales (including stouts and belgian ales)…Usually brew every other month or so…sometimes more often

Not really…but you don’t homebrew to save money…you do it to create nice beers.

Already been answered. FWIW, it IS possible to get equipment and nitrogen to dispense the beer like Guinness…getting the actual taste down is trickier.

I use northernbrewer.com for most of my grain supplies…There is a wine shop in town that sells extract and other basic supplies.

Take a look at http://howtobrew.com/ You can even print out the relevant pages if you like, his entire book is online for free.

I subscribe to brew your own magazine http://www.byo.com/ which is pretty good for beginner and intermediate brewers (Zymurgy is geared towards more advanced brewers, I believe)

There are several brewing forums, the newsgroup rec.craft.brewing is one I read once in awhile.

{Charlie}Relax, don’t worry…have a homebrew{/Charlie}

10

Brewing good beer is not difficult. I had a former roommate teach me, and our very first batch was very tasty (granted, he already knew what he was doing). Most of the useful information has already been covered, so I’ll just point out what’s probably so glaringly obvious that no one else has mentioned it:

Never forget that the actual making of the beer is a big part of the enjoyment. Brewing is fun. So even if you screw up a batch here and there, if you put expensive ingredients into a beer, don’t sweat it. It’s like the quote from Charlie, above. . .

In my experience, it’s best to always, always, always have a beer (preferably one of your own from a previous batch) at your fingertips through the entire brewing and bottling process. If possible, do it with a friend. Kick back. Relax. Chat. One of my good friends, an engineer in the food biz, kept coming up with suggestions for making the brewing process more efficient. Wrong answer, thank you for playing. It’s not supposed to be efficient. It’s supposed to be fun and relaxing.

Enjoy!

11

Just brewed up my second batch yesterday!

My outlay was $100 for a carboy, a plastic bucket, bottle capper, tubing, bottle filler, thermometer some other termometer-looking thingy, iodine, book and first set of grains, hops, extract and yeast. Oh and another $15 for the pot - I got a big-ass pot from KMart, Martha Stewart collection. It is actually a canning pot.

It is actually easier than I thought it would be, especially going with the extract. Our first batch is about 3 weeks in the bottles, we’ve tried it but are letting it sit for a while longer.

I’ve been thinking about stealing some of the band names around here for our batch names, otherwise they’ll just be named “One” “Two” and so on…

Twiddle

12

Mrklutz beat me to the punch. As I was reading the posts on this thread, I wanted to make sure that someone pointed out that brewing beer is FUN! It’s really not very difficult to make, and there’s something really satisfying about drinking beer you’ve made yourself. It’s been years since I’ve made a batch, but now that my kids are older, maybe I’ll start to have a little free time and be able to start again.

Beer: proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

13

Thank you all for the great replies.

I was planning to do this as soon as I could get official approval for the initial capital outlay disbursal from my fiancee (we’re saving for our wedding in June), but I just called my dad, and he still has everything from his homebrewing stint 15 years ago! Carboys, bottle capper, bottles and more! Score!

14

I have a Belgian honey ale carbonating in the bottles right now… I tasted it during fermentation, and well, when a beer tastes good flat, that’s something! Can’t wait until it carbonates.

Start with extract kits and liquid yeast, and work up from there. I second the recommendations of BYO magazine and the How To Brew website - very informative! It sounds silly, but Homebrewing for Dummies is another good resource.

One Step and Star San are good sanitizers, and remember that plastic buckets used for fermentation should be replaced every year or so, as the plastic can collect scratches that bacteria/smells can get into.

And just a tip from a lazy bottler like me - 16 oz swing-top Grolsch pint bottles.

15

I’ve been brewing for a couple years now. My total capital outlay has probably been about a grand even. Alot of that cost comes from having a full draught system and kegorator. I’m using an old chest freezer with an add-on thermostat (Brewers Edge) to control the temp. I have two five gallon and one three gallon keg in there now and three faucet taps on the outside. I have room for one more five gallon keg and another tap, which I’ll probably add this summer. I have a modular gas manifold to distribute C02 from a 20lb bottle, which resides outside the freezer. Here’s a picture of it: http://www.acerbic.org/images/fridge06.jpg The C02 bottle is in that other wooden box to the left.

Like the others have said ingrediants will run from about $20-40 for a five gallon extract batch, depending on exactly what you're brewing. It's not that hard to get the hang of it; I've been brewing good beers right from the start. Start with recipes at first (preferably ones available at your local homebrew store) and eventually you'll get a feel for what extracts, grains, hops and yeasts to use for creating your own tasty home brews. The cost breaks down to about .50 to $1.00 a pint, which is a very good price for good beers, but is a little more than you’ll pay for natty ice or some other undrinkable swill most commonly found in plastic cups at frat parties :slight_smile:

I stick to ales mostly, every once and a while I’ll do up a batch of mead thought. On tap right now I have my annual winter warmer (a big, dark beer fortified with honey that weighs in at ~10% ABV) a freshly kegged ESB and the last of some cranberry mead I force carbonated in the small keg.

When I first started brewing I gave bottles a miss but didn’t want to jump straight into a full on draft system so I used mini-kegs. They hold 1.25 gallons each so you only need four to hold a five gallon batch, and they fit in your fridge. My first setup (one bucket w/spigot, one glass carboy, hoses, big ass spoon, racking cane, hydrometer, four mini-kegs and a mini-keg tap, etc… ) cost about $250. Since then I’ve added another carboy and bucket, some botteling equipment, the draught system described above and one of those propane turkey friars.

16

Been brewing about a year now. On my 23rd batch. Try to cook up a batch about every other week. Have not had (knock on wood) a single bad batch or horrible experiance yet. I do manage to spill a little every single time I rack or bottle, but nothing major, yet!

I bought a kit consisting of primary, 2 carboys, funnel, bottling bucket and other misc. shite for about $120 as I recall. I have since sunk about $75 in liter sized EZ-Cap bottles and a further $300± into a commercial refridge for lager fermentation.

I highly recommend AustinHomeBrewSupply (not sure of the actual web link, but if you type “Austin Home Brew” and “beer” into Yahoo, you’ll find it. Yes, I’m drinking homebrew right now, and have been for a few hours, so forgive the sloppyness) for all your needs. Great website, easy terms, very good prices and super service. Far better than my local supplier and with a little planning, all my stuff arrives when I need it.

The beer is better than what I can buy, but it ain’t really cheap. I’m not saving any money, really. Brewing myself gives me the quantitys I want, and the variety, but I’m not saving much money over “cheap beer” from the store. Where I benefit is getting quality ales at cheap beer prices, with a little “sweat equity”. Its very easy to brew. You just need the time and space. Countertops and dishwasher are a must! Also, places to keep the fermenting brews. Luckily, I have lots of space, so this is not an issue. The hops will make your house stink and your wife will give you a hard time. Personally, I like it.

You can do ales at room temp and they are very easy and quick, usually done from brew to drinking in about a month. I needed to go out and get a fridge for lager/pilsner fermentation, but now that its up and running, I have a pretty good stock of beer on hand.

Bottling does indeed suck. I abandoned it early on. I started with 12 ozers, moved quickly to 1 liter EZ-Caps (Grolsh-style tops) and am now using regular old 2 and 3 liter plastic 7-up bottles. Since I drink 2-4 liters at a time, this makes the most sense and keeps me off my knees the most. The screw tops work okay. I first tried them when I went on vacation and wanted to feed the homebrew to friends, but didn’t want to lug expensive EZ-Caps around the country. They work great and I use them all the time now.

Recap: follow the directions, sanitize everything, have some room and some time and you will find yourself enjoying a new hobby with real world benefits.

*disclaimer: I am the laziest homebrewer in the world! I don’t ever bother taking hydro readings, because I figure theres nothing I can do about it anyway! I never sanitize, because I live where it is so dry, nothing lives anyway! I use the dishwasher on heat cycle and call it good. Not a bad batch yet! I shouldn’t recommend anyone do it my way, but dammit, I make some damn good brew!

Hope this helped

17

I started doing only all-grain brewing back in '92 and I’ve slacked off in the last few years to only brewing once a year. The entire process takes 6 hours from start to finish in my garage and there are no breaks. With brewing, you always have to be doing something. I brew 10 gallon batches in only one style of ale similar to Bass but hoppier. I also don’t do hydrometer readings since the recipe is always the same.
I use Wyeast Irish ale yeast and I use the large smack packs. Very expensive but saves a lot of work by not having to make a suitable starter. Iodophor is the best sanitizer for my setup. I use soda kegs in their own refigerator and CO2 to carbonate. I have made some good stouts but I made the mistake of brewing stout once in July and it’s hard to sit on the beach and drink heavy stout.

Some of my best were a raspberry wheat and a white beer. We made a holiday ale once that had way too much cloves in it that turned out to be mildly anesthetic. Oil of cloves is an old-time toothache remedy because it deadens the nerve in the tooth and after a glass of this stuff your tongue got numb. Had to dump it out.

I figured out I was making pretty good beer for about 20 cents for 12 ounces. I can cut the cost by doing a repitch with the yeast but it’s a little risky.

Go for it ! It’s a lot of fun and you’ll learn a lot.

18

Thanks again everybody - this thread has been very enlightening! I’ve been reading the resources provided and there’s a lot of info out there.

I’m very tempted to start off kegging immediately. I have a 5lb co2 bottle with regulator from my old reef tank, and a spare mini fridge.

I’ve seen airlocks that fit onto kegs so you can ferment right in the keg. Is this a good idea?

And to anyone who uses the 5 gallon Cornelius kegs, can you give me exact dimensions? I’m getting conflicting info from the web ranging from 8 to 10 inches in diameter. My mini fridge has a footprint of 16 7/8" x 9 1/2" with a height of 27". I want to fit two kegs in there (there’s room in the back for the co2 with less vertical clearance). Perhaps there are different types/brands that I need to be concernced with?

I should probably take such a specific question to the homebrew forums, but I haven’t had the chance to reg there yet, and I didn’t want to let this thread die without thanking you all again and letting you know that I’m gonna do it! :cool:

19

The main parts that I could have added have already been covered. One thing that someone once mentioned to me was that I had to factor time into the cost per beer. That’s like saying that it costs you $20/hour to go fishing.

I’ve been kegging for years and just measured a few of my corny kegs and mine range from 8" to 9" in dia. and all of them are 25 inches tall which includes handles. The fittings don’t come above the handles. I also have a 3 gallon corny which is obviously shorter.

I would not recommend fermenting in the keg. Besides the problem of cleaning afterwards, after fermenting all of the crap is going to be at the bottom, which is what gets dispensed first. If you like yeasty beer, then go for it. I do have one keg with a shortened tube that I have used just for flash clarifying of wine, but it’s more trouble than it is worth over just letting it sit in a carboy another few weeks. If you are going to keg, then take advantage of the keg and let it ferment in a carboy and then force carbonate it. Faster, more consistent results and a clearer beer.

Bottling sucks. Kegging is where it’s at. Plus, they make great “travel packs” now using CO2 cartridges that hook up to the fittings. Basically, they use one cartridge per gallon. Nice to take your keg with you without a hand pump or a bottle of gas. And if you want to bottle some stuff up for some friends, it doesn’t take much to make a cheap counterpressure bottle filler.

20

Here’s one of the cheapest ways to get started and see if you like brewing. No need for any of those fancy glass carboys or “special” brewing buckets.

get yourself a 5 gallon plastic bottle of mineral water. It’s food grade and sterilized. All you need is a fermentation lock and the right sized cork. when the beer is done a siphon hose and bottle capper. I’ve done dozens of beer this way and had pretty dang good results.

To make something really easy, buy 2 of the same kit beers (come in about a 3 pound can and are pre-hopped, so you’ll have about 6 pounds of malt total). Follow the directions for making the wort on the kit beer. alternatively, use one kit beer, add 2-3 pounds of malt and boil for one hour with 1 ounce of hops.

I’m not saying the above is the “best” beer you’ll make, but I think it’s probably the easiest with real tasty results and be pretty easy on the pocketbook while you discover how fun it is. Then you can upgrade to the glass carboy, et al.

One other hint, if brewing in the morning, I usually pitch the yeast the night before. Use a big sterilized bottle, pour in some water that has been boiled for 10 minutes with either malt, honey or sugar (don;t need much), pour in the yeast, shake and put in the air lock. By morning that sucker should really be going. Make sure you’ve only got a few inches of liquid in the bottle and a lot of space 'cause that sucker is gonna go. When your wort is ready, just open the airlock and dump in the fermenting yeast. Advantages are you know your yeast has started before you start brewing and the faster the yeast goes in your wort the less chance of wild yeast getting started.

Don’t worry, relax and have a homebrew