I decided I want to try home brewing. I assume I’ll just go buy one of the kits to do it, but a couple of people I know have tried and give up after making nasty tasting crap. Hust wondering if anybody had any suggestions. Do some of the kits work better than the others? Any specific recomendations? I live in denver and was wondering if high altitude will make a difference.
Thanks.
Having an ex-boyfriend and a couple of buds who brew, I can pretty easily say that if it tastes like crap and you used a kit, you didn’t sanitize properly.
Gotta soak that stuff in the hot bleach water, or the microbes will grow and turn your precious fermenting barley water into noxious sludge.
That, and don’t ever use a garden hose to siphon water from one demijohn to another. Eeeuuuuuwww.
P.S. Id be happy if someone could point me to a good web site or message board, all I can seem to find is people promoting their own equipment, or bragging about their latest recipe.
Look in any local bookstore (for purposes of discussion, I will assume that Web-based sellers, e.g., Amazon.com, are local to everybody) for Charlie Papazian’s The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing, ISBN 0-380-76366-4. A lot of people disagree with Papazian on many of the specifics he gives, but his is probably the most accessible information that the novice will find.
You can also subscribe to the e-mail Homebrew Digest by sending an e-mail with the word “subscribe” in the body to request@hbd.org. The discussion in the HBD covers everything; it can get very technical.
It definitely won’t hurt to look at How to Brew Your First Beer by John J. Palmer. As much information as can go onto a web page, and lots of other (if sadly incomplete) references. And, for the record, I am neither Charlie Papazian nor John J. Palmer.
You can find recipes at Cat’s Meow. A collection of beer recipes won’t make you a brewer any more than a collection of chicken recipes will make you a chef, but will give you some ideas, and some notion of what can be done.
Wolfman:
The best source of live info I’ve found is the Usenet group rec.crafts.brewing. There are lots of folks there who know what they’re talking about, and they’re even relatively cool to newbies. They certainly can point you in the direction you need to go.
Here’s my standard spiel on starting out:
– You can get started for well under $100, including ingredients for your first batch (5 gallons).
– The first step is to buy a copy of The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing, by Charlie Papazian.
– Sanitation is key.
– Start with a dark beer, as the richer flavor and darker color will help to mask any defects. The very hardest beer to brew well is a very light lager.
– You will hear this a TON as you get into brewing, but “Relax, don’t worry, have a homebrew” (RDWHAHB).
What is your geographical location? I may be able to point you in the direction of a trustworthy brew shop.
One problem is that the kits can sit on the store shelf for a long time (years) and very old kits produce funny tasting beer.
If you don’t insist on being a purist, try the “Beer Machine”. It’s about $110 and makes fairly decent beer.
Here’s my $0.02. My buddy got one of those kits (I think they’re $45) for Christmas. This was a kit that came with 24-ounce polyethylene bottles with screw-on caps, just like come on plastic coke bottles. He had a small get-together at his house when the beer was finished.
It was awful and flat. We opened two or three of the bottles, and they were all like that. So my buddy went to the local Homebrew store and asked the experts. They told him just to screw the plastic caps on the bottles tighter, and store them at room temperature for a couple of weeks.
So one afternoon I went back to his house and tried it again. This time the beer was really good - much better than I had expected even before he had the troubles.
So my input is that you can make really good beer even with those cheap-looking kits.
By the way, I’m enjoying a Celis White Ale while typing this.
One trick I’ve heard for the best seal is to paint the inside of the cap with a gelatin-water mixture before tightening. The gelatin will set and prevent any gasses from escaping. I’ve never tried it myself.
You really don’t need to put out big bucks to get into home brewing.
For a first time brewer a (new) 5 gallon pail with lid will make a fine fermenter. Get some of that aquarium tubing and poke it through the lid, seal it tight. Dip the end into a beer bottle half filled with water. Presto, 5 gallon fermenter with water lock.
A good technique for starters would be to secure 5lbs of malt syrup, a packet of brewing yeast and some pellet hops.
Bring 4 gallons of water to a boil and turn off the heat. Add the hops and malt and cover. Let it cool.
While you are waiting for it to cool off put your yeast into a tall glass half full of water with a pinch of sugar in it. Cover with a napkin.
After the mix cools down to room temp, pour it into your fermenter through a cheesecloth to remove the hops. Dump in your yeast and cover. Dip the end of the tubing into the bottle of water.
Watch the little bubbles rise and listen to the bloop bloop until the bloops come once an hour or so, this takes about a month. Stir in 3/4 cup sugar and bottle.
This method will yeild a brew that any experienced home brewer would sneer at but will be quite drinkable. Plus you will gain valuable experience for future projects.
As long as you make sure you sanitize, you’re almost guaranteed to make something cheaper and more drinkable than most beers you buy. And you can pick how expensive and how complicated you want to make it.
Did anyone mention saniation yet? It’s really really really important. My ex-girlfriend brews her own beer. She’s a maniac about keeping everything clean and she always brewed good beer. Hot water, soap, bleach, more hot water. And hot hot water, 2nd degree burns if it touches your hand hot water.
I see we have a few brewers here. I would just like to point out that sanitation is very important. I realize this has been brought up before, but it really cannot be stressed enough. Other than that if you follow a decent recipie and use Papazian as a guide you can brew really good beer. Like many things, the more you brew the better you will get.
John
And don’t skimp on the bottle washing and sanitizing. Many people get tired of washing all those bottles (or rinsing them properly) and that is BAD.
I home brewed for 3 years, along with two friends, and we never made a bad brew by simply following the directions exactly, and sanitizing, esp. the bottles.
Try to find a homebrewing club in your area. When I first started brewing I went to every meeting and kept asking questions until I got it right. I quit brewing about a year ago because it was a six hour process and I just didn’t have the time anymore. It’s really a very rewarding hobby, especially if you make a good brew.
Now for my $ 0.02…
Use Iodophor instead of bleach to sanitize your equipment and bottles. The contact time to sanitize is much shorter.
Use liquid yeast from a homebrew shop. It comes in a double layer sterile pouch and yields a much cleaner flavor than dry yeast. The 1084 Irish Ale from Wyeast http://www.wyeastlab.com
is good but they don’t sell direct and every homebrew shop carries it.
Use a glass fermenter instead of a plastic bucket. The plastic will absorb flavor over time and is hard to sanitize. A five gallon glass carboy is best and they’re not too hard to clean if you get a carboy brush.
Don’t drink too much homebrew while you’re brewing or you’ll forget steps and leave things out. Also, I used to brew 10 gallons at a time and being around that much boiling liquid is a bit dangerous if you’re trashed.
http://www.beertown.org is the AHA site
Lastly, don’t worry, have a homebrew !
Of course, there are other things to look out for which make a noticeable difference.
I didn’t read the article, but a friend of mine once related a piece written by Papazian about what award-winning homebrews he had tried had in common. There were a dizzying variety of them, and his conclusion that what really makes a winning homebrew in any category is technique. This covers not only sanitization, but also the control of the whole process. But you can’t master technique without practice.