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Home Brewing

The Owl

The Owl

Aug 14, 2005
5,398
14,882
GA
talktobears.hearnow.com
#1
Well, the Owl is curious about the whole concept of home brewing. My question to the board at large is, have any of you done home brewing and what are your experiences with it? What are good kits to start with?

Somehow, the idea of Great Horned Stout, Eurasian Eagle Lager or Eastern Screech Pilsner holds a certain appeal for me.

Post away--------------
 
#2
A friend of mine and I brewed 3 batches in college. We basically didn't have the time to do it any more. Ours were The Regulator, Brutus and Dirk. I wish I could recommend kits and whatnot...but we bought all of our crap from a now out-of-business microbrew supply in Bridge City, Texas.

What I can tell you is what you can probably guess: if you like beer, it's worth the effort. The major pain for us was collecting and cleaning the bottles. You'll need pop-top...not the screw tops. We didn't buy the new ones (poor college kids)....we scoured parties and bars collected as many import bottles as possible and then spent a Saturday cleaning and sanitizing the 50+ bottles a batch will make.

Pay attention while brewing. We somehow busted a seal on the container for Brutus and it developed a not-so-planned citrus flavor. We discovered this before bottling and research confirmed the batch was contaminated. Using me as a test rat, I drank a few before carbonation and didn't suffer any ill-side effects, so we went ahead with bottling.

I've thought about doing this again now that I have a bit more money....but I'm already juggling a few hobbies and there's a good microbrew a few miles from here. Good luck.

Mike
 
#3
My bro is coming up on being a master assed brewer. He and his friend brew 10-15 gallons a week (has for about two years now), and are currently exploring becoming a full fledged business. They're talking with a couple of local pubs about becoming the house beer, and moving up from there.

They're both physicists. It's rocket science beer.

I keep telling both of them they need to be Rocket Science Brewery: It doesn't take one, but we have two.
 
#4
I've never brewed anything on my own (my only "hands on brewing has been helping my dad to make a Stout kit). My dad has been doing his own brewing for years, making beers and wines and such. He has won awards for his stuff before, and currently holds a cup for a competition he won last year.

I don't drink much, but the stuff of his that I have tried I really enjoyed.
 
#5
I've brewed probably 10 batches.

* Lots of fun - track down your local homebrew supplier and talk to them. They will set you up with everything you need.

* Try to use big bottles to minimize the pain in the ass that cleaning and bottling is. I used returnable 16 oz bottles.

* Use liquid yeast, even on your first batch. It makes a huge difference on how the beer turns out. You need to "activate" the yeast a day in advance of your boil.
 
#6
I did it a lot when I was in Atlanta. There's a homebrew shop way down on Jonesboro Road in Jonesboro that's just fantastic for getting you started. I think it's called Brew Your Own Beverages (BYOB). Give them a visit.

I really enjoyed it, and made some KILLER beer!
 
#9
It tastes OK, but it definitely needs filtering. My friend had one, he scrapped that system after two brews and made his own micro-brewery. Turned out some fine pilsners, and a way good stout (which I usually don't care for). My dog LOVED the stout- he'd go over with me and he'd get a dog bowl full! Sometimes two, if he was being a brat! He was a big boy, a 105-lb. black Lab named Sherman. I miss him...:(
 
#10
I've been regularly homebrewing for a while now. It's a good time. On NYE I made a batch of Belgian strong dark ale (OG: 1.092).

I second the recommendation of Northern Brewer. They are a good source of quality ingredients, and if you have a homebrew setup (which they sell) you can buy kits from them which make it easy.
 
#12
I did ~65 batches a decade ago, all from malt extract. I just went to FH Steinbart in Portland, but they sell wholesale to lots of homebrew supply shops as well.

A few of my friends are doing all-grain brewing. They are producing world class ales, plain and simple. I was a little shy of that, but still easily on par with a lot of the commercially available microbrew out here.

As far as liquid yeast, let me recommend the Wyeast products. Use 3 or 5 gallon Cornelius kegs (aka soda dispensers), and forget the bottling hassle. Bottle a few sixers or champagne bottles of each batch for homebrew fests though. I had five or six neighbors brewing at the time I was doing it, so the parties were pretty amazing.
 
#14
Philbiker said:
I've brewed probably 10 batches.

* Lots of fun - track down your local homebrew supplier and talk to them. They will set you up with everything you need.

* Try to use big bottles to minimize the pain in the ass that cleaning and bottling is. I used returnable 16 oz bottles.

* Use liquid yeast, even on your first batch. It makes a huge difference on how the beer turns out. You need to "activate" the yeast a day in advance of your boil.
Click to expand...

About the yeast, what about those yeast pouches that need to be "popped" a little while before pitching? Is that what you're talking about?
 

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