Homebrewing!!!

[rbp6]

Hey guys, I just decided that I want to try to homebrew my own beer. I'm going to buy a kit with instructions and a premade recipe for Indian Pale Ale. Anyone have any experience or suggestions they'd like to share. Any advice would be well appreciated.

[rocketman]

ive tried it before with a kit i bought called "Mr. Beer" it is a kindof lame kit but it came with everything i needed to brew some beer, and it got me drunk too! takes about 1-3 months to brew. More sugar = more alcohol usually and you need to use good yeast. dont add the yeast when the wort (sugar, hops, and barley mix) is too hot, wait for it to cool to lukewarm temp first. let it brew in a vented container for at least a month, then put a teaspoon of sugar in each bottle before you bottle it, let it brew in the bottles for another 2-4 weeks and your ready to drink. the whole process should be kept at room temp otherwise it may slow the reaction if it gets too cold, or kill the yeast if it gets too hot. I am also going to attempt to brew up some mash to distill into moonshine soon but i have yet to make the still for it.

 

http://www.angelfire.com/un/rocketman

[ydoaPs]

you can buy alcohol making kits at walmart

[jdurg]

Be sure to filter it before you permanently bottle it. If you don't, it will have this nasty tasting grain in the brew that really doesn't make it taste all that great.

[rbp6]

Sorry it took me so long, the servers were down for awhile, I found a great website and am going to buy a really nice kit.

[YT2095]

))))))

 

an extra pound of sugar and make sure theres no sediment before bottling, you can add a T`spoon of sugar to the bottle before you seal it to get a nice head on the beer when opening it again.

 

my main tip is Cleanliness! keep ALL your kit sterilised!

 

oh yeah, and don`t give any of it away!, You brewed it, You drink it dude, unless they buy you the next kit!

[LucidDreamer]

1) Make sure you sanitize all your equipment. You don't want anything alive except the yeast

2) Make sure you get rid of allof the residual chemical that you used to sanitize the equipment.

3) Make sure that your yeast is alive by testing it with some water and sugar.

4) Make sure you create an anaerobic environment.

5) Boil the sugar in water that you put in the bottles.

6) Use malt sugar in the fermentation process

7) The amount of time that it takes to brew may vary. An accurate method of determining when the brew is done is to count the amount of CO2 bubbles escaping from the fermentation device.

8) Use quality ingredients.

9) Most of the expense involved comes from the initial investment in equipment. After the first time home-made beer can be somewhat economical.

10) Your results will likely be radically different for each batch that you make when you first start so don't be discouraged if your trial run isn't that tasty

 

Most important things to get a good result.

Sanitize all equipment. Boil ingredients.

Don't ferment for too long.

Use a good recipe.

[Gilded]

I think killing helpless yeast to make alcohol is terrible.

 

*goes to found Rights For Yeast-foundation*

[jsatan]

you can get a SPM that will let just the alcohol pass, that way you get great vodka and you dont need to add more yeast, and on that same note it will get quicker as time goes by, may try this, lol.

[ed84c]

i also suggest growing your own barley and hops thats what i do, for a propper homemade beer. Careful of solids building up that float, l left the seeds in an Elderberry wine onece, they formed an airlock and the demijohn exploded. I have seriously never seen such a mess as i did then, 1 gallon of red die covered the kitchen, so watch yourself.

[ammonium nitrate]

hi, i'm rather new to home brewing and i have asked my mum to pick up some tubing so i can make a still but because she doesn't understand why i need it, she's not buying it so am i able to just boil the methanol out of my fermented wort so that i just have ethanol and water or do i need to separate out the water as well as the methanol?

[Phi for All]

If the only way you can get tubing is from your mother, I'm not sure telling you how to brew beer is a good idea.

[ammonium nitrate]

i can get tubing myself, just my mum was going that way and i dont have any need to be in that direction as i can't justify the petrol costs just for tubing, hence it will be a while until i am in that direction

[Arete]

Dependent on which country you live in, distilling spirits without a licence whether for commercial or personal use is illegal (e.g. the US, UK, Australia Canda...http://homedistiller.org/intro/legal) and therefore against board rules to discuss. It's also dangerous without the proper knowledge/equipment and you could end up killing yourself and anyone who drinks your product.

 

If you're new at home brewing, I'd work up to partial/full mashes and forget about distillation. What sort of brew setup are you using at the moment?

[ACG52]

hi, i'm rather new to home brewing and i have asked my mum to pick up some tubing so i can make a still but because she doesn't understand why i need it, she's not buying it so am i able to just boil the methanol out of my fermented wort so that i just have ethanol and water or do i need to separate out the water as well as the methanol?

 

If your setting up a still, you're not brewing, you're distilling alcohol.

 

Brewing beer involves water, hops, and barley.

[ammonium nitrate]

im trying to make a whisey for my step mums xmas present, that involves distilling the wort, can somebody pleas tell me whether or not i need to seperate the tails, would it affect the quality of the final product or would it not cosmically speaking matter?

Edited December 7, 2012 by ammonium nitrate

[John Cuthber]

Xmas 2020?

Anything like decent whiskey takes years to mature. The raw product is borderline undrinkable.

[Arete]

Xmas 2020?

Anything like decent whiskey takes years to mature. The raw product is borderline undrinkable.

 

I have a bottle of Lincoln County Lightning in my stock - it's not that bad

 

If you're a beginner homebrewer I'll assume you used an can of extract, rather than a full mash? These kits are hopped, so I imagine trying to distill an extract beer wort would make a pretty nasty tasting whiskey.

Edited December 7, 2012 by Arete

[Moontanman]

I'd like to ad my vote to the whole distilling alcohol at home thing. It will usually take you years to gain the skills necessary to make drinkable whiskey, some people never get there, but making it from beer seems to be a odd place to start. A good rye mash or corn mash would be my starting point for whiskey, some red oak casks, several years of time and you might have something worth drinking, of course white lightning will get the job done too, sometimes you run across someone who really knows his stuff and can distill some pretty good alcohol, used to be a guy in a neighboring county i worked with who ran a still in his barn, he ran off a few gallons of rye two or three times a year, it was pretty good, smooth but it had a kick like a mule... I actually shared a few glasses, sitting next to his still, one day with him and the local sheriff... ah the simple life in rural America...

[Phi for All]

I'd like to ad my vote to the whole distilling alcohol at home thing. It will usually take you years to gain the skills necessary to make drinkable whiskey, some people never get there, but making it from beer seems to be a odd place to start. A good rye mash or corn mash would be my starting point for whiskey, some red oak casks, several years of time and you might have something worth drinking, of course white lightning will get the job done too, sometimes you run across someone who really knows his stuff and can distill some pretty good alcohol, used to be a guy in a neighboring county i worked with who ran a still in his barn, he ran off a few gallons of rye two or three times a year, it was pretty good, smooth but it had a kick like a mule... I actually shared a few glasses, sitting next to his still, one day with him and the local sheriff... ah the simple life in rural America...

"Now we're favored guests, treated to the finest in beverages that make you blind." --Malcolm Reynolds

[Moontanman]

"Now we're favored guests, treated to the finest in beverages that make you blind." --Malcolm Reynolds

 

 

His still was copper... grew his own rye too... organic blindness...

Edited December 9, 2012 by Moontanman

[tomgwyther]

Get a conditioning barrel, rather than conditioning the beer in the bottles. you can always bottle it from the conditioning barrel if you like. having a conditioning barrel means you don't have to worry about upsetting the bottles and having sediment floating around in your drink. I keep my conditioning barrel in the basement where it's quite cold (which almost makes my beer into a lager in winter)

or keep your barrel in the house and have beer-on-tap 24/7

[ACG52]

I prefer bottling. After you bottle, fermentation continues for another week or so. This gives a more highly carbonated beer than the barrel. (IMO)

[tomgwyther]

Fermentation continues in the conditioning barrel, for months usually, You then have the option to bottle it. The pre-conditioned, bottled beer is easier to transport/store.

[ammonium nitrate]

i just had a bottle explode sending pieces of glass clear across 2 rooms of the house, however, it was only one in the entire batch that exploded and as it was one of the larger bottles, my theory is that because it was lager, there would be more CO2 confined within the liquid inside the bottle causing a greater pressure in the bottle, is this correct or do i have a fridgeful of ticking time bombs?