OT: Homebrew Wednesdays returns
It's been a while...but we're back! It's time to revive a short-lived series for our final month of OT season.
So, let's take it from the top. Are you a homebrewer?
- Brew method (extract, partial, all grain)
- Approximate # of batches brewed
- Summary of your setup
Prior topics in the series that I could dig up with a 10 second search:
Part 1 – Who Brews?
Part 2 – Your Setup
Part 3 – Best Recipe
To get it started...
- All grain brewing using Brew-in-a-Bag
- According to BrewersFriend I am at 70 batches brewed
- Everything on brew day is done inside the kitchen. Mash using a big Home Depot cooler, boil on stove top in an 8-gal kettle, wort chiller hooked up under the sink. The big upgrades have been for fermentation and serving - I've got a 7 cu ft chest freezer downstairs in storage that I can cool or heat to lock in fermentation temps, then built a butcher block bar around a kegerator with 2 tap capacity. I've usually got 2 beers on draft, typically around 3 gallon batch size.
I should also mention everything is contained to a small condo + storage unit in Chicago. So it can be done in tight spaces!
Someone needs to come up with a "blue" flavored/colored corn mash
I like this idea! I've done a couple sours that were raspberry forward and bright red...wonder if a blueberry sour could get anywhere near that color...
Shipyard out of Maine makes a Smashed Blueberry beer which is 9%. Porter/Scotch Ale mix. That said, I don't typically enjoy fruit forward beers.
I typically am not a fan either, although a blueberry beer sounds weirdly intriguing. Don't ask me why, it just does. May have to try that one, although I am sure it is nothing like my favorite breakfast - blueberry muffins.
Wait I thought wednesdays were for unsolved legends. I'm only allowed to think about one thing a day
That is a great series!
Former homebrewer here; my user name is a play on Fuggle hops (which is a variety I was actually never very fond of).
I stopped homebrewing when I moved out of the states and to Toronto; I never started up again because I discovered I'm in the celiac club and my immune system starts attacking my intestines whenever I eat any grain with gluten (barley, wheat and rye). I've given some thought to starting up again with gluten-free beer but I just can't get excited about it and for health reasons I don't drink as much these days. (I'm switching to Ontario's other legal intoxicant.)
I did my mash in the same 10-gallon kettle that I boiled the wort in; I put in a spigot which worked reasonably well for draining. I started out doing batch sparging for the sake of simplicity and eventually stopped sparging. Depending on the malt you're using, this can result in better malt flavor and a shorter brew day but requires more malt.
My favorite beers out of at least a couple dozen batches were a saison that won best of show at a local contest, the Victorian stout I made out of "Old British Beers and How to Make Them" and an American Pale Ale with Glacier hops that started to go bad just before I emptied the keg (I think due to a problem with hot side aeration).
Sorry to hear about the Celiac event. Really changes your food world and life. Find some good food and enjoy some other form of refreshment!
I'm grateful for wine and cider.
A buddy of mine did a habanero IPA home brew. Don't know how but it was surprisingly delicious
Best beer I ever had was a Thai Peanut brew from Right Brain in Traverse City. Perfect combination of beer & peanuts all in one glass with a spicy kick.
I mentioned it to the brewmaster at Cellarmen's in Hazel Park & he said it would be a messy process. Not sure why it would be so messy, but if I ever get the chance, I will drink a gallon of it.
Only been once, but I am a big fan of Right Brain. I want to go back soon.
I don't brew beer
i do assist a buddy who brews, i'm an inventory rotation tech.
i have been known to mash and ferment, that's where my process takes a bit of a tangent.
I've been brewing since 2006... no idea how many batches...probably over 150
Currently I do all grain, buy grain and hops in bulk, mill at home.
I mash in a cooler, in a bag. Kind of a hybrid between a typical mash tun system and BIAB. I boil outside on a propane burner and chill with an immersion chiller
Lately I have not been brewing much, as my desire, ability, and need to drink beer has declined substantially after becoming a father. I still have the urge to brew though. I suppose I should get a few friends together and brew with them and have them chip in for ingredients and take some of the beer home
All Grain all the time. I've brewed hundreds of batches, and been brewing for about 10 years. I use an Electric Brewery system (10-gallon batches) that I have set up in garage. I also built a walk-in cooler for fermentation and housing of a 7-tap kegerator. Best hobby ever!
I remember loving hearing about your setup last time around and...still love it! Well done. Any big upgrades in recent years?
August 2nd, 2019 at 11:35 AM ^
The walk-in is pretty new - I finished it last spring.
I see there are some replies to this question on the original thread from 2016, but wondering if anything has changed in the last couple years.
Do folks have recommendations for building or buying a simple starter homebrew setup/kit? I've been wanting to give it a try but find it a bit overwhelming.
Brewer's Best makes an equipment kit that includes all the equipment to start brewing except for bottles and the brew pot. It's around $60.00. You'll need to pick the ingredient kit you want. That's how I started 5 years ago or so and what I still use.
Beer is never off topic. Know that.
I used to strictly brew all grain, but with the IPAs and Pale Ales the volume of grain tends to be crowded in the brew pot, therefore I have switched to partial for a lot of my brewing. I started brewing around 1989 or 1990 and therefore can't remember how many batches I've brewed. I will tell you that the best thing I did was switch from bottling to kegging a few years ago. Had I made that change earlier I would have brewed more often because the only things I don't like about brewing is cleaning the equipment and bottling.
My set up starts with a Blichmann 10 Gallon brew pot and I have a lot of accessories including a false bottom, a hop blocker, a therminator and chilling coils.
Thanks for post, both of my kegs are close to empty and I need to find time to brew.
I will tell you that the best thing I did was switch from bottling to kegging a few years ago. Had I made that change earlier I would have brewed more often because the only things I don't like about brewing is cleaning the equipment and bottling.
This. I brewed for a couple years and got the method down pretty well and was able to get batches anywhere from decent to "hell yea this is good." Had a few nice recipes (Old English Pale Ale, Wheat Ale, Christmas Porter). But cleaning up, sterilizing numerous cases of bottles is a bitch, as is bottling. Also, i had no place to lager making it an ale only operation. I moved, did one more batch, then stopped because bottling and capping 72 bottles is an arduous process.
If I ever decided to do it again I would use kegs.
Absolutely. Kegging is a lifesaver and the biggest upgrade you can do as a homebrewer by far. I've also got a Beer Gun that allows for bottling with carbonation from the keg in order to send bottles to friends or competitions.
- All grain almost all the time. Belgians get sugar and sometimes really high gravity beers get a little DME to hit targets. I also make hard cider, which is not brewing at all.
- I've been brewing for 11 years (July 2008 is when it all started). I'd say I average 15-20 batches a year, so somewhere in the vicinity of 250 batches sounds about correct.
- I brew on an Electric HERMS System (modified from a kit I bought here: https://shop.theelectricbrewery.com). My set-up is for brewing 13.5 gallon batches, which wind up to be perfect for two 5-gallon kegs of finished product. The system is in my basement where I have a rather high powered exhaust system. Fermentation is done in stainless steel conical fermenters from Blichmann (3) and two temperature controlled (heating only) home made stainless steel conical fermenters. For lagering, I built two walk-in/roll-in refrigerators with Cool-bots and window unit ACs. In the room next door, I built a bar with 5 taps, two are nitrogen driven and 3 are CO2 driven. Brewing is an amazing hobby and so is building stuff.
I've been brewing over the past 12 years, and switched to all-grain about 5 years ago. Much better beer with all-grain, but it does take twice as long on brew day. 10 gallon coolers for mash and HLT, 15 gal brew kettle, two ball lock kegs (don't miss the bottles at all!)...
My favorite recipe currently is a SMaSH called "Hulk SMaSH" that I found online - Maris Otter and Cascade Hops... an American IPA with a bit of a British flavor.
Biggest improvement aside from going all-grain was when I started oxygenating the wort before adding the yeast. Fermentation goes pretty fast and is very efficient. Result is a nice dry crisp flavor.
I am actually considering selling my equipment if anyone is looking to jump in or upgrade.
How are you oxygenating? That's probably the next step I need to take.
Sorry for the delay, just got back home...
I bought it through Northern Brewer and it is basically a stone on the end of a wand that hooks to a small oxygen canister. It releases tiny O2 bubbles throughout the wort - kind of looks like a rolling boil when you are doing it right.
The other trick I started doing was when the fermentation first started to stall out I would gently swirl the yeast in the bottom to get more back into solution. Then fermentation would pick back up for a few days. I find the more sugar you can get out the better for both taste and ABV. I love the clean finish I get with this process.
- All Grain
- Lost track, but a lot
- I have a two cooler setup with mashtun and HLT that uses 3-tier gravity setup.
I've been brewing for about 5 years. I started in because I saw the price of an ingredient kit of Red Ale was about $32.00, while a case of MGD was $16.00. So for the price of 2 cases of MGD, I could get 2 cases of premium beer. That's a no-brainer. I think I've done over 30 batches but haven't really kept track. I usually keep two varieties around (right now a Kolsch and a Summer Ale) and when one gets low, I make the next batch.
I use the equipment kit from Brewer's Best and bottle everything.
I've branched out into wine and hard cider a bit. Living in SW MI, fresh fruit is readily available. I planned on trying a hard ginger ale (not a ginger beer, but a true ginger soda that's fermented) this summer, but time's slipping away. It needs to ferment at higher temps, so I'm trying to get it done while it's still warm.
Oddly enough, I've gained 15 lbs in the last 5 years after staying near my HS graduation weight for a few decades. I wonder where that came from?
Side note: There was a local pastor (German Lutheran) who was the godfather of beer brewing in Benton Harbor/St. Joseph. I think he's been brewing for 35 years or so. He recently retired and moved away, but he helped me and numerous others in this area get started in the hobby.
The weight gain was a big part of why I stopped brewing. Just too much damn beer that needed drinking all the time. I had a 3 tap kegerator and there was always a backlog of 2 or 3 kegs just waiting to be served.
I limit myself to one a day. The problem is they usually happen around 9:30 at night when my wife and I sit down together to watch something on Netflix.
Been brewing for 20+ years. Both beer and wine. No more wine, very difficult to get good grapes...and wine is all about the grapes.
Probably 50+ batches. All 5 gallon batches using malt extract + some cracked grain infusion.
Usually did ales with moderate bittering and finish hops. Not a hop head here.
Never did fruit beer...though I made some tomato wine which was pretty good in an offbeat way, and a 5 gallon batch of ‘MGoBlueberry’ wine, made with a label of the BigHouse and all, panoramic shot; the label wrapped around the bottle...still have a couple. It was decent.
(A retail aside- Actually am trying to sell my gear...search Craigslist - Oakland county MI for “Complete Homebrew Home brew equipment - $75 (Lathrup Village)” if interested...will give MGB users $25 off.)
Only brewed all grain. 50 + batches. Last year started malting barley and wheat. This will be first year I grew my own barley. (Barley variety is the new hop hype) Wife thinks I’m sometimes crazy but It’s really just projection.
thermometer is offensive line of brewing/distilling.
It's been about 8 years since my last batch, but I was an avid brewer for a few years. I did all grain, probably did close to 50 batches. I had a rectangular cooler for a mash tun, batch sparged, and used a turkey frier for a brew kettle. I used a 6 gallon glass carboy fpr primary fermentation, 5 gallon for secondary, and straight into a keg. I got into lagering towards the end and had a pretty killer red lager. I was using a converted chest freezer with a temp controller hot wired in for that.
I help my brother, he has all the equipment and experience.
Lately been getting kits from Adventure in Home Brewing. Made a nice Belgian trippel earlier this year. Everything we made over the years had turned out good.?
Been brewing for about 4 years now. Started as an equipment set that was a gift for my birthday that year. It collected dust for a couple months, then I tried it out. I've become increasingly obsessed since then. I think I'm at around 70 batches, maybe more.
Now I do pretty much exclusively all grain, unless I am gifted an extract kit or want to do a quick experiment.
My setup has been slowly upgraded to where I'm at now. I use a Grainfather all grain brewing system. It is expensive, but the features and convenience is worth it to me. I use a hop spider to make the cleanup easier. For fermentation, I have 2 stainless conical fermenters with digital temp control, and I built a glycol chiller to be able to cold crash and lager in them.
I understand the complaints about bottling, but I still do that for about 1/3 of my batches. I like to have a lot of varieties available. I also have a 3 tap kegerator that I basically use as a test bench. I want to have around 20 taps available someday, but that will have to wait until I move.
I just made an Oktoberfest on Monday, and I'm very excited for that. It is one of my favorite styles.
Brewing for 8 years
Around 60 batches of beer and hard cider
i am an all grain beer, I use The Grainfather electric brewing system(Bluetooth enabled timer). Brew in the backyard with a couple of modified outlets, or garage if it’s cold/wet
Have mini fridge for fermenting, 5 keg fridge made out of a chest freezer. Order all my hops from Yakima Valley Hops, usually buy grains from local brew shop.
Next beer on tap is a Belgian Wit