Home brewing

[darkhunter139]

Hey guys, just curious if anyone here brews their own beer? I just got some equipment together and brewed two batches and I am already hooked.  Bottled up my first batch of Irish Stout a few days ago and have an IPA in the fermenter now.  Can't wait to try out the stout, should be about another 2 weeks at least before they are carbonated enough to drink. If anyone is into homebrewing whats the last batch you brewed and post some pics of your setups if you got em!

[Ernest Jones]

I make my own wine, Pinot Noir and some Barolo. Never did the beer though. I figure, six months for a batch of 60 bottles of wine makes sense but six months for 60 bottles of beer doesn't.

[darkhunter139]

Originally Posted by Ernest Jones

I make my own wine, Pinot Noir and some Barolo.

Never did the beer though. I figure, six months for a batch of 60 bottles of wine makes sense but six months for 60 bottles of beer doesn't.

Wine seems interesting to make as well, I will probably try that eventually.  Beer doesn't take quite 6 months to make, from my understanding its roughly a month and a half to two months on average (for most styles, some of the crazy bourbon barrel aged beers and sours can probably take upwards of 6 months).

[Ernest Jones]

Originally Posted by darkhunter139

Wine seems interesting to make as well, I will probably try that eventually.  Beer doesn't take quite 6 months to make, from my understanding its roughly a month and a half to two months on average (for most styles, some of the crazy bourbon barrel aged beers and sours can probably take upwards of 6 months).

The key question is, "can I make it faster than I can drink it?" For beer, my answer was always no...heck even the wine is hard to keep in stock but I'm a bit of a lush

[bradsul]

You can make a session beer in as little as 3 weeks.  Though 4-5 is generally best for a nice session beer (ordinary bitter, mild, etc).  I got out of homebrewing to get into golf but I was a full all-grain brewer.  I actually miss it but I put on an awful lot of weight having all that delicious beer around.  Especially once I moved from bottles to kegs!

I also made FAR more than not only I could consume but even more than I could give away!  I still have a pretty good library of brewing and beer books too that I flip through every once in a while.  I'm sure the bug will bite me again at some point.

[darkhunter139]

Yeah I want to start kegging pretty soon and try a few all grain batches.

[Russtopher]

I'm a kit brewer, I don't have the equipment to do a full mash. I have a pretty simple setup, I do a 2 stage fermentation, after it comes out of the initial 2 week stage in the bucket I'll transfer it to a glass carboy for another few weeks just to help clarify the beer.

One of the best homemade brews I made used an American light beer kit that I mixed in a pound of Red Hots with. The color was so-so, more pink than red, but the taste was fantastic and a huge hit at a couple of summer cookouts. It made for a perfect hot weather beer.

[darkhunter139]

There is still plenty of room to get creative with extract kits but I still want to try all grain. The BIAB method does not require as much extra equipment but you still need a large brew kettle.

[dsc123]

Its been about a year since my last batch but I brew all-grain.  It takes longer and requires more space, bigger pots, etc., but it is well worth it.  There are things you can do (like messing with the mash temp) to get different flavors and I find it to be really cool to start with barley and end with beer, as opposed to a can of syrup.

I converted an old chest freezer into a 3-keg kegerator.  I have never had the problem of out drinking my supply.  In fact, my limiting factor is usually having some place to put the beer.

[bradsul]

With all-grain you can start getting into some really fun stuff like decoction mashing as well.  They make for long days but are so much fun!  The end product is amazing too.  My first full decoction mash was a Vienna Lager.  After an 8 hour brew day, 2 weeks of fermentation, 3 months of lagering and another 2 weeks to carbonate the keg... we blew through the whole thing in one night at a poker game because no one could stop drinking it!  Totally worth it though!

[cooke119]

I too brewed quite a bit but hated washing the bottles, what a pain in the ass. Never did the keg thing though. I too gained a lot of weight so I switched to wine.