I want to start home-brewing

I like beer, I like making things. I see this as possibly being fruitful. Does anyone here brew thier own?

-Recomend any starting/how to books? Good step by step online resources?
-How much money am I looking at for a basic set up to start experimenting?
-How much space do I need for a small set up and what's it going to cost?

Luckily my area is home to some great breweries so once I get going I have quite a few folks to get tips and info from but i want to see how far I ca get on my own. Let me know if you can help me out. Thanks!

-rich

Y'know, somewhere I remember seeing... maybe an infomercial.. for a complete home-brewing beer kit. With all the equipment and different fermenting catalysts you would need. Might look at that.

My grandfather used to home-brew wine, boy was it good!

ya, ya, i remember those infomercials for beer stillers it even came with reuseable glass beer bottles.

i remember even seein a shop sellin distillers.

this is for personal use only it was stated in the infomercial

never really took off though

Well, I think that's because it's only legal to homebrew a certain limited amount for personal consumption only.

I bought a kit when I lived in Liverpool. It was just a huge plastic-lined burlap bag and all you had to do was fill it with boiling water and then leave it in a corner for a few weeks.

I thought it was pretty good, but nobody else drank any, from what I recall.

i bought a kit at a wal-mart around christmas time. it takes a little over a month before it is ready to drink. it was some very stout beer. if you like strong stuff like guiness it is for you. everybody that tried the batch i made said their face went numb after they drank it. thats probally because i suck at cooking and probally used too much of something while making it.

I think the kit your talking about is Mr. Beer. They have a web-site where you can order mixes for it. I have just bottled a batch of their Nut Brown Ale. I love it. You can brew about 8 quarts at a time. Its fun, its easy. Its also a great way to start learning to home brew

If you're really interested in brewing, then steer clear of the "kits" - they will make beer that will get you shitfaced drunk, and will taste good after a hour's worth of drinking, but you wont really learn anything about the process.

I can't remember names of the books I have, but my best recommendation would be to find one of the following:

- your local home-brew store
- your local home-brew club

You wont save any money brewing at home in the US - other countries with high alcohol taxes make homebrew more attractive for simple economic reasons - and to brew properly you will end up buying some pretty expensive equipment - a good quality glass carboy (essentially a huge beaker), various oversized heating/cooking implements, bottle sterilizing equipment, capping equipment, other gadgets to ensure constant and controlled heat... the list goes on...

Real brewing (doing it from the basic ingrediants) is difficult - there are so many things that can spoil. Bacteria can ruin your batch at many of the key stages, including bottling. Bottle cleaning is a huge chore and usually involves some very nasty chemicals (tri-sodium phosphate anyone?).

All this said - there is nothing more satisfying than drinking your own beer, especially if it tastes good, and especially if you start modifying recipes and creating your own specialties.

The secret is, there is no secret... Sometimes it will be awesome sometimes it will be horrible. You really can't repeat your process perfectly, it's homebrew...

the great thing about homebrew is that regardless of how good or how bad you batch turns out, after the second bottle, you have gotten used to it and store bought beer tastes watery.

by the end of the evening, nothing about the triumphs or failures you experienced during the brewing process matters - the only thing that matters is that you surround yourself only with fellow homebrew drinkers, because the smell of a homebrew drunk is something to behold...

Has anyone thought of adding some crazy chinese healing herb to beer to make some kind of ultra-beer? Like goat testicle for fertility? Actually, if you could find something to put in beer to make you less fertile that night, you'd give the "The Pill" companies a run for their money. We're sitting on a gold mine.

I thought beer already did that, if'n you drink enough of it.

Well, it doesn't make you infertile so much as it makes the question of fertility moot.

No better time than the present to start learning. <---- shameless plug

I'm planning a dunkelweizen and a cali common as we speak. I can't decide which to make though.

This is one of the best home brewing books ever and will tell you all you need to know:

here is a site we use up here in the Great White North. http://barleyment.wort.ca/

I'm working on perfecting a Ordinary Bitter, or a SOB recipe. I can't brew while 'm away from home... sad..

Hope this helps


Forgot this one too, this one really rocks:
http://www.howtobrew.com/

That site is great. One of my favorites.

I'm a big fan of the tools on this site.

boys I miss brewing this summer

Homebrewing is a lot of fun and can be rewarding but there is a LOT of cleaning involved. Everything needs to be clean or bacteria can turn your beer into something nasty. As seaferring said bottle cleaning is a chore but thankfully that's the worst of the boring parts. It's best to start out with a malt extract (dry or liquid) for your first few batches until you're more comfortable with the process. My last beer was a german style wheat and it turned great but the IPA before that...not so much.

Oh and take lots of notes of everything you do. It's a good way to learn. Plus if you come up with a great batch it will be easier to duplicate.

If you have a local homebrew store you can usually get a kit they put together along with instructions and enough ingredients for your first batch.

For my setup, I probably paid around $100 for the initial setup (plasic carboy, fermentation airlock, thermometer, racking cane, bottle brush, hydrometer and a few other things that escape me atm). But then I also bought an aluminum stock pot boiling the wart, a bottle capper, hand pump siphon, funnel, and glass carboy. All added up it's probably around $300. For each batch I'll end up spending close to $40 for enough ingredients (malt extract, couple oz's of grains to flavor, bittering hops, and aromatic hops) to make a 5 gal batch (about 50 12oz bottles). That's $5-10 less than 4 cases of beer depending on where you live. Plus you can make your abv % higher than store bought beer. I made an ESB last year that was around 9%.

I'll also save beer bottles from store bought beer after I'm done to use in my own bottling. That cuts some of the cost of a batch. If you're running low just have a few buddies over to down a case of beer while you're bottling your beer. Just be sure to wash the bottles first! And use BROWN bottles because green and clear won't block out the bad UV rays that will harm your beer and give it a skunky nasty flavor.

As far as space goes you'll just need a corner of a kitchen, basement, or aparment that's out of direct sunlight and doesn't have too much temperature change.

Cheers!

Your mash ton can be a cooler that you can put a hose to that will lead to your boil. It should have a good seal or you temp will change too fast. These can be found almost anywhere.

Very important to have a drinking buddy with you to tell you how to do things better.

You realize that bumping a thread from 2003 to 2009 voids any rights to call someone else out on it.

true, this guy, syracusepunk might be dead by now!