Homebrew beer

[Dinner]

I used to make beer in college though the truth is it was kind of a financial wash because I bought pre-made beer & hop mix rather then make it all from scratch. It is a lot of work to roast the malt, crack the malt, and then continue so it seemed better to buy the ready made malt.

Still, it was good fun and I reused old bottles and bought new caps which I put on using a bottle capping machine. I found the scrumpy more interesting.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Had the honey lying around.

Why'd you have a kilo of honey lying around?

In-laws gave me a huge jar of it that I didn't have any other use for.

I guess you don't check in too often any more Bosh.

Not so much...

My first 6 batches were made using a 2.5 gallon Mr Beer kit. I prefer the full-size kit though - you get more beer, and the ingredients are less expensive overall than Mr Beer.

Also Mr. Beer isn't airtight, so it can do bad things to beer.

I used Muntons LME for my first batch, but I'm having much better results with just DME so I think I'm going to stick to that as much as possible from now on. Its cheaper too...

Damn, that is quite the blow-off, haven't gotten anything like that yet.

It is a lot of work to roast the malt, crack the malt, and then continue so it seemed better to buy the ready made malt.

Well in Korea the high taxes/tariffs on beer make brewing VERY much worth it despite high malt costs. I'd really go with dried malt and hops over the stuff you used, the price is a good bit lower, it's only a little more work and it tastes better.

[-Jrabbit]

I have a friend who brews constantly, lots of different types, been doing it for years. Really amazing stuff. He throws an annual party and usually has about 6-8 varieties.

It is teh awesome.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Bosh
I used Muntons LME for my first batch, but I'm having much better results with just DME so I think I'm going to stick to that as much as possible from now on. Its cheaper too...

I've only used light DME so far, with good results. My current batch is Cooper's stout with Coopers dark LME. I just took a hydrometer reading after 5 days of fermentation and it is at 1.019, so I'll probably leave it in there for a few more weeks just to make sure it's done.

Are you using a secondary fermetor/clearing vessel? I've used one once, but I prefer to just bottle from the primary after leaving it in there for 4 weeks or so.

Damn, that is quite the blow-off, haven't gotten anything like that yet.

Yeah, I overfilled that one, and didn't have a blowoff hose.

[Bosh]

I'm just bottling it from primary because I'm lazy and I don't give a crap how my beer looks. Very low tech/inexpensive operation.

Hmmm my fruit wine's been fermenting for about 30 hours and its gone from being nasty cloyingly-sweet juice to tasting like drinkable alcopop. Damn that's some fast fermentation.

[Dinner]

Boshco, If you entend to make more then one batch I'd suggest getting a log book so you can write down exactly what you did with each. That way when you decide you really liked batch X better then batch Y in a few months you are able to figure out what you did differently. That way you can make it again or continuing experimenting in a systematic fashion.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Bosh
I'm just bottling it from primary because I'm lazy and I don't give a crap how my beer looks. Very low tech/inexpensive operation.

What are you using as a fermentor, and how long are you fermenting before bottling? I've found that a secondary fermentor really isn't necessary to get clear beer as long as you let it sit for at least 3 weeks, and bottle from another container. I presume you are using a bottling bucket and mixing it all with priming sugar?

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Boshco, If you entend to make more then one batch I'd suggest getting a log book so you can write down exactly what you did with each. That way when you decide you really liked batch X better then batch Y in a few months you are able to figure out what you did differently. That way you can make it again or continuing experimenting in a systematic fashion.

I've typed up a Word doc for myself with pics.

[The Mad Monk]

Ahhhh, Scrumpy. Inspired by Bugs, done by Dinner.

[MRT144]

I'm going to be making an IPA pretty soon.

[Dinner]

Believe it or not I currently have a batch of English nut brown ale in secondary fermentation as we speak. Bottling it isn't really cost effective but I have bought a number of "magnum" bottles which have the Dutch style reusable hinged tops on them so I should be able to avoid the expensive bottle charges (the empty bottles cost almost the same as the full bottles but the full bottles are very hard to clean without a dedicated bottle clean set up so your beer will turn bad if you reuse normal bottles). I intend to age it at least two months since I will be bottle conditioning the ale and I guess I will just have to drink a whole two liter bottle at a time; not that such a thing bothers me.

[MRT144]

Believe it or not I currently have a batch of English nut brown ale in secondary fermentation as we speak. Bottling it isn't really cost effective but I have bought a number of "magnum" bottles have the Dutch style reusable hinged tops on them so I should be able to avoid the expensive bottle charges (the empty bottles cost almost the same as the full bottles but the full bottles are very hard to clean without a dedicated bottle clean set up so your beer will turn bad if you reuse normal bottles). I intend to age it at least two months since I will be bottle conditioning the ale and I guess I will just have to drink a whole two liter bottle at a time; not that such a thing bothers me.

Can you use a growler?

[Lorizael]

Believe it or not I currently have a batch of English nut brown ale in secondary fermentation as we speak.

I don't believe it and in fact will refuse to believe it until you present me with conclusive evidence to the contrary.

[Dinner]

Can you use a growler?

Growlers can hold beer for a while but you can't ferment beer in a growler because the threads slowly lose carbonation.

[Dinner]

I don't believe it and in fact will refuse to believe it until you present me with conclusive evidence to the contrary.

You just want free beer!