Homebrewers

[mainestratman]

There has to be a fellow or two on this forum who homebrews.

I've been out of homebrewing for 15 years.. what are some good extracts/mashes to get started with these days? I'm interested primarily in ales.

Thanks!

[bcdon***]

There has to be a fellow or two on this forum who homebrews.

This thread (http://www.thefret.net/showthread.php?t=14830) must have got you as thirsty as it did me. I've never home brewed but would love to start, but right now I just need a beer.

[mainestratman]

It did.. however, I've been thinking about getting back into brewing for about 6 months. :-)

[poodlesrule]

Head out to the forum homebrewtalk.com (I am beergears there)
(beginner forum, wiki, excellent recipe sections, general banter, etc)

There are a few good vendors present there, Two stand out: Austin Homebrew and a forumite who started his business, Brewmaster Warehouse

You could take a look at Austin homebrew offerings and select a kit you know is going to be good or great.

Edit: The homebrewtalk crowd is *almost* as good as here...!

[mainestratman]

Hey poodles.. thanks for the info... I have been going over that forum already, and have been finding some incredible similarities to here... namely, there is a "zman" there as well as here, and another member there has Robert's sigline.. LOL

I will keep reading! Thanks!

[sunvalleylaw]

I used to homebrew regularly, and got to be pretty good at it. I had a killer high octane full calorie and flavor spiced Christmas ale which was likely my flagship.

Somewhere between adding the second and third child my homebrewing fell off though. I hope to return to it one of these days. Meanwhile, there are lots of good craft beers available.

[marnold***]

I'm not only a homebrewer, but I'm president of the Green Bay Rackers homebrew club. I used to have all my recipes online, but not since I switched ISPs. Can you do all-grain?

[mainestratman]

Rev.. I have no equipment at the moment. Over the next couple months we're going to slowly amass what I'll be needing.. starting with getting set up for extracts, then evolving from there.

[marnold***]

Here's a painfully easy Winter Warmer recipe
6.6# Northwestern Gold liquid extract
3.3# Northwestern Dark liquid extract
1 oz German Northern Brewer pellets (8.5% AA--60 minutes)
.5 oz East Kent Goldings pellets (5.6% AA--60 minutes)
1 oz East Kent Goldings pellets (5.6% AA--10 minutes)
.5 oz East Kent Goldings pellets (5.6% AA--at knock-out)
Starter of Wyeast #1338 European Ale yeast

Here's an IPA
9.3# Northwestern Gold liquid extract
2 oz Galena pellets (12% AA--60 mins)
1 oz East Kent Goldings whole hops (homegrown AA unknown--60 mins)
2 oz East Kent Goldings whole hops (homegrown AA unknown--10 mins)
1 oz East Kent Goldings whole hops (homegrown AA unknown--dry hop)
2 tsp Gypsum added to water
2 pkts Danstar London dry ale yeast

You can use your favorite ale yeasts for either of those. I prefer something malty/less attenuative for the first and something drier and fruitier for the second. Northwestern extract is repackaged Briess. I used my own hops in the second one. Just substitute store-bought Goldings. Or you could use Cascade for more of an American flavor.

[mainestratman]

I like painfully easy... and ales. :-)

Thanks! I've started a BEER folder on my desktop.

[sunvalleylaw]

Marnold is much more an expert than I. I never brewed from all grain, but rather used extracts. Non hopped. Prehopped extract can be nasty. I prefer whole hops to pellets. I also preferred to use dry extract rather than canned thinking it gave a little bit more flavor, and depending on the recipe, plenty of specialty grains for flavor and/or color. I like to use Wyeast yeast, and on some recipes would throw in a pack of dry champagne yeast to finish off fermentation nicely.

I have used a variety of whole hops including
Cascade (boiling)
Domestich Saaz (boiling)
Hallertau (finish)
English or Kent Goldings (finish)
Tettnanger (finish)
Fuggle (finish)

Seems like Cascade is my go to boiling hop as I look over old notes.

I would love to figure out a recipe to capture the flavors of both Deschutes Greenlakes Organic, and their new Red Chair, and also Stone Ruination IPA.

I have fixings for kind of a scottish ale (like Mack and Jacks kinda) that I may brew up this spring to get into it. Very easy recipe.

In my Christmas beers, I was never afraid to add some honey, a little molasses, ginger, orange rind, a bit of spice (but not too much, too much anise or nutmeg is not pretty), cinnamon, etc. Usually, I had plenty of 6.0LCrystal, maybe some Chocolate or Caramel grains, and some Black Patent to provide some back up and support for the extra spices and such. Never ever do I use sugars for fermentation.

[poodlesrule]

I would love to figure out a recipe to capture the flavors of both Deschutes Greenlakes Organic, and their new Red Chair, and also Stone Ruination IPA.

Ah a hophead, I see...
As mentioned earlier, homebrewtalk has an extensive recipe section with many clones like beers above, and useful post-brewing comments.

[marnold***]

Oh, I should mention too that those recipes assume a full-wort boil. If you are only boiling part of it, you'll see to ramp up the hopping accordingly.

[syo***]

Whoa...
All this talk is making me flashback 15-20 years ago. When my beer gear was more important than any other gear. Unfortunately, my best bitter was the first one I ever made and it was all downhill after that.

SVL and Marnold are getting me a bit pumped up though...Goldings, Fuggle, Crystal malt... Too bad in my hands they wind up tasting of bananas...

[ZMAN]

I am not the Zman over at the brew site. I used to make beer and wine, I loved the making part it was the bottling that I hated. Probably some really good new inventions to clean bottles, or maybe even disposable bottles now. The wine turned out the best. We made several batches but then a local vintner came up with excellent local wine that is sold in bulk in 16 Litre boxes.
I know "Gag in a box", but these are exceptional wines that sell for less than 4 dollars a bottle. So it didn't make sense to make it any more. I am in the centre of the award winning Canadian wine area. We have the exact same lattitude and climate as the best French wine areas including the Niagara escarpment that is perfect for wine growing.
The craft brewing is also very huge in this area, and a lot of the really older small town brewers are flourishing. Again not worth the time and expense to do it at home.
How do you guys approach the bottling thing with the beer?

[sumitomo]

I think most of the guys skip the bottleing stage Zman,They sound like they use a ladle or a pump!Sumi

[marnold***]

I am not the Zman over at the brew site. I used to make beer and wine, I loved the making part it was the bottling that I hated. Probably some really good new inventions to clean bottles, or maybe even disposable bottles now.

I just went to corny (five gallon pop) kegs. Much easier to clean one big bottle than 50 little ones. And the bursting strength is somewhere in the vicinity of 200 psi.

[sunvalleylaw]

I still bottle, and use a bit of corn sugar (just a bit, the only corn sugar that goes in my beer) to stimulated a little bit of fermentation for fizz in the bottle.

Syo, watch your fermentation temps. Getting too hot or variable temps seemed to be the culprit if I ever had a banana like flavor. I would rather go slow and easy than over do it and ferment too fast. Also, make sure you boil everything, or at least have your finish hops in the last 5 or so minutes of the boil. I try to have some boiling water that I use to sanitize anything that comes in contact with my beer, like a spoon if I needed it, thermometers, etc. One reason I stopped brewing much after a couple kids was it was really hard to keep things as sterile as I wanted. Now that the kids are older, I would like to give it a go again. This thread is getting me pumped up a bit for it too.

[ZMAN]

I just went to corny (five gallon pop) kegs. Much easier to clean one big bottle than 50 little ones. And the bursting strength is somewhere in the vicinity of 200 psi.

Interesting. What are the logistics in using a 5 gallon pop keg. How do you dispense the beer. Just like a regular keg beer keg, or do you use a pump?

Update: Never mind. I just read up on Cornelius Kegs. They look pretty good, but the pressure was reported at 135 PSI. Still pretty reasonable.