I received a homebrewing kit for Christmas and I whipped up my first batch this afternoon. Of course, there are a ton of differing opinions about how to do just about ever phase of the brewing process. So, any homebrewers out there that have any hard-won pieces of advice, please share ’em. Recipes are welcome, too.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Cleanliness, cleanliness, cleanliness! And might I add cleanliness.
Making beer is essentially making a big batch of liquid sugar with which to feed billions of yeasty beasties. Said beasties will reproduce exponentially while there is any sugar left to eat. The reason for feeding them is that they excrete alcohol and burp CO2. Which when flavored with a bittering agent (hops) is otherwise known as “beer”.
Other beasties will also love to grow in the billions in this environment, only what they leave behind will be anything from unpleasant to toxic. Wo, make sure the only critters you introduce into the brewing container, bottles, etc, are the one that came in the brewers yeast packet.
Good luck. It’s well worth the effort.
buy this book – The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing. It’s my bible.
I used to be a fan of papazian, but his recipes and procedures are WAAAAY loose. a bit too loose of the newbie if you ask me.
I prefer howtobrew.com, which has procedures for all-extract, grain/exxtract hybrids, and all-grain recipes. It’s an awesome resource.
what are your specific questions? As someone said above “cleanliness cleanliness cleanliness” and “sanitization” is even more important.
well, what are some examples of lazy sanitation that you will regret?
honestly, it’s never happened, because I’m super anal.
Friends who’ve had problems before had a wild yeast which made a bad smell, or over carbonated the beer.
Relax, if you followed the directions you should get a drinkable beer. And in the first stages it’s REALLY hard to be unsanitary: the bucket and the lid went through that brownish solution, right? rinsed with boiled water?
Siphoning can be an issue. why not give a call when you’re ready to transfer, i can probably find time to drop by and help out.
It takes a few tries to get something you really like.
I’m trying all-grain this summer.
I’ve read and heard that the whole kitchen (or wherever you’re doing it) needs to be as clean as you can get it. Some go so far as to wipe all the surfaces like countertops, floors and stuff down with a mild bleach/water solution whenever the beer is exposed to the air, ie brewing, bottling, transferring to a secondary fermentation container if the recipe calls for it.
I don’t think I’ve ever taken the sanitation further than just making sure all the items and utensils in contact with the beer have been sanitized immediately prior to use. But then again I’ve had some batches go bad too, so if you notice problems you might try that.
I like Charlie’s “waaaay loose” style, and his quirky analogies and explanations for beer chemistry. But then to each their own.
I only started getting “off-beer” (a strong cider smell is the most common off smell) when I switched to plastic brewing containers. I’ve never had a problem using a glass carboy. I suspect that the rubber ring on the plastic container was either leaking air or harboring wild yeasts.
So, it’s back to good ol’ glass for me.
This cloudy brew is a hefeweitzen. Serve with a slice of lemon. Mmmmmmmmm.
And, as Charlie P. would say at every step of the way, “relax, don’t worry, have a homebrew.”
…to be clear, papazian has tons of good recipes and is the original homebrew guru. I also have a much older edition of the book, when he’s still calling for bleach solution as sanitizer and TSP as the cleaner. YIKES!
Also, his motto “Relax have a homebrew” is one everyone should live by, except maybe alcoholics.
Boo, the only piece of advice I would add, given that I know you used dry yeast, is to use the Wyeast liquid yeast packet next time. It’s an airtight foil packet filled with a little bag of yeast nutrient and about 5 billion yeastie cells.
It’s a little more expensive, but you won’t have to worry if your beer’s going to ferment.
well, I used bleach solution because that was what the folks suggested. What should I use?
Sodium metabisulfate and potassium metabisulfate are the most commonly used sterilizers and are available at all homebrew suppliers.
bleach is cheap and definitely does the trick, but it doesn’t rinse clean: you need to make sure the surface is well-flushed with boiled water (always rinse with boiled water, it’s sterile). Also, bleach damages stainless steel: since I keg, it’s not an option for me.
At the brew supply, you can buy Iodophor fairly cheaply: it’s an iodine solution commonly used in hospitals. 1 tablespoon sanitizes 10 gallons of water, and generally one quick rinse with boiled water is enough to rinse a surface. I like it a lot, and it doesn’t damage steel. I can bring some by next DL if you want.
I’d forgotten about the bleach and TSP (yikes, indeed). I used to get a non-sulfite sterilizer when I lived in the US from my local (Albuquerque) supplier. I haven’t seen it since and unfortunately have forgotten what was in it. It worked great.
I use the 7 gallon plastic fermenters to do a primary in then transfer to a glass carboy 3 days later for a secondary fermentation. Without a wort chiller, it’s the way to go for me so I don’t have shattered glass all over the floor.
the water quality is actually just as important, if not more so, in beer. fortunately, philadelphia water is just the right ph for beers of most styles.
is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT.
That’s because YOU DON’T ADD WATER TO WINE.
It’s ALL grape juice – no water at all – none – not even a drop
I have made wine for about 18 years now. I have never, not even once, added a SINGLE drop of water.
My wine is pretty decent. I am going to rack (first racking) my 20 gallons of wine today
Invite us over when it’s ready.
I don’t drink so beer brewing would be beyond me. In fact my only experience in anything similar was about 25 years ago when I decided to make my own root beer. I don’t know how I did it but the process ended up with shards of glass and spots of root beer all over the kitchen walls. And floor. And ceiling.
I have found that using other people’s brews, in a glass bottle, or tap, at a local saloon, has proved most advantageous for me ; )….
or like Omir….a mess….LOL
good luck, I know some people who do some excellent brews….I however am not one…
peace…and more beer
I decided to go with the Grolsch swing-cap types. I bought about 2 cases of Grolsch, drank the beer (you knew there was a negative part, right), and then bottled with the Grolsch bottles. I have used these bottles about 10 times for beer. I had to replace a few of the rubber stoppers, but this is unusual.
I do only wine now, since it is much easier, and takes a lot less work. For wine, I use wine bottles and normal corks, although I usually buy the low-end reconstituted corks – they cost a lot less, and my wine never lasts more than a year.
I am pretty careful about sanitation, but am not anal. In fact, the most important thing is getting the beer into the initial carboy for fermentation. Once in the carboy, most problems are over, since your airlock controls the access of bad micro-organisms.
I have made 20-30 batches of beer and 30-40 batches of wine. I had one disaster where I dropped a carboy full of wine. I had to pitch one entire batch where the grapes were improperly handled prior to my getting them – they were not refrigerated, and became oxidized – think old fruit which has browned and become damaged.
Other than that, no problems mate.
You might check with your local homebrew store for Iodophors for sanitation. They’re relatively cheap, highly effective and easy to use.
Your first brews may well be the least infected, since your brewery hasn’t had enough spills yet to build up resident populations of microorganisms.
But “brewery character” IS microorganisms. Guinness would not be Guinness without the infection of Brettanomyces, carefully controlled, of course, and most Belgian beers are also “infected” with wild yeasts at least. Just because Bud is squeaky-clean….
Only one. Keep an accurate logbook. Everything else is fair game.
Good luck and enjoy!
fcc
Or, this being the computer age, make a folder on your computer and title it Beers.
Here’s what a page in my folder looks like:
Note: under the batch size it says “gold cap” because once you have multiple batches in the cupboard you might no be able to tell them apart without labels, or more simply, with different colored caps. Your homebrew supply usually has at least four different colors (silver, gold, red & black). You can even get printed ones from some suppliers.
The best and worst beer I ever had I made myself
The higher the alcohol content the harder it is to keep it drinkable. Can be done, but trickiness prevails.
Stick with a theme you like but don’t think you can find at the beer store