Homebrews - Who does it?

[Jeremy Igo]

Anyone make their own brews at home? Any advice for someone wanting to try? 

[LinvilleGorge]

Yep, been brewing for years.

 

Sanitation is everything.  You can screw up just about any other step in the process and still come out with drinkable beer, but if you screw up the sanitation process your  beer is ruined no matter what.  Sanitize EVERYTHING that is going to touch the wort after the boil.  Keep a small bucket of sanitizer handy and dunk all your utensils often.

 

"Better Bottle" carboys are better than glass.  The larger mouths make cleaning easier, they're much lighter, and they won't break if you drop them.

 

Get a wort chiller.  A little pricy, but cuts your brew day time down big time.

[Toker Smurf]

Good advice by LG, definitely agree about the wort chiller. Also, I would recommend keeping some larger bottles on hand, I have a few 36 Oz and a bunch of 24 Oz. This will speed up your bottling a lot and are nice when taking to a party or such.

[PantherBrew]

Brewing today actually.

Don't get too drunk during the brewing process. It's happens.

[Jeremy Igo]

Can you store in growlers? 

[Toker Smurf]

I don't be careful with that. Has to be air tight and pressure will build while it carbonates. If the growler isn't thick enough, it could explode. I ordered three of these specifically for bottling, they are 36 Oz.

[magnus]

Brewer here, about 2000 people drink my beer at festivals but only my friends get regular access.  Last year I cut the bullshit and have gone brew-in-bag and improved my quality of life and the amount of crap I need around. 

 

LG is dead on. Also, growlers (I even know people who store on 2 liter bottles) can be handy to share.  Bottling a whole batch is for suckers.  Get a couple corny kegs and a good co2 bottle and, again, make life easier.

 

 

In general, if you can cook, you can brew.  if you can boil water, you can more or less brew.  Just be present in the moment when you need it, be clean, be adventurous.  I've given that specific talk to people at festivals when they marvel at what I've done, and then watched a few grow into award winners.  

 

This isn't hard, there aren't secrets to the processes or recipes.  The hard part, if money is a pain, is getting going on things like kegging or chillers or that type stuff, being DIY autodidact never hurts, and getting reps under your belt.  Local homebrew clubs and brew demos at stores don't hurt either.  I know Carolina Brewmasters are fantastic if you're in Charlotte. 

[slail04]

Can you store in growlers?

Yeah you can store in growlers or kegs or bottles. They way I do mine is let it ferment for 2 weeks. Then once the yeast is done working you add sugar. Bottle it in whatever you like and let it sit in whatever you put it in for another 2 weeks and it carbonates in there. After that it's ready to drink.

It's really fun to do. If you want to get started there's a beer and wine hobby store in Mooresville across from Walmart and they can get you started. I think it was about 300 to get me started with all my ingredients and bottles. Makes 5 gallons worth [emoji57]

[pstall]

One of the more awesome threads i have seen. And i have seen just about all of them.

[SCP]

Anyone make their own brews at home? Any advice for someone wanting to try?

This is what I know. I have a neighbor that is about as dumb as a basket of cat toys. He is as crafty as a couch cushion. And he couldn't fix a flat tire. He gave home brewing a try last summer and made some delicious brew. The old cliche, "If he can do it, anybody can" applies here. He just ordered a few kits and followed the instructions.

[Kettle]

Get a good kettle. Mine is 9 gallon (avatar) but i wish it were a little bigger. It will be a good lauter ton when i get a bigger boil kettle. Kegging makes thing more enjoyable because its done in a half hour and because you can pour more or less than 12 oz. if you go all grain be prepared to spend 6 hours from set up to clean up. A johnson controller on a chest freezer is what i use for a fermentation chamber and i can hold temps within a few degrees. I use a heating pad with it in the winter. Homebrewtalk.com is the forum to visit. Equipment, recipes and techniques are all discussed there.

[Paa Langfart]

It is a fun relaxing hobby,  but brewing and bottling beer takes a poo pot full of time.   Especially if you go all grain and don't use extracts which a lot of beer snobs consider cheating.  Plan on spending a minimum of  3-6 hours with clean up for each batch ( not including bottling time).  And there is a lot of clean up.  Otherwise just buy your beer.   Or make wine - much easier and less demanding on your time.

[manu4t]

Been brewing for several years now, start small and dont buy a ton of equipment off the bat, you will be tempted to buy a bunch of fancy stuff home brew stores try to sell you, but stick with the basics to start and learn how the process works. The Northern Brewer starter kit is a good one to start with, you can always upgrade from there.

Read online and learn some of the science behind it (yes there is science behind the process). If you start small and learn step by step, you will find this is an addictive hobby. I bought a ton of stuff I didnt need and it sat around until I had a brew stand made this spring that can handle up to 25g a pop. It was a waste of space and money (until I started using the stuff anyway).

Cool thing about brewing is that other brewers are almost always cool, and happy to talk shop with you. Try to find a good local home brew shop, those guys are pure gold if you get to know them.

Magnus and others are spot on - bottling sucks and kegging is a whole lot easier.

Sanitation is key and if you dont use good sanitation, your beer will suck and you will waste time and money.

Finally, first few batches I recommend you do extract kits until you learn what you are doing, all-grain is far superior but newbies generally dont know how to do that and it is more time consuming along with requiring a lot more skill than extract.

Sorry if this was a little longer, this is my 2 cents worth based on mistakes I made and hope to save anyone else from if you get into brewing.