The (Un) Official Homebrew Thread?

[Climb Thar Hill]

I would search for one that exists already, but the UM server is pretty blowzy right now...

So, anyway! For my birthday (which was on Saturday), my parents bought me an entire setup for brewing beer. I currently have the ingredients to make a brown ale, and I'm going to begin the fermentation tomorrow. This is going to be amazing, even if the batch comes out poorly. I'm stoked to start doing this frequently, as it is one of my dreams to own a small brewing company. My quest for the perfect brew begins

I'll post news and pictures as such things come along. I encourage other people to spend the surprisingly small amount of money and get started too!

Happy Birthday and congrats! Beer brewing is quite freakin' amazing and cheap, considering you can make the beer as strong as you want.

We're about to bottle our single hop IPA in a week or so, four hop additions during the boil and a dry-hop. After that, our Belgian Styled Orange Wit will be ready to bottle.

I'm going to be making a mash/lauter tun out of an igloo cooler next week so the next batch we make will be all-grain. Still deciding on a recipe.


key word here, amigo - SANITATION
good luck!

 

[MFJ]

Excellent! We should keep this thread as the only one.

 

[Climb Thar Hill]

Hey, the brown ale you're making, is it all-grain or extract w/steeped grains?

 

[MFJ]

just cracked open my first bottle... it was fucking great for a first try! it doesn't taste like any brown ale I've ever had. it tastes like a belgian beer. imagine a lighter version of Leffe. i'm stoked.

 

[MFJ]

damn... it packs a punch too! i estimate within the 5.5-7% range

 

[Reign in Acai]

Any pics of this brew?

 

[EricT]

I'm getting ready for this falls brews... Its gonna be great. Might have to ship out some to fellow home brewers.

 

[Captain Beard]

What kind do you brew?

 

[MFJ]

What kind do you brew?

I did a brown ale, but like I said, it tastes like a blonde ale (still has a nice dark amber colour though)

 

[MFJ]

Any pics of this brew?

i'll take a few!

 

[Hell Mike]

Now I'm jealous!
Are you planning to save some for fifty years or something? Because you should...
What will you try next?

 

[Climb Thar Hill]

So yeah, we had brewed a single hopped IPA (all chinook) that was a disaster when bottling time came. Everything went wrong. We managed to have one bottle of it (the rest, due to various reasons had to be dumped ). But holy jesus I was really surprised with the surviving bottle.

Beautiful color, an amazing white head (I'm sure the five hop additions helped with that), the smell, AND the taste were all great. Luckily I saved the recipe.

Next up, the womang wants to brew a Peach Hefeweizen, following that we'll do a Fall Pumpkin ale of some sort, then we'll re-brew the single hop IPA.

 

[MFJ]

what happened with bottling? my siphon went completely nuts on me and ended up putting TONS or air into the beer, and making it foamy and stuff. i thought it was ruined for sure, but apparently not. still, i think if i had done the bottling really well then i would have a better beer.

 

[Reign in Acai]

Letting your beer age a bit brings the brew to all new level. Last night, I had two bottles of "phlegmis", a dry stout type brew we had completed roughly three months and two moons ago. God it was so crisp and flavorful, shat right down Guiness' throat it did!

 

[EricT]

Typically, when I brew, I leave it in the Carboys for about a month, then I bottle it, and let the bottles rest in a nice cool place for another 6 weeks or so.

No idea what we're brewing yet, though.

 

[Climb Thar Hill]

what happened with bottling? my siphon went completely nuts on me and ended up putting TONS or air into the beer, and making it foamy and stuff. i thought it was ruined for sure, but apparently not. still, i think if i had done the bottling really well then i would have a better beer.

Basically all of our equipment went to shit. Our auto-siphon refused to work, our tubing was to small to fit over the spigot on the bottling bucket, our bottle filler would pretty much not work (it would, but it would literally take well over 5 minutes to fill a 12oz bottle). Through all the chaos of trying to jerry-rig stuff into working order the beer was exposed for far too long and crap was being spilt and/or falling into it.

The one bottle we filled was similar to yours, we ended up with a lot of air, foam, etc as we capped it. Luckily, the beer ended up great.

Also of note, as we bottled our belgian wit the other day, the spigot was loose on the bottling bucket causing about a gallon of beer to spill all over my floor. A switch to the carboy, then back into the bucket later everything went smoothly.

 

[Climb Thar Hill]

Heads up for everyone


Don't add a full ounce of coriander to your wits (unless you're doing more than a 5 gallon batch)


I did and our Wit came out over spiced. It's not all that bad, but yeah, you can sure tell there's a full ounce of coriander in it.

Next time, .5oz will do the trick

 

[Reign in Acai]

Four lbs of peaches.

 

[swizzlenuts]

That sucks you have tons of equipment problems.

This thread really makes me miss brewing....

 

[Climb Thar Hill]

fuck we have not brewed anything for far too long

I picked up a 64qt+ cooler awhile back but never got around to converting it into a mash tun. This weekend however, IT SHALL BE DONE (or, at least I'll buy the equipment for it)