Brew your own...

[dmccarty]

I have "split" batches with friends that were interested. My system can do extract, or all-grain, 10 gallon batches. So when I have split batched, we both get 5 gallons

Before I started kegging, I was using sparkling wine(Champagne) bottles. US bottles will take a normal bottle cap. Easy to get(try a place that does Sunday brunch). One bottle makes two nice pours.

Ten gallons. Wow. Do you have a big stainless steel vat in the basement. :laughing:

The pot I used was from the Seven in One cooker from Cabela's I got years ago. With 2.5 gallons of water the pot was only about 20-25% full. After adding grain, sugar, extract it might have been a third full. Boil over did not seem possible. :thumbsup: I guess I could do a 10 gallon batch....

If I could life the pot off the stove.

The sparkling wine bottles is a good idea. I can only think of one place where I might be able to get some locally but I bet they would give them away.

Mornings can be hectic getting everyone out of the house to work and school but this morning I was able to check my primary which was bubbling away nicely. It was at 72/73 degrees. The wifey started a fire in the stove and got the house up to 80! Dang it woman, don't you know I am brewing beer!

I need a root cellar..... :laughing:

Later,
Dan

 

[jbooth]

My dad brewed beer for years. This was back before the kits. He used a 5 gallon crock with a cloth screen over the top to keep the flys and debris out. I don't think he used anything but malt, yeast, and sugar. I'm sure he got the malt from Sears as that was where we got everything. I thought his brew was kind of nasty, but later on when having champagne at weddings and such, I found his brew tasted like the champagne. Don't know if this is a blast at champagne or an endorsement for his brew. He had the capper and a whole cellar of quart beer bottles. Washing and sterilizing the bottles was the labor intensive part of the operation. We learned to wash the bottle as soon as they were emptied so all that was required was a good scalding. He started with a 5 gallon crock and later moved up to 10 gallon. The stuff had good kick and a quart would make you happy. The crocks set on a little wood frame and he would put a light bulb under his operation for winter time added heat. He bottled some green prior to the getting a tester. We had some explosions and sometimes a circus when the bottles were opened on the green beer. There was always sediment left in the bottom of the bottles but careful pouring into a glass or pitcher yeilded some mighty pretty brew.

 

[Chuck52]

There's just something magical and satisfying about taking malted grain and some hops and making a good tasting beverage that will put you on your bu**. I started brewing when I was a graduate student. We knew just enough about the biochemistry involved to screw it up royally, but the brews were still drinkable.... of course our definition of drinkable was really loose.

I'll get back into it some day. I need to accumulate a few things, like a decent heavy brewpot and some kind of propane cooker. There are lots of options, some fairly inexpensive, especially as the cost of hobbies goes. Since the cost of good beer keeps going up, brewing keeps getting more inviting. For a while some buddies here at work and I had a kind of club. We'e get together and make fun of each other's brews. We even had our own yeast for a while. I cultured some yeast from a six-pack of Red Hook Hefeweisen because I liked that it didn't have the weird banana/clove taste of some hefeweisens. What I cultured may have just been the yeast added to the bottle to condition it, but it made good beer anyway, and we kept it going for several years. I found a Grolsch bottle containing a small amount of it in my basement a while back. It's at least five years old, but I may see if it is still alive in there.

Chuck

 

[jbooth]

I don't remember my Dad cooking his concoction. I notice a lot of guys talking about cooking. Are they distilling or what. When Dad's brew was bottled just right a little pop when the cap came off and maybe a small amount of vapor.

 

[RobertN]

I have a gravity feed system. It uses two 15gal stainless kegs with the tops cut out, one for mash/luater water, and the other for boiling the wort. The mash water kettle has a 125kbtu "cajun cooker" burner. The boil kettle has a 35kbtu burner(does not take much to bring the lautered sweet wort to boil, or maintain that boil).

I keg, but still have 4 cases of sparkling wine bottles. I think two cases came from a resteraunt that does Sunday "Champagne Brunch", and a couple cases came from a friends wedding. They were all free...

Ten gallons. Wow. Do you have a big stainless steel vat in the basement. :laughing:

The sparkling wine bottles is a good idea. I can only think of one place where I might be able to get some locally but I bet they would give them away.

 

[dmccarty]

I don't remember my Dad cooking his concoction. I notice a lot of guys talking about cooking. Are they distilling or what. When Dad's brew was bottled just right a little pop when the cap came off and maybe a small amount of vapor.

To make bear you boil quite a bit of water and "stuff" for hours and then the water/stuff is fermented to produce alcohol. After this fermentation, often called a primary, you can either bottle the beer or put it in a secondary fermentation and then bottle.

Bourbon and such, is brewed like beer but after fermentation, instead of bottling, one heats the mash to force the alcohol to go from a liquid to a gas which is then caught buy some sort of tubing, usually copper, which condenses the alcohol vapor back into liquid. This is distillation.

The state and Fed revenuers look down upon "home" distillation since it is illegal and keeps The Man from getting his taxes. :laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing:

The pop you heard when the bottle was opened was the CO2, aka carbonation, in the beer. This often done by adding a bit of sugar as the bottle filled with beer. The yeast eat that bit of sugar to produce the CO2 to carbonate the beer. Too much sugar can make bottle go boom since the yeast will produce more CO2 than the glass can handle. Some people use plastic bottles to prevent booming beer bottles.

Later,
Dan

 

[RobertN]

My Grandfather made lots of money during Prohibition making beer; he bootlegged in the Richmond and San Francisco area. The recipe was very simple.

1-can Pabst Blue Ribbon hopped malt
1-can corn sugar
1-pack brewers yeast

Mix all together with water in 5 gallon crock. Cover with cheesecloth. Ferment. something like 1/4tsp sugar added to each bottle, fill, and cap.

Those hopped malt kits are still around.
Canned Liquid Malt Kits.htm

Some years ago I did a similar "kit". Pretty much just needed to heat water enough to disolve the malt and sugar. Seem to remember boiling was optional. It made an ok beer.

To make bear you boil quite a bit of water and "stuff" for hours and then the water/stuff is fermented to produce alcohol. After this fermentation, often called a primary, you can either bottle the beer or put it in a secondary fermentation and then bottle.

 

[forgeblast]

I use two pumps to move the wort and sparge water around. When just extract brewing i use gravity.
This is an extract brew.
1. put water into pot,
2. bring to 150 degrees add any adjuct grains (non fermentables mostly coloring)
3. bring to a boil
4. open bag and dump malt extract in
5. follow the hop schedual for 60 mins (some styles have a 90 min boil)
6. cool
7. put in ferment container
8. pitch yeast
9. close up for 7-9 days, i normally go 9 days.
10. pour in keg and force carbonate
11. 3 weeks later enjoy.

 

[Chuck52]

My Grandfather made lots of money during Prohibition making beer; he bootlegged in the Richmond and San Francisco area. The recipe was very simple.

1-can Pabst Blue Ribbon hopped malt
1-can corn sugar
1-pack brewers yeast

Mix all together with water in 5 gallon crock. Cover with cheesecloth. Ferment. something like 1/4tsp sugar added to each bottle, fill, and cap.

Those hopped malt kits are still around.
Canned Liquid Malt Kits.htm

Some years ago I did a similar "kit". Pretty much just needed to heat water enough to disolve the malt and sugar. Seem to remember boiling was optional. It made an ok beer.

First beer I ever made was with PBR hopped malt extract. It was sold in grocery stores back before it was even legal to make homebrew. I would imagine Pabst made the malt extract all through prohibition as a food, though I wonder how they justified adding hops. I started brewing in the early 70's and we sure thought it was illegal....don't remember if it really was or if we just thought that. Is PBR malt extract still around?

Chuck

 

[Chuck52]

I did a search on "Blue Ribbon Malt Extract" and found the following amongst other stuff:

Stout Guy Brewing and Computer Consulting - Blue Ribbon Malt Extract Instructions

Chuck