Brew your own...

[dmccarty]

I somehow surfed into this guy on YouTube.

YouTube - Meet CraigTube - An Introduction

Craig Tube.

He has a bunch of videos on making wine/cider/beer. His approach is shall we say,.., cheap. Which is good since he is keeping it simple. :thumbsup:

He made apple cider with a 4L plastic jug used to hold a juice. He added three liters of apple juice from a CAN. The apple juice was from concentrate. He added 1 cup of sugar, except that it looked like 1.5 cups to me. :laughing: He tested the gravity and threw in another cup or two of sugar. Then he went to add the yeast, which was bread yeast, and he figured he would use half of pouch but said what the heck and threw it all in. :laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing:

I would love to have tasted that stuff.

I think he is just trying to show how easy it is to brew so he was keeping it simple and cheap. :laughing:

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

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

Love it.

A few years back, I found an auction for a set of homebrewing beer instructions from Blue Ribbon, printed during prohibition. For the modern homebrewer, it's a cringe worthy look back in time.

W A R N I N G. Be sure to comply with your prohibition laws. If your territory is dry, do
not add yeast; yeast will create alcohol; without yeast you will have a snappy, healthful non-alcoholic, hop-flavored drink.

Later,
Dan

 

[RobertN]

I had made a couple nice beers, and then did not brew again for 3-4 years. A new roommate asked me about it, so we decided to try. Our first brew was an Aussie kit, "Kangabrew" I think it was. Pretty sure we did not boil it, but did get the water hot enough to boil. Added a couple pounds of sugar. Cooled, topped water to 5 gallons, and added yeast that was included with the malt.

It was an ok beer. We did that twice, and one other hopped malt kit. Then I moved up to individual ingredients, and then on to all-grain eventually.

I did try my Grandfathers Prohibition beer. It was mediocre. Better than nothing, and definitely drinkable. Only did it once though.

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

 

[forgeblast]

Apple cider is real easy to ferment, just get cider that was uv pasturized and put it in a carboy and put in wine yeast, air lock it and your done.

 

[RobertN]

A couple pictures of my system. My cooler/mashtun is getting a little old, but the rest works great.

 

[forgeblast]

real nice RobertN. Is the system all gravity?

 

[dmccarty]

A couple pictures of my system. My cooler/mashtun is getting a little old, but the rest works great.

Wish I had a garage to store all of that stuff. Cool setup. :thumbsup:

Looks easy to build too.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

I was watching Craig on Craig Tube again last night. YouTube - Meet CraigTube - An Introduction

He is worth watching if starting to brew. :thumbsup:

Though he does make me cringe from time to time. :laughing: Last night I was watching him brew and he had a floating thermometer in the beer. To see the temp he had to put his finger in the beer. Now he did say his hand was sanitized and you should not do this but it still made me cringe.

He is fun to watch since he keeps it simple. The brew I was watching last night was just sugar, water, yeast, and a liquid malt extract. Pretty simple.

Since he was brewing beer he was drinking beer, , and his beer looked really nice. Good color and foam head. I wish I could taste it.

Funny thing is that he is in Canada and having trouble keeping the beer warm enough. My first brew I was having trouble keeping it cool enough. A wet towel finally got the beer under 70 degrees.

Later,
Dan

 

[Chuck52]

Dan,

Don't worry too much about the temp. You're brewing an ale and those yeasts are happy enough at the warmer temps. You might get some extra esters, but they'll just remind you that it is homebrew! Relax. Have a homebrew!

Do your instructions tell you to add sugar to the bottles, or to add sugar to the bucket of brew and then bottle? I only added sugar to bottles once, and I guess my half teaspoons (or whatever the amount was) weren't very accurate. Fortunately the bottles were in the basement when they went ballistic. One went right through a fairly heavy cardboard box. The ones that didn't blow got treated with great respect before being opened.

Chuck

 

[RobertN]

My system is all gravity. It is kinda tall in regards to the upper burner and kettle for mash water. However, the lower shelf height is perfect to drain the fresh wort directly in to the carboy.

Four friends of mine went in together; we bought a bunch of the expanded steel from Graingers some years back.

Once I did 3 batches in one day, long day. While my first mash was starting, I did an extract batch in the boiler. After the extract batch was done, and the first mash had lautered in to the boiler, I fired off a second mash. 30 gallons on my system, another friend who was over did 20 gallons.

The day those pictures were taken, four of us brewed. It was a 60 gallon day! Most of that was extract; I had the only all grain setup.

I keep the system in the shed; I use the tractor loader to move it(it is light weight, but bulky to carry). The frame has wheel, but it is too much to roll through the yard to the shed.

 

[dmccarty]

Dan,

Don't worry too much about the temp. You're brewing an ale and those yeasts are happy enough at the warmer temps. You might get some extra esters, but they'll just remind you that it is homebrew! Relax. Have a homebrew!

Do your instructions tell you to add sugar to the bottles, or to add sugar to the bucket of brew and then bottle? I only added sugar to bottles once, and I guess my half teaspoons (or whatever the amount was) weren't very accurate. Fortunately the bottles were in the basement when they went ballistic. One went right through a fairly heavy cardboard box. The ones that didn't blow got treated with great respect before being opened.

Chuck

First of all, that was mean to tell me to have a home brew. :laughing: I have weeks of waiting before I can try my brew! It is killing me. Worse than Christmas. :laughing: I check my primary constantly. :laughing: Even one of the kids is checking it. I sure hope she does not take off the air lock and put a crayon down the hole. I told her not too. It was in the book. :laughing:

Good to hear that the worst that would happen would be the esters. Kinda figured that would be all and I am not sure I will taste it in this beer.

What is kinda fun about Home Brewing is that you can make it as detailed, obsessive and painstaking as you want. :laughing: Watching the Craig videos it is pretty obvious getting it exactly right is not required. But since I am an engineer, I am more opt to be more precise/obsessed. :laughing:

Putting the sugar in the bottle was always one of my reasons for not wanting to brew. Silly, I know. The instructions say to put the sugar in the bottling bucket which certainly sounds safer and easier. Seems kinda obvious too.

In one of the Craig videos he talk about sugar in the bottle vs sugar in the bucket for bottling. He has done both and prefers the sugar in the bottle approach. He has it down to a science, that is for sure, and he is fast. Not sure if he is accurate though. But he has an answer for not being accurate with the bottling sugar, use plastic beer bottles!

The plastic bottles are easier to "cap" since you just twist on the cap. You do not have to buy more caps since they are reusable. The plastic will expand so it is less likely to be a bottle bomb. I almost bought the plastic bottles but the prices was not much better, it is plastic, and beer should be in glass or a keg.

I am reading John J. Palmer's book, "How To Brew" which is very good. With his book you can certainly get deeply bewildered in brewing. Or just read a chapter or two and be on your way. The equipment kit had a small book which was more than adequate to start brewing. The instructions with the beer kit were easily followed but one has to pay attention to the steps.

I wonder how my beer is doing....:laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing:

Later,
Dan

 

[mroe21877]

Ive been home brewing for maybe ten years. I keg all mine. Once you have the equipment its pretty cheap and easy. Beer Making Kits and Home Brewing Supplies | MoreBeer is a good supply site. Im lucky i have a place nearby.

 

[dmccarty]

My system is all gravity. It is kinda tall in regards to the upper burner and kettle for mash water. However, the lower shelf height is perfect to drain the fresh wort directly in to the carboy.

Four friends of mine went in together; we bought a bunch of the expanded steel from Graingers some years back.

Once I did 3 batches in one day, long day. While my first mash was starting, I did an extract batch in the boiler. After the extract batch was done, and the first mash had lautered in to the boiler, I fired off a second mash. 30 gallons on my system, another friend who was over did 20 gallons.

The day those pictures were taken, four of us brewed. It was a 60 gallon day! Most of that was extract; I had the only all grain setup.

I keep the system in the shed; I use the tractor loader to move it(it is light weight, but bulky to carry). The frame has wheel, but it is too much to roll through the yard to the shed.

Soooo.....

You had to buy a tractor to help make beer?

That setup does seem doable. Storage is the issue but not an unsolvable one.

That is a LOT of beer for one day.

Later,
Dan

 

[MossRoad]

Soooo.....

You had to buy a tractor to help make beer?

Tractor Beer Net?

 

[Chuck52]

The neat thing about brewing is you can get into it just a little or as deeply as you want. I started the usual way with extract, and then I gradually increased my partial mashes to where I was getting at least half the sugars from the grain. The next step is what stopped me at the time because I needed some equipment I didn't have to go all grain. I also thought that if I was gonna go to that I should keg too. At the time the relatively small investment seemed bigger and I just went over to the easier business of making wine. Wine snobs can be so irritating when they turn their noses up at beer. There are many more steps and decisions to brewing decent beer than to making wine. A guy I know buys wines on line and is a real snob about his preferences. I brought some of my homebrew to a party once and it was a real hit. He was giving me grief about it until I asked him why fermented grape juice was so much more sophisticated than fermented grain.

Chuck

 

[RobertN]

That is one of the reasons I will split batches. I have enough equipment over the years, I have an extra carboy, and stuff to bottle. They can try an extract batch, see the process.

I kind of did that with my setup. I did not get the burners ect right away. I brewed with my buddies first, saw the process ect.

The neat thing about brewing is you can get into it just a little or as deeply as you want. I started the usual way with extract, and then I gradually increased my partial mashes to where I was getting at least half the sugars from the grain. The next step is what stopped me at the time because I needed some equipment I didn't have to go all grain. I also thought that if I was gonna go to that I should keg too.

 

[dmccarty]

I never understood the wine snub compared to beer or even apple cider. You either like it or you do not. Simple. Beer is so much more complex to make. We are not big wine drinkers though there is this one wine we do like. I can like cheap or expensive wines, the price has no real bearing on liking the wine.

Unfortunately there is Port. The more expensive the better. I started drinking stuff that was cheap, $5 a bottle then I could tell the difference at $10, $20, $30, etc. This was not good. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

I gave a bunch of vintage Ports to my dad for presents for a good ten years until he ran out of room. This was 15-20 years ago. We have started drinking them recently. We were curious before we opened the first one two Christmas's back. The wifey looked it up and best we could figure the bottle was worth around $350! <GULP>

We drank it. Lordy but it was good. REAL GOOD. I would not have spend that kind of money to buy it though. I paid maybe $50.

Told the wife not to spill any since it cost a fortune per ounce.

She knocked over the glass. :shocked:

Thankfully it spilled on a table and we were able to drink it with straws.

I kid ye NOT!. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

That stuff was good.

Later,
Dan

 

[Chuck52]

Bad news Dan,

You can get port kits to make at home. They typically cost twice as much as regular wine kits or make half as much. I've never made any, but a friend has a few times and all were good to very good. The last batch he made he aged in an oak barrel for about a year, but that was an "extra" he did just because he had the barrel. I think he originally got the barrel to age a barley wine a few years ago. Have you tried barley wines? Some of them remind me of port, though with quite a different taste profile. The local brewpub made (maybe still does) a barley wine they call Old Cave Dweller. It was aged in a local cave for a year I think. It is served in a wine glass and is about port strength in alcohol. Beautiful dark amber color, and when you swirl the glass it coats it like a good port.

I, too, like port. I keep hoping to find a decent one that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I made a port strength blackberry wine a couple years ago by fermenting the wine until the yeast quit because the alcohol content stopped it. Then I fortified half of it with some blackberry brandy (which itself tastes terrible, sticky sweet). It certainly wasn't port, but it did have a nice sweet/tart balance and made a nice desert drink.

Chuck

 

[RobertN]

Oh, you guys should try making Raspberry Imperial Stout. Heavenly!

 

[jcliburn]

Interesting thread. Thanks.

Question from the monumentally ignorant who hasn't attempted to find the answer on his own: Can you discover the alcohol by volume content of your homebrew? If yes, what's a typical value?

Jay