and on what?

harrison...(home brew)....fucker

me ...(red stripe)

oak...(fosters mate)

chin....i'll pencil you in for a rum and diet coke. :devilgrin:

um?

:)

Whats the story on that hyperbaric chamber you've got it in? Or is that some kind of a refrigeration system?

:lol:

That's a wine fridge actually, but it works good enough for a keg.

Beamish. Only I can't get too "ham boned" because I have to do work.

damn! nice setup HB

btw - how old are you? you look so young there (careful - Hay might get interested)

:lol:

Sheik, sadus? Where are you two? Isn't this where you're supposed to say...

awkard.

HB, there's a homebrew shop near my house. I've been thinking about stopping by and checking it out. But are there some sites you'd recc online where I could kind of read up before I go over there? If you walk into a place like that saying "Hey, I wanna get started" you'll end up with all kinds of crap you don't need and at prices you probably wouldn't pay if you knew more. So if you have some reccs, I'd be appreciative.

Also, my dad used to do his own beer and he did it all in our garage. Is there an optimal location to do all this? I'm limited on garage space.

lol, that was certainly my first impression. figured i'd leave it teed up for someone else.

nice to know where your heads are at.

i just figured HB to look older -

but continue to regale us with your stories of 'piss shivers'

:rolleyes:

it did strike me funny, like "ohhh mmyyy, you look sooo yoouung harrison."

anyway, why would you figure that? he's posted a pic of himself before.

i've never seen that picture.

but he does look dreamy :lol:

Try http://www.homebrewtalk.com/. It's a large message board, but they've also got a Wiki put up.

Depending how much you want to spend, you should be able to get a basic plastic kit for less than a hundred bucks. Glass is better in the long run, but plastic works good enough to start.

The bare minimum kit would look like this:

1 plastic fermentation bucket w/lid
1 plastic airlock
1 large pot for boiling, at least three gallons. Four or five would be better. If you want to save cash, get this one at Wal-Mart or something.
1 plastic bottling bucket
4-5 feet PVC tubing
1 plastic racking cane
1 bottle filler
1 bottle capper

You'll also need about two and a half cases of bottles and some bottle caps. You can either buy the bottles, or re-use old bottles. Any beer bottle will do, but twist-offs are not great.

And of course you'll need the ingredients, probably the easiest thing to do is buy a pre-packaged kit for your first beer.

That would be the minimum, there's a few things you might want to make the process easier and the end results better though, depending on how much you feel like spending on it.

Thanks. I printed this off, so now I'm ready to roll LOL

I'll let you know how it goes.

As far as ingredients, I've poked my head into that shop a couple times and they have all kinds of diff hops and grains, etc. My take would be that ingredients are huge. Is it safe to say that whatever I could get in a shop would be of lesser quality vs. some kinds of specialty ingredients that I might pay top dollar for on the web or something?

BTW, don't I need one of those big paddles to steeeeer it upppppp? LOL

Well, it depends on your shop, but they should have pretty much the same quality ingredients as you'd get elsewhere, although depending on the particular shop freshness could be an issue.

And no you won't need a big paddle for stirring just yet.

A basic pale ale recipe might look something like this:

6 lb. Dry Malt Extract
.5 lb. Crystal malt @60L
.5 lb. Carapils malt

4 oz Cascade hops

brewer's yeast. I like the Wyeast smack-packs, but the White Labs pitchable tubes are also excellent. Dried yeast is an option as well, but Wyeast and White Labs are about as good as it gets.

So: Add the grains to 1 gallon of water @ 165F, stabalizing around 155F. Steep for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove grains, rinse w/1 gallon water @ 175F. Add DME and bring to boil. When boil is achieved, add 2 oz hops. Boil for fifty minutes, add 1 oz. hops. Boil ten minutes, add 1 oz hops, remove from heat and chill. When wort is at about 90F, strain out hops and pour into fermenter. Aerate wort before adding yeast, this can be done by shaking or stirring the beer. Add yeast, cover, and let it do it's thing. You'll want to keep the fermenter somewhere about 65-70F. Any cooler, it'll screw up the fermentation, any warmer you'll get unwanted flavors.

So, it's pretty simple really. One book I absolutely recommend getting is Charlie Papazian's Complete Joy of Homebrewing. Far and away the best book out there for the beginning brewer, IMO.

So you keg rather than bottle? Guess it depends on having the ability to cool the keg?

How about wheat beers? Had any success with those? I'd probably be looking to experiment with the Hoegaarden Wit and Bavarian Hell and Dunkleweizen varieties. Also into some of the Belgian ales.

You make it sound pretty easy to get started. How long you been doing it? Once you get going, how would you compare the cost vs buying hi quality branded / imported beers?

Damn!!

get a haicut, hippie!

Nice set up dude. You have the same glassware as I, BTW. ;)

I just started kegging, but I also bottle. Kegging is easier, if you have a fridge for it.

I actually plan to by a cheap used side-by-side, use one side for the keg and one side for lagering, make some pilsners.

I never made any wheat beers, not my style. I'm not sure, I think they might be a little trickier to "nail", but I really don't know.

Brown and pale ales tend to be simpler, and therefore easier to start off with.

The cost is definitely less, but not hugely so. I usually pay about thirty bucks or so for the ingredients for five gallons, which comes out to be a little more than two cases. So, maybe half price or so.

It is fairly easy, although cleaning and sterilizing are a pain in the ass, especially at bottling time. Well worth it though.

I appreciate all of your thoughts on this.

One thing that seems to be critical is the heating and getting the temps right. Do you simply do all of this on the stove or do you have a standalone heat source that has complete heat control? My range has Hi-Med-Lo settings and short of using a thermometer, this seems kind of like it would make things difficult.

Also, on the kegging v. bottling do you notice the same flavor differences observed with branded beers between draft and bottle?

you guys do realize that we will all be sending our orders in for a case or two. :P



Bergeron Brew

&

Merty's Pale Ale





:rolleyes:

The temping is a lot less critical if your brew is extract-based. One thing that makes it easier is if you use the right grain-to-water ratio, it will pretty much hold it's own temp once you add the grains. You can use your stovetop and a thermometer, bring the water up to temp, add the grains, when it stabilizes at the desired temp just turn off the heat, cover the pot, and put a towel over the whole thing. Or, keep a close eye on the temp, and turn up the heat to raise the temp as needed. Or, if you use a muslin bag for the grains, you can put them in the cold water, bring it to a boil, and then pull the grains out. This isn't really the "ideal" way to do it, but with extract-based beers that use small amounts of grains it's OK.




I haven't had the chance to notice any flavor differences, because I haven't kegged and bottled the same recipe yet. I would guess that at least part of the difference with branded beers is freshness and exposure to light. Especially true with imported beers.

Merty's Dunkleweizen.

Get it str8 Oak ;)

To answer the question in the original post-tonight I'm hittin' Red Stripe. I might start homebrewing after I do my marathon (ie when I have more time).

a fellow red striper, cheers....it's good stuff.

marathon?

looks like a nice little setup you got there. where are those pics to the side of the fridge from? been wondering about that.

I used to like Red Stripe, but upon further review it's totally overrated.

not my favorite. didn't realize it was that highly rated a beer. it's good, not great. you're not saying it's like a bud or something are you? it's comparable to sam adams imo, probably a half notch below. love that bottle though.

They're the generic pics that came with the frame...

Still feeling the effects of a bad combination of shochu, kilkenny, and Cohibas from a couple of nights ago.

The thought of anything stronger than red wine makes me shiver.

yeah, thats exactly what i said.

freak.

:<_<: