Junkyard Brewing
07-22-2008, 07:51 PM
#1
0.0 BAR
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 0
Junkyard Brewing
Here is a little info for those of you who might consider enjoying some real beer. I got sick of waiting on my ---- to come in from TMO, so Sunday I went out and make my own dam 'kit'. Really, all I needed was a fermenter and a way to escape the CO2 that builds up. Easy. Also I should have used a hydrometer to get my initial gravity reading...but in all honesty, I never measured the initial gravity when I had one...so what the hell, right?
Ok, onto the spuel....
Where to get your equipment/goods:
While in Okinawa , my supplies came from www.williamsbrewing.com. Now that I am in the states, there are many many places to get stuff from. Northern brewer, homebrewit.com...or if you are like me, you have a few home brew stores within an hour drive. (one only being 15min's down the road) :green:
Where to do this. I am going to do this in my kitchen. Its going to smell my house up like hops and its gonna stink but guess what? I don't really give a ----. It will air out in a few days. You can also just a turkey fryer stand/burner and do it outside. Up to you...
to get started, you will need a 'home brewing set'. The english bitter is a really really good beer.
http://www.williamsbrewing.com/HOME_BREWER...EDIENTS_C73.cfm
a bottle brush
http://www.williamsbrewing.com/BEER_...SH_P151C53.cfm
pick up a bag of this ----, maybe 2. 1 will last you a few batches. this is what will clean your bottles.
http://www.williamsbrewing.com/BREWER_S_ED...NSER_P11C58.cfm
and find a stainless steel pot. Williams brewing has pots, they are expensive....but its a nice pot. If you have the money, I say go for it. I got my pot from Wal-mart. Its a 22quart stainless pot, glass lid. Fairly heavy, I like it...it ran me $50- I plan to get a thermometer and drill a hole and put it in there.
Next up is bottles. Your brew supply store can hook you up. Pretty much any bottle that is not a twist off bottle will work. Coronas will not work with the bottleing thingy that williams gives you. Just a heads up on that. You can also keg, which is another subject. If your bottling just regular 12oz bottles, you will need about 55
This should be about everything you need to get started. Getting started is the expensive part. Once you have all of this ----, your good for a long time.
So lets get started.
First off, your area, along with yourself needs to be clean. I mean like sanatized clean. The slightest amount of bacteria will ruin a batch of beer. Non-sented bleach and water is the trick.
Here I have a brewers best "imperial pale ale" kit. Kit beers are simple. Everything is measured out, barney style directions...doesn't really get much easier than this. This will get you a good understanding of what goes into brewing your own beer. Also, you can add to the kit if you want...i.e. if you wanted some smoked porter, get a porter kit and toss in some woodchips while its fermenting.
I started off by putting my 2 cans of malt into a sink full of hot water. Malt is very thick and hard to pour...so this is why I did this. Also, you can see my clean pot. Its a stainless pot from wal-mart, and brewing beer is the only thing I use it for. It also has a glass lid.
I began to start my 'mash' to create my 'wort'. Mash is simply nothing more than getting your water ready to be turned into wort. Your wort is nothing more than unfermented beer...which is what you are currently making. You take your grains, put them into a cheese cloth bag, tie them up and toss them into your brewpot with about 2-3 gallons of tap water. Heat that to about 150degrees and let the temp stay there. (check your directions on this, also, williams kits don't come with grains so you would omit this step)
It almost looks like a tea
Pour a dogfish to help your process.
Once your mash is completed (according to your directions) bring it to a boil and turn off your burner. Then pour in your malt. (have the lids already taken off so you can do this quickly) Once you get it all stirred in, restart your burner. You turn it off so you don't scortch the wort. I also added my hops and stirred those in.
Keep this boiling for however long your directions say...avoiding boilovers.
Dont mind my junk pile of brewing newspapers in the background but this is what you call a homemade fermenting machine. Its nothing more than a food grade tank found in the camping section of walmart. Your kit will come with a fermenter though. You need to be able to let the CO2 escape and it be airlocked at the same time so I just filled up a beer glass and ran a hose into some water. Bingo. Trick done. This is where my wort will ferment into beer
Ok, so the wort is all done. Now what?
You need to cool it as fast as you can. This is to avoid bacteria from getting into your wort. There are several gadgets out there that will help you cool your beer fast but this also works. Get your sink, put your pot in there, and then start filling it with water. The water will run over to the other side and just keep on cycling the water. With the warm pot in there, the water will quickly become warm and not do what its suspossed to...so this is why I let the water run.
Here is some cool wort. Oh yeah...what temp do you want your wart to be when its cool...around 70degrees. My rule of thumb, if I can touch my pot and hold my hand on it at the bottom...its cool enough.
Done. Now what...time to get that ---- into your fermenter. Put your wort into your fermenter and pour in your yeast. Dont pour everything thats in your pot. You will notice a bunch of ---- at the bottom of your pot...its called "trudge". Its real nasty ----. Then fill your fermenter up to 5gallons with room temp water. If you have a 6g kit...then fill your fermenter up to 6g. You don't wanna use cold water because then your yeast might say f-it and kill itself making all of this worthless. I won't really speak of yeasts. You either get a liquid yeast or a dry yeast. Both have directions on the package, make it according to those directions put it into your fermenter.
So here is my wort that now has yeast in it, fermenting and turning into a tasty IPA. Make sure that you don't let your beer ferment where it can get hit with direct light, and make sure its a cool place. Mine is in the closet under the stairs. Its dark, and it stays about 68-70 degrees in there. Perfect for fermenting wort
How long do you ferment your beer for? You use whats called a hydrometer (which will come with your kit) and measure it. Once its to a specific gravity...its good to bottle...although, you can just keep on letting that ---- ferment. The longer it sits in the fermenter, the clearer it will be. Some people use a secondary fermenter...but lets not get into that just yet. Heres another pic for you.
Stay tuned for part 2. Bottling and drinking :beer:
Ok, onto the spuel....
Where to get your equipment/goods:
While in Okinawa , my supplies came from www.williamsbrewing.com. Now that I am in the states, there are many many places to get stuff from. Northern brewer, homebrewit.com...or if you are like me, you have a few home brew stores within an hour drive. (one only being 15min's down the road) :green:
Where to do this. I am going to do this in my kitchen. Its going to smell my house up like hops and its gonna stink but guess what? I don't really give a ----. It will air out in a few days. You can also just a turkey fryer stand/burner and do it outside. Up to you...
to get started, you will need a 'home brewing set'. The english bitter is a really really good beer.
http://www.williamsbrewing.com/HOME_BREWER...EDIENTS_C73.cfm
a bottle brush
http://www.williamsbrewing.com/BEER_...SH_P151C53.cfm
pick up a bag of this ----, maybe 2. 1 will last you a few batches. this is what will clean your bottles.
http://www.williamsbrewing.com/BREWER_S_ED...NSER_P11C58.cfm
and find a stainless steel pot. Williams brewing has pots, they are expensive....but its a nice pot. If you have the money, I say go for it. I got my pot from Wal-mart. Its a 22quart stainless pot, glass lid. Fairly heavy, I like it...it ran me $50- I plan to get a thermometer and drill a hole and put it in there.
Next up is bottles. Your brew supply store can hook you up. Pretty much any bottle that is not a twist off bottle will work. Coronas will not work with the bottleing thingy that williams gives you. Just a heads up on that. You can also keg, which is another subject. If your bottling just regular 12oz bottles, you will need about 55
This should be about everything you need to get started. Getting started is the expensive part. Once you have all of this ----, your good for a long time.
So lets get started.
First off, your area, along with yourself needs to be clean. I mean like sanatized clean. The slightest amount of bacteria will ruin a batch of beer. Non-sented bleach and water is the trick.
Here I have a brewers best "imperial pale ale" kit. Kit beers are simple. Everything is measured out, barney style directions...doesn't really get much easier than this. This will get you a good understanding of what goes into brewing your own beer. Also, you can add to the kit if you want...i.e. if you wanted some smoked porter, get a porter kit and toss in some woodchips while its fermenting.
I started off by putting my 2 cans of malt into a sink full of hot water. Malt is very thick and hard to pour...so this is why I did this. Also, you can see my clean pot. Its a stainless pot from wal-mart, and brewing beer is the only thing I use it for. It also has a glass lid.
I began to start my 'mash' to create my 'wort'. Mash is simply nothing more than getting your water ready to be turned into wort. Your wort is nothing more than unfermented beer...which is what you are currently making. You take your grains, put them into a cheese cloth bag, tie them up and toss them into your brewpot with about 2-3 gallons of tap water. Heat that to about 150degrees and let the temp stay there. (check your directions on this, also, williams kits don't come with grains so you would omit this step)
It almost looks like a tea
Pour a dogfish to help your process.
Once your mash is completed (according to your directions) bring it to a boil and turn off your burner. Then pour in your malt. (have the lids already taken off so you can do this quickly) Once you get it all stirred in, restart your burner. You turn it off so you don't scortch the wort. I also added my hops and stirred those in.
Keep this boiling for however long your directions say...avoiding boilovers.
Dont mind my junk pile of brewing newspapers in the background but this is what you call a homemade fermenting machine. Its nothing more than a food grade tank found in the camping section of walmart. Your kit will come with a fermenter though. You need to be able to let the CO2 escape and it be airlocked at the same time so I just filled up a beer glass and ran a hose into some water. Bingo. Trick done. This is where my wort will ferment into beer
Ok, so the wort is all done. Now what?
You need to cool it as fast as you can. This is to avoid bacteria from getting into your wort. There are several gadgets out there that will help you cool your beer fast but this also works. Get your sink, put your pot in there, and then start filling it with water. The water will run over to the other side and just keep on cycling the water. With the warm pot in there, the water will quickly become warm and not do what its suspossed to...so this is why I let the water run.
Here is some cool wort. Oh yeah...what temp do you want your wart to be when its cool...around 70degrees. My rule of thumb, if I can touch my pot and hold my hand on it at the bottom...its cool enough.
Done. Now what...time to get that ---- into your fermenter. Put your wort into your fermenter and pour in your yeast. Dont pour everything thats in your pot. You will notice a bunch of ---- at the bottom of your pot...its called "trudge". Its real nasty ----. Then fill your fermenter up to 5gallons with room temp water. If you have a 6g kit...then fill your fermenter up to 6g. You don't wanna use cold water because then your yeast might say f-it and kill itself making all of this worthless. I won't really speak of yeasts. You either get a liquid yeast or a dry yeast. Both have directions on the package, make it according to those directions put it into your fermenter.
So here is my wort that now has yeast in it, fermenting and turning into a tasty IPA. Make sure that you don't let your beer ferment where it can get hit with direct light, and make sure its a cool place. Mine is in the closet under the stairs. Its dark, and it stays about 68-70 degrees in there. Perfect for fermenting wort
How long do you ferment your beer for? You use whats called a hydrometer (which will come with your kit) and measure it. Once its to a specific gravity...its good to bottle...although, you can just keep on letting that ---- ferment. The longer it sits in the fermenter, the clearer it will be. Some people use a secondary fermenter...but lets not get into that just yet. Heres another pic for you.Stay tuned for part 2. Bottling and drinking :beer:
07-22-2008, 08:56 PM
#7
0.0 BAR
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 0
Re: Junkyard Brewing
i've read on several forums, if its good to drink with some ice, its good for beer. But yes, you can mess your beer up if you have bad water. This is my first batch in my new house, so we will see...
07-22-2008, 09:03 PM
#8
0.0 BAR
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 0
Re: Junkyard Brewing
Asheville water is considered good to drink, but it is known to ---- up microbrews too. The first batches a roomate and I tried (double stout and an IPA) turned out smelling wonderful and tasting like ***. Actually, the double stout smelled like fresh pumpernickel, tasted as rich and good, but when it hit the back of your tongue/the finish on it was pure ***. The initial taste of it was so good I think we managed to drink 2-3 glasses of it anyway. The IPA, however, was a complete loss as the body was too light to stand up to the funk. I kind of lost interest but the roomate asked around, used filtered water and made some pretty nice brews.
Boiled and filtered spring water, or some of the reverse osmosis stuff from the local co-op, is what all th local hippy kids use.
Boiled and filtered spring water, or some of the reverse osmosis stuff from the local co-op, is what all th local hippy kids use.
