Home Brewing

[peam]

Is anyone else into this AWESOME hobby?

If so, throw up some shots of your equipment and what you have fermenting.

Right now, I have an apple porter sitting in secondary and a light amber ale that's been sitting in primary for about two weeks.

DISCUSS.

[Skeeter]

I like beer, send me some samples.

You should add some caffeine to your brew, and call it Buzz Beer.

[Warriorbird]

I help with the wine at home sometimes. My uncle does homebrew beer. Having him brew me a personalized case and keg for my college graduation was about the most awesome graduation gift ever.

[Stanley Burrell]

I've made wine before, which is fucking awesome. Everyone should step on grapes and make their own bottle. Mulling spices ftw, too.

As far as microbrewing goes, I really want to try that out too. I know they have the beer-flavored (yeast?) packets you can ferment, but I was thinking of something a little bit less generic/more homegrown/extra personal effort/the real deal.

[Warriorbird]

I'd reccommend the ready made things. Newbie brewers can MESS up.

[Sean of the Thread]

I did it for years. I even had my built my own multi tap kegarator that I put my brews into using old pepsi tanks.

Good stuff.

[peam]

http://nbrewer.com/pics/fullsize/glass-beer.jpg

I roll with this. I got set up and first brewing ingredients for about a hundred dollars.

If anyone wants to be a guinea pig, let me know. I've been sampling the wort as fermentation and conditioning has progressed, but outside opinions are always welcome.

How hard was it to build your kegging system, Sean? My new place has a basement, and I'm totally making it into my brew-lab. From what I've seen, you basically just need a fridge, a corny keg, and a conversion kit to put the system together, right?

[Shifted]

After wine making, is raki making. Made from what's left over after making wine. Good stuff. Raki FTW

[Celephais]

I've made beer before but not with my own supplies, I've been dieing to start doing some brewing of my own and I think I'm going to start sometime this winter, some things have fallen into place to finally give me the space/time to do it.

[Sean of the Thread]

http://nbrewer.com/pics/fullsize/glass-beer.jpg

I roll with this. I got set up and first brewing ingredients for about a hundred dollars.

If anyone wants to be a guinea pig, let me know. I've been sampling the wort as fermentation and conditioning has progressed, but outside opinions are always welcome.

How hard was it to build your kegging system, Sean? My new place has a basement, and I'm totally making it into my brew-lab. From what I've seen, you basically just need a fridge, a corny keg, and a conversion kit to put the system together, right?

That's a nice starter kit.

Basically need any fridge.. I bought a refurb for $100 at the time but if you get more serious get a nicer more efficient model. Can obviously customize the outside however you want. I paneled my in oak with oak frame and drain.

Depending on how much you want to do you'll need a nice CO2 tank that's up to regs and code or they won't fill it and an up to date regulator. The tubing etc is easy to come by and so are the old pepsi kegs. You can even tap wine.

The layout is up to you but I had a 6 tap system when all said and done drilled right thru the fridge. Can score all kinds of vintage taps too to install to make it look sweet.

This is the place that I got most of my shit from but I searched out fridge and co2 tanks/taps etc etc from all over the lands. It gets addicting.

It's local and it looks like their site sucks now days but they are really awesome peeps. Can call ask them anything and they'll rock your socks. It's like walking into a toys R us geared for brewing. Don't be afraid to call them.. they taught us all we knew.

http://www.beerandwinemaking.com/default1.html

[Sean of the Thread]

Oh and find a local bartender friend and ask them to save their Grolsch bottles.

I had about 500 at one time. They rock for bottling your own shit. Very easy to reuse maintain and clean. Above my pepsi kegs was all stocked with brews bottled in them and with your own label it's cool to hand out to friends as gifts and what not.

[peam]

Oh and find a local bartender friend and ask them to save their Grolsch bottles.

I had about 500 at one time. They rock for bottling your own shit. Very easy to reuse maintain and clean. Above my pepsi kegs was all stocked with brews bottled in them and with your own label it's cool to hand out to friends as gifts and what not.

I thought about doing that, but I've been able to drink a lot of good beer under the guise of buying them just to keep the bottles. Grolsch is nasty shit.

[Tsa`ah]

I've kicked around the idea of making my own wine, but soil conditions here are not really idea for a grape worth a damn ... and I've no desire to truck in a few tons of sand for my own wine.

Distilling whiskey, that's another story. If only the wife would see it my way.

[Celephais]

Make mead... it's really simple, and delicious.