Anyone into homebrewing willing to help someone getting started the right way? I really want to know what equipment an methods are best for brewing your own beer. The general interwebs helps with almost nothing by giving me super expensive solutions (>$500) and no simple "do-it-like-this" way to understand what to do. Any information is appreciated (extra props for a super cheap solution) thanks in advance.
There are 2 methods: Purist brewers will make their brew from scratch using malted barely,hops etc and recipes : this requires far more equipment and time so its a matter preference and investment.
The 2nd method which I have been using for years is to buy a premade malt extract brew kit made by a reputable brew company (Coopers) in Australia... which make about 18litres or 5 gallons...i think, sorry i am Australian so i don't use imperial measurements all that much.
Basically (super cheap) all you need is a 20lt food grade bucket with a lid or you can use cling film/gladwrap if a lid is not available. Clean the bucket (Hygiene is imperative all the time) use Boiling hot water to sterilize. avoid bleach. Ok lets assume all your kit is sterilized. empty the contents of the brew kit into the bucket...add about 1kg of sugar if you want to increase the final alcohol content. Don't go more than 1kg unless you want to make something overly potent...2kg is max but i wouldn't recommend it..I know from experience!!!
anyway with the malt extract and optional sugar in the bucket add 1 jug/kettle of boiling water (stir/swirl). this will help dissolve the sugar and thin out the extract. (remember hygiene) OK now add cold water (preferably filtered non chlorinated/fluoridated) but tap water is fine to about 10cm/5inches from the lip of the bucket or just be vigilant with measuring out 18lt in you 20lt bucket.
You should now have your (wort) and it should be near to room/body temperature. In the brew kit there should be a sachet of dried brewers yeast...add to the bucket at this temp and stir in with a sterilized spoon.
Cover with lid or cling film and poke a pin hole or 2 in the lid to allow the CO2 to escape but keep the nasties out. You can use bubble air locks etc but this is the super cheap way.
Leave bucket in a warm dark place for about 2 weeks...during this time it will be fermenting.
Prepare Bottles: Now you can use plastic but I prefer glass. along as you can cap the bottles. you will need about 20-40 bottles depending on volume. Clean/ Sterilize (Remember hygiene)
Bottling: So now you bucket of brew has settled and fermentation has stopped and your bottles are clean. To carbonate your beer (bubbles/foamy) you will need to add a small amount of sugar to each bottle i use about half a tea spoon per bottle....DO NOT ADD TO MUCH OR YOUR BOTTLES WILL EXPLODE.
now with a bit of pvc tube (Sterilsed) and all your bottles lined up and prepped. place the bucket gently higher up on a bench....using gravity syphon the beer into the bottles....
Place on caps firmly and shake the bottles to test for leaks and disolve the pinch of sugar. Label the Date...its time for the beers to mature ( i prefer at minimum 2 months) otherwise your beers will taste green and underdeveloped.
Thats about it... there should be a brewshop around that sells kits etc. or perhaps on online vendor. also heaps of brew forums and websites too.
Good luck and happy brewing.
oh yeah dont fill your bottles to the brim...leave a little pocket of air prior to capping...
Midwest Supplies sells a small $50 USD kit. Its a great way to learn the process. You can build all the initial equipment for 5 gallons batches for ~$50USD too. So, its really about what you want to do; just how it should be.
Go step by step. After the basics and you're brewing 5-10 gallons at a time, you will be much happier spending your money on a proper kegerator and co2 set-up than trying to go purist and sparge-like-a-machine...
If you want to go semi-purist like I do just use the "boil in a bag" method to get some reasonably good results. Not quite as good as if you were spargeinator supreme and could sparge continuously but still very flavorful.
Interesting, haven't heard of boil in bag wort. I've started growing hops, but the sugar has been liquid gold for my tastes so far.
I'll look it up.
I started by using a propane turkey fryer from Home Depot, floating thermometer, grain straining bag that I used as basically a large teabag for making my wort, a wort chiller for afterward, and a 5 gallon carboy. I reused bottles after removing labels and putting a letter on the top of the caps after capping to keep track of what was what. All in all it makes for a pretty cheap setup to get started.
Malt extracts work well if you want to skip the grain straining sack, but I could always taste the difference between extract and steeping my own grain. The local brew supply store has all the grain I could ever want and they'll mill it for me so I just pick it up on the day I brew so that it's fresh.
If you don't even want to go that far, you can always start on your stove top in the house and ferment in any growler you may happen to have as they make stoppers for that as well as carboys.
That's how I started!
Now I use growlers for yeast starters. Still, put it on tap, this hobby would have died if not for a bottle of co2. So many hours of trying to clean glue off bottles, capping, hoping the sugar was right, trying to convince my girlfriend the yeast-milkieness was OK to drink, losing 1/5 to the floor due to bottling, etc.
Start with a nice easy cascade pale ale, and then grow. I still have a recipe I don't like the best, but I make it because the in-laws always request it when they come over...
I've done some brewing with my friends, but we've only done the "purist" way myself, and except from storage solutions, there isn't all that much cost to the equipment. I'm not all that certain of either the prices as I'm not in the USA nor the English lingo, so my explanation will be somewhat limited, but I would recommend doing it from the ground up if it's something you really want to get into.
What I would do is see if there is any businesses that cater to the brewing community near where you live and get help setting up, I'm mostly thinking of storage, so barrels, CO2 setup and tapping equipment. You also need a right sized container for boiling (I would say a minimum of 25L)
You can easily find pretty detailed recipes on-line, I can probably dig up a site for you if you want me to ;)
A couple of days before starting, get some yeast and create a yeast culture, this will help you kick start the fermenting. Basically boil up water, add fruit sugar to it, cool, add yeast, have it refrigerated. Make sure it can push out air, but limit the ability for anything else to enter what ever container you have it in (My friends an I use Erlenmeyer flasks) How you should do this is explained by your particular manufacturer. There are yeasts specifically for beer brewing.
Then for the process, described quick and dirty to give you an idea of how to do it.
- Measure up your ingredients and make sure you have everything you need. Make sure everything is clean. There's disinfectants specifically for brewing that won't harm your brew, a little pricey upfront, but last a really long time.
- Start preheating water
- Grind all that corn (malt). You can also get bags of pre-grinded malt, which will save you some cost on the equipment front. I would put in in some finely meshed bags for easy handling.
- When the water reaches the right temp (about 68-70 deg. C, depending on malt, this will be described in a recipe) dump the malt in. It should probably be in there for about one hour, again, depending on recipe. Make sure to stir and create a little circulation once in a while. This step will get all of the "sugar" (maltose) from the malt going (extracting it)
- Before step 4 is completed, boil up some additional water to flush the malt with afterwards
- Empty the (now syrupy) water from whatever container (casserole) you used into another container, like a fermentation bucket, I like using a siphon for the draining.
- Flush the malt with the boiled up water to get as much maltose as you can out of it. You can give the bags a good squeeze too. This water should also be drained
- Take out the bags with malt, fill your casserole up again. This time, you want to boil the fluids, for about one hour, look at your recipe. You want to reduce the amount of liquid somewhat during this stage. This is also the stage when you add your hops, in "socks", refer to recipe ;)
- Then you want to cool it to about room temperature (20 deg. C). The quicker you cool it, the better. If you have some way of heat exchange with cold running water, that'd be awesome.
- Transfer the fluid (mesh) to the fermentation bucket, make sure the bucket is clean and disinfected first.
- At this time you can measure the specific gravity of your mesh to see if you're on the right track, but it's not all that important IMO
- Empty most of the fluids from your yeast, but as little yeast as possible, make sure there's enough fluid to whirl up the yeast. Dump it in the fermentation bucket along with your mesh. Give it a good whirl, like properly good, create a little whirlpool in there, this to get some oxygen to help the fermentation. Pop the lid on the bucket and a "water lock" (google fermentation bucket, and it's that funny little thing in the lid on most of the pictures)
- Store as specified in recipe. This can be something like two weeks. This is when it all ferments and creates that lovely alcohol
- Tap it over on a suitable pressure vessel (barrel) where you will store it (fairly cold) for as long as it's specified, but generally longer is better. You can alternatively store it in bottles, if so, add a little sugar to it so it will do some more fermentation and create bubbles.
- A few days before serving, chill it down to about 4 deg. C (most beer tastes best at this temp) let it settle. You'll probably have particles left in your container that you don't want up in your glass. If you opted for a barrel, now would be a good time to pressurize it with CO2 to get bubbles in there. When tapping, you'll use the CO2 to drive the beer out
So what you need:
A large casserole. Some heat source. Mesh bags. Fermentation buckets. A siphon. Some cooling gear. Socks for hops. Pressure container with tapping gear and pressurized CO2. Ingredients (and possibly something to grind your malt with)
Hope this helps ;)