The TBR Homebrewing thread

February
Belgian Wit (e.g., Blue Moon), dry hopped
4 ciders (apple, apple/blueberry, apple/cranberry, and apple/rasberry)

March
American Red Bitter (same basic base as Killian's, but uses the proper yeast)

May
India Pale Ale

Tapped a keg of the Apple/Cranberry cider (8-10% alcohol) which kicked major ass. Tried the apple cider - not so much....

Sampled teh Belgian Wit and American Red - and they are going to be quite nice.

 

home brewing

I tried it once, with a cheap ass "Mr. Beer" set and failed horribly. I think I'd like to try it again, but with a better setup. How did you get into it?

 

My wife got me a set up for Christmas about 7 years ago. It's not expensive - $150, including a recipe. Of course, we ended up buying more stuff over the years, but that kit will let you know if you want to do it enough to get more into it.

Here is a link to the system - http://www.ebrew.com/systems_homebrew_beermaking/deluxe_blow_off_beermaking_system.htm

Here is the home page. http://www.ebrew.com Ask for Jess and tell him I sent you. If you really want to try it, let me know and you should come down and check out what all is involved next time me and sly brew.

Basically, if you can make soup, then you can make beer.

 

Do you deliver? Can you make Budweiser?

 

What do you do about bottling?

 

VP has about 120 cases of bottles he has collected. You can buy caps and a capper.

We make three batches of each recipe which produces 15 gallons of beer. We bottle a little over 4 cases and then keg the last 5 gallons in a five gallon keg.

 

Do you know anyone who is a bartender or owns a bar? I got all of my bottles from Selwyn Pub. I grew up with the bartender and would trade him 6 or 12 beers for as many bottles as I wanted. Soaking them to clean them and get the labels off was a bitch - but you only have to do that once.

If you are going to try it, I have about 10-15 cases of bottles you can have. The most important thing is to get ones that are all the same height. And they can't be twist offs.

 

I'll take them if he doesn't. Do you have a seperate refridge for the beer you make or just leave them unrefridgerated until a day or so before you want some?

 

could you keg the whole thing if you wanted?

 

I have a seperate fridge, but my basement never gets above 70 or so, so I can store them there and the refridgerate as needed. If you want to make lagers, you will need a seperate fridge AND a temp control. Lagers take forever though.

One other thing, there is absolutely NO reason to use dry yeast. It sucks. They have liquid yeast that you can just throw in now without having to make a starter.