i remember seeing a few people mention they home brew. im just getting started and im pretty excited about it. im going to buy the kit in a few hours, and have been collecting bottles for a while now lol. its tough work.
i have a few questions- what sanitizer do you use? i know star-san comes with the kit, and a lot of people use it, but ive also seen a lot of people use idophor. what do you use?
another thing, what should my first brew be? im def going to be brewing from extract, i think im just going to get a kit for some scotch ale or american ale from the homebrew store
discuss! and give me some heads up on things i should look out for. ive done a lot of reading, but let me hear some thoughts and advice from your personal experience
I did an IPA as my first batch, that was a little much for a first brew. I just bottled about 58 Amber lights two days ago that was really easy to make and will probably taste better to the common beer drinker. The IPA from True Brew is pretty complex with the aromatic(sp?) hops and wood chips that stay during the length of fermentation.
As mentioned, the True Brew brand has GREAT kits, comes with the carboy, capper, thermometer, hydrometer (helps calculate expected alcohol content) etc. They also sell pre packaged ingredient kits for the type of beer you’d make, which is great before you start to blindly buy ingredients.
Some tips; get a thick walled brewing pot, will cost a bit more, but I picked up a thin walled pot and too much heat escapes prolonging the time it takes to first boil (you’ll see that you will have to remove the pot from the stove a few times to prevent boil over before the brew stabilizes) This was a BIG pain in the ass.
Also, pick up some cheesecloth, I use it when transferring the brew from the carboy to the filling bucket, and it sifts out a lot of the yeast.
Lastly, set the carboy for fermentation where you intend to transfer to the bottling bucket. The less you move it the less you’ll suspend the settled yeast
new, I get these little yellow packets for less than a dollar, use one packet per 5-6 gallons . I didn’t even know I could reuse yeast lol. Wouldnt be worth the time anyway. Was trying to find the packets I get but I have an image block at work. I think the package says active dry yeast or something
ive made a few cases. I bought my brother the full kit from Niagara traditions by Sheridan and Military a few years ago and have had success with every batch. I think the cleaner we used is called be-brite or something like that. The guys there are cool and willing to help you out with any kind of questions
ya i just got back from the homebrew store in hamburg. i was super disappointed to find that nys wouldnt allow the owner to sell both wine and beer making kits? or at least thats what he told me… they were there a month ago and now theyre gone
i just bought a kit on ebay and a ingredent kit for a scotch ale. i also picked up a bottle washer, b-brite sanitizing solution, and a bottle brush from the homebrew store.
wrd, just brewed my first batch, its chillin in my closet at a happy 69 degrees.
I’ve read that the air lock shouldn’t start moving for 24 hours or so, but I sealed it up and put it in my closet around 1am last night and when I woke up around noon today I checked on it and the air lock was happily bubbling away every 2-3 seconds. is this normal?
Yea, if you got the yeast prepped properly, they will start farting after 6 hours. By 24 they are just tearing it up like the day after a bachelor party. I love yeast farts
wrd dude, I’m guessing you use a secondary? at what point do you do the transfer? I’ve heard anywhere from 3-7 days, or once the air lock starts bubbling every minute or so over.thanks dude!
