Home Brewing

swb502

Hello everyone. I came on this form when I got stationed at Ft. Riley and had some extra money to by ?good? speakers. I tend to get a bit engrossed by my interested and this form has been great for that. Another thing I started at the same time was home brewing.

I?ve made 6 batches so far, with one casualty (a horrific semi-grain red organic ale). Dose anyone else here do home brewing? I have had allot of luck with the William?s Brewing Kit. Anyone else have other kits they recommend.

I like this brewing so much I have started a business about it too. Were just getting started, so feel free to check out our facebook page for now.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-New-Buffalo-Brewing-Co/215182275168604

cembros

i'm moving into a new place this weekend and this will be priority 1!

dbaldus

I've done quite a bit of home brewing in the past year (probably around 10 - 15 extract kits total) and am looking to get into kegging in the next couple of months with all-grain further off in the future.

I'm located in the Twin Cities and have found 2 great suppliers in the area - Midwest Supplies and Northern Brewer, both of which I believe have a decent online business as well.

All of my kits have been from one of the two places and all have turned out great (minus 2 that I messed up on my own). Definitely check out their websites and let me know if you're looking for a kit recommendation for a specific style of beer.

gdb

This is my local "gem". I haven't bubbled a batch in a very long time but, I'm thinking about doing it again when the frost is on the pumpkins. I have to drink/save another bunch of bottles. (wife tossed my originals:mad:****!) The Flying Barrel has great staff, recipes & supplies that they are happy to ship. (Some really high grade imported hops) Give em a call and they'll chat for an hour if the store isn't busy when you call.

http://www.flyingbarrel.com/

66chevyIISS

I've been homebrewing for about 3 years now. I started off with 5 gallon kettle and extract kits. After 3 extract kits I decided to say screw it and switched to all grain. Best decision I made. In the long run it's so much cheaper. You can make your own mash fairly cheaply too.

Here is my low buck mash:


I now have 8 gallon kettle with a mash that can hold 45 lbs of grain. I currently have on tap a light Red Ale at 5% and a Dark Red Ale at 7.5%. Kegging was the 2nd best upgrade I made besides changing to all grain.

I got my brother into brewing too. He has a 10 gallon setup made out of two old kegs. My stuff is compact I can take it all over to his house and we can brew together. We're now growing hops as well.

Ace944gs

Just about done drinking my second batch ever, and I love it. First batch was a really good 6.5% IPA, second was a decent dunkel weizen (decent only in that it didn't carbonate as much as I like..tastes great). I'm totally hooked.

We're moving from a townhouse into a real house in one month, and shortly after I'll be trying the all-grain. Can't wait. After that? Kegging!

Upstatemax

My friend and I brew, it's a great time.

Both of us have been fairly busy so we have slowed down. We still only do extract kits, just don't have the time for all grain... :frown:

My favorite so far has been a Black IPA kit from Northern Brewer:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/black-ipa-extract-kit-1.html

The last one we made was the "Lawnmower De Saison" from Midwest:

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/lawnmower-de-saison.html

We need to start a new one... I'm thinking getting the Pumpkin Ale going so it's ready for the fall!

Upstatemax

dbaldus wrote: »

I'm located in the Twin Cities and have found 2 great suppliers in the area - Midwest Supplies and Northern Brewer, both of which I believe have a decent online business as well.

They have great online sales...

I use both of them and I have yet to be let down.

My local brewing stores are just CRAZY expensive. I would spend twice the money to brew if I used them...

swb502

I hear allot of people around base use Northern Brewer, I haven't tried any of them yet. II just checked out there site, and wow, it would take me a year just to do these extract kits alone!

I like a sweet stout allot, has anyone done there Sweet Stout or Chocolate Milk Stout? I have an English Mild kit in my fridge right now, but I'm suppose to get another 2 fermentors in about a week so they'll need to be filled post haste!

66chevyIISS:

That's a pretty slick set up, right now I have a big pot on he stove and 2 plastic buckets.

gdb

My next step is to make a DIY wort cooling coil. Copper prices are "through the roof" right now!:frown:

dbaldus

gdb wrote: »

My next step is to make a DIY wort cooling coil. Copper prices are "through the roof" right now!:frown:

Wort chillers rock! I bought a copper one right off the bat for ~$60 if I remember right - chills the 3-4 gallons that I actually boil for my 5 gallon batch in about 10 mins to 68-70 F. The key is to keep stirring the wort while the chiller is in there, otherwise it just chills the wort immediately surrounding it, leaving the outsides warm. That thing has saved me SO much time and was worth every penny.

dbaldus

swb502 wrote: »

I like a sweet stout allot, has anyone done there Sweet Stout or Chocolate Milk Stout?

I haven't tried either of those kits, but the Chocolate Milk Stout is on my list.

My favorite kit so far has been Midwest's Pam Smith Taddy Porter - a Sam Smith "clone" kit.

I currently have 3 Midwest kits fermenting: the Grand Cru Belgian Wheat and 2 Hank's Hefeweizen's (one of which I'm planning to add 3 lbs of cherries to). I figured that will be it for my lighter "summer" beers, then on to the dark beers for winter

66chevyIISS

You guys gotta start making your own recipes. :biggrin:

This is the program that I use. It was well worth the $25.

http://www.promash.com/

My 2 fav sites for online stuff are Northernbrewer and www.morebeer.com.

I'm pretty lucky to have a local homebrew store with prices that rival the internet companies. They also mill my grain for free so I haven't had to go buy my own yet.

Oh and for those of you new to the game, becareful where you choose to ferment. I use our spare shower and it's saved my bacon a few times. This was my 9% winter warmer that blew my lid off. I now strictly use blow off tubes and no longer an air lock lol.

shawn474

One of my buddy's is pretty big into homebrewing and has even won some awards. I can tell you that some of them I like and some I don't. I think its pretty cool that he spends so much time trying new things. Anyway here's his latest "feature":

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/pages/community/brewer-of-the-week/show?title=russ-lorber

swb502

66chevyIISS:

Is that promash have different functionality then beersmith? I bought that a while back to play with, but haven't tried all grain yet.

66chevyIISS

I've never used beersmith, but they are essentially the same thing. You should play around with it. Cool stuff.