Any homebrewers out there??

[marcw85]

While drinking a few beers and talking about our favorites with a friend of mine, the subject moved to brewing our own. I have done it before with the Mr. Beer kit I got for Christmas one year and it was ok,and he has no experience with it. Does anyone here brew regularly? Is it worth the effort? Any good reading material or websites for it? I found "home brewing for dummies" and thinking about getting it just wanted some more info before I jump into a new hobby. Thanks

 

[Bayou Benz]

Go check-out BrewStock it is uptown NO, very knowledgeable they can help with supplies and reading material. Good luck I'm in Thibodaux got any questions feel free to hit me up.

 

[marcw85]

Roger That!! Appreciate the quick response, I'll defiantly check it out. Thanks!

 

[Spent Brass]

Yep, Im a member of Restick Homebrewers and just finished two batches this weekend. If you make it to Baton Rouge I'm more than happy to introduce you to the world of all grain. Buy the book "How to Brew" by John Palmer and read it. Its the most comprehensive material written so far and easy for anyone to understand. This is a pic from saturday.

 

[Btl_Rkt_Sci]

Yep, Im a member of Restick Homebrewers and just finished two batches this weekend. If you make it to Baton Rouge I'm more than happy to introduce you to the world of all grain. Buy the book "How to Brew" by John Palmer and read it. Its the most comprehensive material written so far and easy for anyone to understand. This is a pic from saturday.

+1 for How to Brew. Detail where you need it, brevity where you don't. Ample information to get you started and fuel your endeavors for years.

All grain brewing (brewing from raw malted grain rather than powder or syrup) gives you an exponentially larger amount of recipe's and potential for much more consistency than extract brewing (Mr. Beer is even simpler than that). For some extra brew-day sweat you can devise an all-grain stove-top setup for fairly cheap depending on what materials you already have. Where it really gets fun is creating a free-standing all grain system with temperature control, transfer pumps, etc. If you decide to go that route, depending on how much stuff you can pick up and innovate vs. buying pre-built peices, you can get a HERMS system going for anywhere from a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars. Where the fun really comes in for me, being a engineer, is having a new idea for my rig, putting it together and it actually working. Almost as fun as drinking the beer.

For the record, you will spend more time cleaning than you will actually brewing beer. Not particularly because it's messy, but it's very important to keep your beer contaminant free after the boil so as not to waste all that time and money on a crap batch.

Either way, if you're seriously interested buy the book and the author;s first order of business is having you brew an extract batch on your stove to get your feet wet. Heck, buy the book if you're not serious, it's only $10-15.

 

[RedNeckRuger]

I am doing all grain beer on my stove in the kitchen. It is well worth it IMO. I can make 5 gallons of beer which is 52 12oz give or take a few bottles for less than $20 and that is buying all of my supplies from Brewstock. I can cut that price almost in half if I buy 55# sacks of grains. I can also make much better quality of beer than alot of what you can buy. I thoroughly enjoy the hobby and hate when I have to actually buy beer. I try to keep 2 5 gallon soda kegs in my beer fridge at all times. Teach a man to brew and he will drink forever!!

 

[Spent Brass]

Teach a man to brew and he will drink forever!!

So true. If ya'll come to the Zapps beer fest in Baton Rouge I'll have that batch I brewed in the picture ready and be sharing with anyone with a cup March 24 at the Rural life museum on Essen.

 

[03protege]

http://www.howtobrew.com/

Read this once, then read this twice, and then read this a third time. By then you WILL have the knowledge to execute a great beer, whether you do an extract or a full mash.

Also as mentioned Aaron at Brewstock is great and he has really good prices on everything. The only stuff you can really come out better on is if you build your own equipment when you step up to full mash brewing.

I recommend starting at a partial brew extract beer. It is VERY easy, hard to mess up if you follow the instructions, and very rewarding.

 

[marcw85]

Roger Roger, Thanks for all the help, can't wait

 

[03protege]

Also until I stepped up I did plenty of beers on a cheapo academy turkey frying kit that came with a propane burner, I also use that same $20~ pot on the kitchen stove. If you are able to I highly recommend the propane burner as the kitchen stove takes FOREVER to heat up.

Hell you probably already have a propane burner.

 

[JP762]

Beer's cool and all, but I like mead. A friend brews it, and I love it. Get my inner viking happy.

Home brewing is easy, just takes staggering amounts of patience

 

[03protege]

Beer's cool and all, but I like mead. A friend brews it, and I love it. Get my inner viking happy.

Home brewing is easy, just takes staggering amounts of patience

Mead is delicious but requires WAY more time than your regular beer and wine.

The trick to fight the waiting is have multiple projects going at once. When I was at my peak I would start a new wine or beer ever 2-3 weeks so every week I always had something to work on, and every week I would have a new product finished. Then your issue is finding a way to store it all. I wound up giving a sizeable chunk to neighbors and friends.

 

[toddrod]

I am a homebrewer right up the road in Vacherie. Do all grain and extract and have just about every gadet needed. I do more wine than beer now since most of my fruits I am growing myself or friends give it to me for free. 5 gals of wine cost me maybe $5 total. As far as is it worth it, YES, esp if you prefer microbrew type of beers. I am a Nut Brown, Porter and Stout type of guy.

As far as reading material or internet based stuff I highly recommend "How to Brew" book and the forum Homebrewtalk.com. There are also plenty of good brewing videos on Youtube.

If you have any questions I would be glad to help you out.

 

[Log Island]

Have been brewing for @ 10 yrs. Get most of my supplies from Williams Brewing. You can start with simple kits, ie; ales, and work your way up from there.
They are great with customer service, will help with any questions you may have, over the phone.
Just helped my 21yr old brew/bottle his 1st 5 gallons to take to spring break...