Opinions for Beginner

spartagain · 11-09-2007, 07:05 PM

Hey everyone,
I am new to brewing and this site. I was curious about a few things to get started. I would like to begin brewing, but I am being a little bit rambunctious and want to be brewing at least 4 five gallon batches at a time. So I would like some opinions on the equipment I need to get that can handle that much, and some good types of beer that i can learn on and are forgiving enough to still taste good.
thanks

rohanski · 11-09-2007, 07:10 PM

Sloooow down pardner. I know your anxious but why don't you start with one or two to figure out what's going on? You don't want to screw up 4 batches in a row right out of the box and get discouraged.

**Bruscar** · 11-09-2007, 07:11 PM

Welcome. I'm assuming you mean 4 different 5 gal. brews, not one 20 gal.

Definitely get a Bayou burner or some type of high output burner. You'll need a haircut waiting for 4 batches boiled on the stove.
I got a quality stainless steel kettle real early and a wort chiller.
Have extra carboys around if you think you might want to rack any brews to a secondary fermentation.

Most start with red ales, browns, etc. to begin as there is a bit of margin room. Big Scottish ales take a while and really low OG ales show every mistake. HTH

Good luck!

cheezydemon · 11-09-2007, 07:12 PM

The straight forward answer is that you will need four 6 gallon primaries and four 5 gallon carboys.

I am assuming you will do extract brews to srart off with. That will require less equipment.

You will need 8 ft of siphoning tube, a brew pot, ingredients, H2O, a stove.

You should look on www.byo.com and click on the link for beginning brewer instructions.

From there you may decide to stagger batches so that you just need 1 primary.

Then you need to consider kegging or bottling and the equipment required.

I admire your enthusiasm, do a little research and then dive in.

**Bruscar** · 11-09-2007, 07:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rohanski

Sloooow down pardner. I know your anxious but why don't you start with one or two to figure out what's going on? You don't want to screw up 4 batches in a row right out of the box and get discouraged.

Good point. +1 to that

**olllllo** · 11-09-2007, 07:26 PM

So you have 220 bottles at your disposal?

**Chriso** · 11-09-2007, 07:46 PM

I can appreciate his desire for quantity. I'm managing with 1 primary, 1 conical secondary, and 1 spare ale pail for Apfelwein.

My two biggest limitations are:
- Conical fermenter is always full with beer readying for bottling, therefore I can't rack a brand new batch into it - haven't got to use it for a primary yet, and think it'd be cool.
- Bottles, bottles, bottles. I've got a blonde ale in secondary right now, and nowhere to put it *at all* because I just exhausted my entire bottle reserve on the porter that I bottled last Tuesday. This means I've spent $50 on micro-brew beer in the past 4 days -- $20 on Grolsch swing-tops (that I emptied in one night) and $30 on New Belgium 6-packs (many, many of them) so that I have more pry-tops.

That being said, I've also spent about $700 on my fledgling brew setup in the past 2 months - this includes "hardware" like my JSP Maltmill or my conical, and also "software" like grain, commercial beer to drink + reuse the bottles, etc. My finances won't support much more expansion, so I need to get enough fermenters *now* so that I'm not too poor to buy them in a month.

As to the original question of "what do you need", I have a fairly complete list on my website (see link in sig), but it does not include small items such as a bottling wand, tubing, capper, caps, StarSan, hop bags, etc etc etc.

So, good luck to the newbie, hope you can get to brewing soon! It's a great addiction!

FatDuc · 11-09-2007, 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chriso

...
That being said, I've also spent about $700 on my fledgling brew setup in the past 2 months ...

Holy cow! I thought I spent alot at about $233 initial cost:

$60- Basic brewing setup (ale pails, etc)
$23.50- pricey carboy from LHBS
$15- cheap carboy from Old Time Pottery
$26-24count 22oz bottles
$28-beer ingredient kit from LHBS
$20- additives and yeast for Apfelwein
$12-5 gals appljuice
$25-wine thief and other accessories from AHBS
$4-floating thermometer
$16-enamel canning pot
$3.50-bigass SS spoon

**Chriso** · 11-09-2007, 10:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ma2brew

Holy cow! I thought I spent alot at about $233 initial cost:
..........

Okay, now you've got me motivated, I've never tallied it "officially" before.

Turkey Fryer Kit (FYI, Bayou Classic w/ 7.5gal S/S kettle, found on Amazon)- $100 SHIPPED
3 Ale Pails - $45
6.5gal MiniBrew - $160 SHIPPED
JSP Maltmill - $145
Phil's Counter-Flow Chiller - $45
Misc Hardware (Ball Valves, PVC) - $40
2 Igloo coolers for mash tuns - FREE!
Capper, Caps, Filler, Tubing, StarSan - $35 ish
Thermom's and Timer - $25
Misc Receipts from LHBS - mostly grain, i think? - $60
Strainer from restaurant supply store - $5
Juice and supplies for Apfelwein - $30
2 cases of 24-12oz bottles - $28

Comes out to around $715 - add about $50 for "filled" bottles, soon emptied, from the liquor store... heh...

For the benefit of the original post, here are a bunch of "little crap" that are a huge help to have around (that you often don't even realize you need!):
(Some of these items only pertain to All-Grain, sorry.)
- Extra rags
- Tube clamps (shutoff clamps)
- Sharpie markers
- Scale capable of measuring less than 1 ounce (for hops) and greater than 1 pound (for grains)
- Spare containers to put stuff in - I use cottage cheese containers or yogurt containers - Great for using w/ scales.
- Extra 1/2" hose clamps, Just In Case one of your hoses is misbehaving and (hopefully not) spraying hot wort all over.
- Spare buckets - for sanitizer, water, rags, hoses, whatever.
- GOOD measuring pitcher - trust me, the Dollar Store is NOT a good place to shop for this one! Doubles for vorlaufing before you sparge at the end of your mash.
- Extra ziploc baggies, for splitting up partial amt's of hops
- Something to keep your grain cool and dry when not being used! (I still haven't found this special "something"!!)
....and of course,
- A few cold homebrews for while YOU brew!

By the way, our LHBS is about $32 for glass carboys in the 6-ish gal range, so by our standards, you got a good deal. I wanted to invest in Better Bottles, but they come out to about $40 a piece here.

----------

OH - I completely neglected your second original question, what STYLES are forgiving for newbies like us to brew!

My first batch was a 10B - Northern Brown Ale. I just got my results back from the competition I brewed it for (21 entrants) and I placed 13th with a score of 34 ("Very Good" rank) - the lowest in the top 10 was a 37, so I was SO CLOSE!

My second batch was a 15B - Brown Porter, and it seems to have come out well too, it's too new to try yet, it needs to condition in the bottle for another 2 or 3 weeks for carb'ing.

Tomorrow I'm brewing Cheesefood's CVCA (Linky!) and can't wait!!!!

janzik · 11-09-2007, 11:23 PM

I appreciate the tenacity. I've only been brewing for 2 or 3 months and will be making my 7th batch tomorrow morning (with the a few week break between batch #1 and 2 and the remainder being almost back to back). I currently have the following equipment:

1 primary bucket
1 bottling bucket (with spigot)
2 6 gallon carboys
(enough stoppers and airlocks to kill a horse)
An 8 gallon SS brew pot
Thermometor (why can't I spell that), Hydrometer, auto-siphon, spoon, etc...

This allows me to run batches back to back w/o much problem. At first I was running like clockwork with my batches (1 week in primary, 2 week in secondary, then to bottle) But It's been going longer than their respective periods of time. So right now I have something in my primary that I don't plan on taking out until Sunday or Monday. I have something in one of my secondary carboys and an empty carboy (plus an empty wine carboy or two). So I may run tomorrows batch in the spare carboy, or I may just do it in my bottling bucket, not sure...

Either way, you can be enthusiastic (which I think I am), and not have to go too crazy with equipment. I think at first it may be silly to do more than one batch a week (I'm only saying that because I just haven't yet

) Good luck and welcome aboard! (Woo, I'm not the newest noob!)