My brewing career thus far

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AleHole

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
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Location
Seattle
December 25 2006, recieve a basic brew kit. eg: 5 gallon bucket, bottling bucket, wing capper, hydrometer,ect.

December 27 2006, brew first extract batch with no hop additions or grain steeping on stove top. Although drinkable not the best beer out there.

January 11 2007, Brew second extract batch a SNPA clone. First grain steeping experience and hop additions. Beer was f-ckn great! WOW this is cool

January 24 2007, Brew third extract batch. Black Butte Porter clone. Still bottle conditioning but cracked one yesterday. MMMMM beer.

February 7 2007, Brew 4th and final extract/grain batch. Victory IPA beer kit given to me by my dad and brother. Still bottle conditioning.

February 21 2007, Fist All Grain batch using the batch sparge technique. Although a bit intimidated I jumped in (with the help of my brother) feet first. The batch went great hitting all my numbers and 75% efficiency. Dry hopping in the secondary now.

February 28 2007, Brew (if you can call it that ) 5 gallons of Ed's Apfelwein.

March 8 2007, Brew second All Grain batch, Denny's Rye IPA. Hit all the numbers but ended up approx half gallon short.

Its been 11 weeks and 6 (7 if you count Apfelwein) batches. 4 extract batches and now 2 AG batches. In addition to my original beer kit I now have 2 keggles, a 5 gallon SS brew pot, a Banjo burner, a 50' immersion wort chiller, an O2 system, 1 6 gallon BB, 2 5 gallon glass carboys, converted cooler,a little cache of hops and varius adjuncts, as well as a bunch of little brewing accessories that would take me a while to list.

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone on this board that has helped me and answered my various noob questions
:mug:
 
Well hopefully I am carefull enough to avoid dropping a carboy at all. I plan on upgrading to all BB's in the near future anyway.
 
I thought this would be a cheaper alternative to buying my favorite microbrews but have spent more money on equipment than I probably would spend in a year on beer. I just can't wait until I break even, if thats even possible not factoring in equipment upgrades.

Also I posted this timeline as encouragement to go AG for the people that are always considering it but are intimidated. It really is easy.
 
AleHole said:
I thought this would be a cheaper alternative to buying my favorite microbrews but have spent more money on equipment than I probably would spend in a year on beer. I just can't wait until I break even, if thats even possible not factoring in equipment upgrades.

Also I posted this timeline as encouragement to go AG for the people that are always considering it but are intimidated. It really is easy.
It just occurred to me lately that I haven't walked down the beer/liquor aisle of the grocery store in about two months. So my "grocery" bill has certainly gone down.

Plus, since homebrewing, I drink exclusively...homebrew. No wine. No whiskey. No single malt scotch. No Vodka. No whiskey...I like whiskey.

I have to beleive that I'm starting to see a return on the investment and that I'm healthier too. Of course my investment is rather modest:
BrewSetup_a.jpg

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BrewSetup_d.jpg


I do fart a lot more now. :D
 
I need to get into kegging in a bad way. That looks pretty nice. Plus only one keg to clean and sanitize as opposed to 50 bottles!
 
AleHole said:
I need to get into kegging in a bad way. That looks pretty nice. Plus only one keg to clean and sanitize as opposed to 50 bottles!
Yep.

I hate cleaning bottles, though I still brew enough to bottle a lot. The kegs are for "my" drinking enjoyment. The bottles are public domain.

Hit my Sanyo link below and you can see how easy the setup was. I haven't gone to the trouble of building the tower yet, but my current setup still gives me fresh draft beer for the occasional sip.
 
Cleaning glass bottles suck! For that reason I don't use glass. I use PET quart bottles. They are easy to clean and sanitize. Going to the quart size is perfect. Less bottling, less cleaning even though its much easier. (no scrubbing - just rinsing)

I like the size because its perfect for 2 beers in my favorite 16oz mug. Perfect for splitting or having two. I can never have one. Not mention I tell SWMBO I'm only having one!!

I have a 28CUFT HB Fridge - For HB only. I haven't gone the keg route because one I'm too cheap and my fridge is in my unfinished basement. Not a place to entertain quite yet. This might be the incentive to do the the job!!!

Right now, I also don't drink often enough to warrant having kegs and I like having variety. Look at my sig. I would need a lot of kegs.

I have to convince myself its OK not to keg!!!! :D
 
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