Let's get small! (or) Apartment brewing processes!

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moviebrain

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I've got some fun brewing plans in store for myself in 2013, but wondered if maybe there was something more waiting in the wings.

I've been brewing for a little over 2 years in my 1000-ish sq. ft. apartment, making the journey from extract kits to making my own AG recipes. If, in 2013 while working my way through some BJCP styles I'm not familiar with, I made a few short videos or wrote up some articles on how I brew with limited space would that be something anyone on this board is interested in?

If you were interested, what kinds of things would you want to see? I'm in the middle of planning my brews for the first half of the year and figured I should budget in time and materials for whatever side projects I'm planning at the same time. This was going to be a fun project for me and the 7 people on my Google Plus beer circle. If more people are interested here, where the beer nerds gather, I thought I'd try to give a little back for all those years spent lurking.
 
I would, and I think it is a good idea to show newer people they they done HAVE to brew in 5 gal batches because that is what kits are.
 
My plan is to brew 5 gallon batches since AG can be quite a time sink but manage time and space in a space where a brewer may not have access to a garden hose for chilling via IC or plate chiller, or how to economize space when you need to brew on a porch that is 6' x 6', that kind of thing.

I could absolutely show small batch as well, if there is enough interest.
 
Austin Homebrew has 1 gallon starter kits on sale for $32 right now, which is pretty good for people starting off with limited space and a small budget.
 
I think its a good idea, but honestly, im doing all grain 5 gallon batches in my 650 sqft apartment without issue. All you need is a covered patio/deck. If you're brewing in an NYC studio apt, well, then disregard what I said.
 
I think it's a great idea. Everyone has to start somewhere, and most start on a stovetop. I think interesting points to hit on for small-space brewing would be: Storing fermenters, controlling temperatures, maximizing space. It's not brewing beer itself, but I think it could be quite informative.
 
All you need is a covered patio/deck. If you're brewing in an NYC studio apt, well, then disregard what I said.

Hell, you don't even need that:

IMG_20120502_172328.jpg


I use bar stools for a lot of my operations. :)
 
I use two 3 gallon pots to mash in the oven. I lauter in a bottling bucket with a copper manifold. Then I boil the wort in the same 3 gallon pots. I cool as much as I can in the bathtub then cool some more in the refrigerator.

I ferment exclusively in glass carboys, which live in the laundry closet with my bicycle. I control the temperature using the frozen bottle method in a big rope handle tub.

I use the dishwasher both as a bottling tree and a catch basin to bottle over. I bottle condition in the pantry.

I love doing this in the air conditioning in the six months we call summer. It costs me $1.50 extra for electricity on brew day, even with the additional AC load.

I suppose I could buy a couple grand worth of new toys and use ten bucks worth of propane outside, but I like to do it indoors drinking a beer and watching television.

How does everybody else do it?
 
It sounds like there is interest, so I'm going to go ahead and plan out some sessions. My personal experience with apartment brewing is in a single bedroom, 3rd floor apartment in Chicago. I can't just take my mash tun out back and hose it out, getting 40# of ice to recirculate in my immersion chiller is a pain to haul up 3 flights of stairs (high tap water temps) as is 10+ gallons of water if I want a very soft water profile for a given beer style.

It won't be for everyone. However, every time I thought I had my process perfected I'd visit a friend who brews in a different space, read an article, or watched a video that gave me some idea how to tweak, improve, or streamline my own process.

That is what I'd like to do, show the process in as many ways as possible. At a certain point you've read all the books and max out the amount of raw data you know about brewing and all that is left is to try it and teach what you know to others. I'll be brewing, brewing with friends, talking to whoever I can at the LHBS and see what others are doing.

If you'd like to join me in this journey, cool. If not, maybe you can contribute and show me where I've gone wrong along the way :)
 
I am in Atlanta now, but I will be moving up to NYC in about 6 months. I definitely worry about space, but I figure if I have a stove to boil on and a closet to stick my fermenters in, then I will be ok. Maybe one day I can make a keezer that is pretty enough for my wife to let me display it in the living room.
 
I find the hardest part about brewing in a small apartment (in NYC, doing 5 -6 gal AG batches in about 500 sq ft apartment with no patio/outside access) is finding the space to store all my bottles and equipment. That's where it's really time to get creative.
 
If you have access to a deck or patio, then you can easily do anything. I do 90% of my brew in my kitchen, with the boil on my small 5'x5' deck.

Could easily step it up to 10 if I wanted to replace my equipment, but I don't. IMHO, being able to full boil makes all the difference. I mash in my kitchen and put my pot on the ground, MT on a chair, and HLT on top of the microwave on the counter. Works beautifully. I use a submersible pump in a bucket of cold water, pump it through my plate chiller to cool and gravity feed into my buckets. Have an old mini-fridge setup as fermentation chamber that sits in kitchen. Done and done.
 
If I can brew AG 5 gallon batches inside in a NYC apartment, anybody can. My mash tun doubles as a plant stand and I have a small closet/underneath the bed to store bottles and equipment.
 
Wynne-R said:
I use two 3 gallon pots to mash in the oven. I lauter in a bottling bucket with a copper manifold. Then I boil the wort in the same 3 gallon pots. I cool as much as I can in the bathtub then cool some more in the refrigerator.

I ferment exclusively in glass carboys, which live in the laundry closet with my bicycle. I control the temperature using the frozen bottle method in a big rope handle tub.

I use the dishwasher both as a bottling tree and a catch basin to bottle over. I bottle condition in the pantry.

I love doing this in the air conditioning in the six months we call summer. It costs me $1.50 extra for electricity on brew day, even with the additional AC load.

I suppose I could buy a couple grand worth of new toys and use ten bucks worth of propane outside, but I like to do it indoors drinking a beer and watching television.

How does everybody else do it?

That's awesome there is other people out there like me! Right on.
 
It sounds like there is interest, so I'm going to go ahead and plan out some sessions. My personal experience with apartment brewing is in a single bedroom, 3rd floor apartment in Chicago. I can't just take my mash tun out back and hose it out, getting 40# of ice to recirculate in my immersion chiller is a pain to haul up 3 flights of stairs (high tap water temps) as is 10+ gallons of water if I want a very soft water profile for a given beer style.

It won't be for everyone. However, every time I thought I had my process perfected I'd visit a friend who brews in a different space, read an article, or watched a video that gave me some idea how to tweak, improve, or streamline my own process.

That is what I'd like to do, show the process in as many ways as possible. At a certain point you've read all the books and max out the amount of raw data you know about brewing and all that is left is to try it and teach what you know to others. I'll be brewing, brewing with friends, talking to whoever I can at the LHBS and see what others are doing.

If you'd like to join me in this journey, cool. If not, maybe you can contribute and show me where I've gone wrong along the way :)

Hell, I started in my kitchen and will be doing my first outside/garage brew when I move Saturday. (What a way to mark the occassion, right?) But I still want to watch these videos to see some tips and tricks.
 
I'm brewing in my small montreal apartment but have a nice covered balcony/patio where I'm planning on doing my AG batches. Don't see a problem with it yet, but also would be pretty interested in anything you put out. Always good to see how others manage it.
 
another one who lives in a city apartment and brews "full size" 20 liter batches. i rarely use my little deck (dutch weather being what it is), pretty much always brew in the kitchen. i have half of a small laundry room for all my storage, and anything that is finishing fermenting at room temp, and starters grow there. small kegerator/fridge with 2 taps, and an assortment of 6 or 7 kegs, including 2x 10L ones. the empty ones stack up in the corner next to the aging sours and ciders and empty glassware. i don't own a full size carboy, lots of 5L, a 10L, 12.5L, and a 30L bucket for the rare non temp-controlled brew. it's a tiny space, cramped, and there's a lot going on. i (and obliviousbrew who posted above!) use a speidel braumeister all-in-one rims system, expensive but great for its small footprint. i have a folding workbench that goes up in the kitchen, holds first the corona mill then the rims kettle. and i cool off the kitchen sink tap. a few dirty towels on the floor to make sure the floor stays relatively clean. i know people who brew all grain in 30 liter crock pot type electric thinges in the kitchen; mash in there, run off to a bucket, clean the pot, boil in the same pot. i know it's not as fun as building you own amazing 3 vessel system but you can make great brews with it. i ferment under the stairs on a homemade stand alone peltier-tec heater/cooler in a corny keg, computer controlled temp, can ferment with pressure and transfer under pressure if i want, etc. everything not in use stacks up on shelves above my crates of empty and full bottles, next to crates of grains, and i have 1 drawer in the freezer that nobody is allowed into. on brewday i spread out and claim 1/2 the kitchen, but when it's all put away the footprint is small.
 
Brewing indoors is just so relaxing and worry free. I started indoors and just don't want to make the jump, especially with New England weather and all. Its always nice to know I can brew whenever I want
 
I'd be interested. I've graduated from the stovetop to an outdoor burner, but I might have to move into an apartment soon. So the difficulty would be going back indoors to the stove and integrating my gear. Perhaps something on making a portable e-keggle (i think my favorite piece of equipment so far is the keggle). Sounds like a great idea, and good luck!
 
I live in a small house but I brew like I live in a tiny apartment. I do 5 gallon hybrid BIAB batches on the stove and "keg" everything in 2l soda bottles for my DIY beer engine. I just keep some extra bottles around and everything gets tossed in a closet. Brew days take 4 hours and bottling takes 45 minutes. It's great!
 
I am a small-apartment brewer now, though I once had a 20-gallon-per-hours homebuilt 2-tier set up. I miss the set up, don't miss the girlfriend that came along with it. So now I brew in the apartment.

Winter is the best. Firing up 5-10 gallons of wort really warms the place up. I go outside to dump grains, come inside, and my glasses fog up! I'm paying for heat either way. Why not get beer out of the deal?

My footprint is huge though.. it's only ok because I'm a single guy living alone. But a gf comes over and she doesn't know what to think. 12 cornies, 6 carboys, ~650 sqft, you figure it out. But cornies stack up 3-tall. 5 gallon buckets nest together. You can make it work. The grain mill occupies a high shelf when not in use and I can't live without a cordless drill regardless. Separating my stuff into "bottling supplies", "kegging supplies", "fermentation supplies", and "brewing supplies" means that 75% of my gear can remain tucked away on any given day. It's easier to buy duplicates of little stuff than to pull out a massive box of stuff and splay it all out each time you do something beer-related. And you then have some backup supplies if you run out. And yeah, I even keep 2 sacks of malt laying around. I call them "conversation pieces".

I have tried BIAB several times, but I generally prefer the 5 gallon MLT. In fact, I've been contemplating going to 10 gallons. However, I'll sometimes opt for BIAB when the grain bill permits it, such as for my 3.8% Hefeweizen.

I chill in the bathtub still. I have water hookups for a washer. I could go back to my CFC, but I don't like the idea of the hassle and when you split your wort into two 3 gallon kettles, it cools really quickly in a tub of cold water.

Lately, it's been my yeast-ranching activities that have had to be reined in. A stirplate, 3 flasks, test tubes, etc... and no good place to put them. And that doesn't even take into account the fact that my other hobbies are motorcycling (lots of gear), playing guitar (have a small recording area), electronics (have a soldering station and a few projects going most of the time), tons of books, and I love to cook!
 
dinnerstick said:
??
curiosity piqued

The "alebox". It looks so hillbilly, I know, but its the perfect size for a 2l bottle. The bottle inside is connected to the hand pump by 3/8" beer line. The beer isn't replaced by air so it doesn't spoil fast like an actual cask. My plan is to build a nicely finished box at some point but this is what i had sitting around.

PM me if you want to know more about it or how exactly I made it.

image-4284900604.jpg
 
The "alebox". It looks so hillbilly, I know, but its the perfect size for a 2l bottle. The bottle inside is connected to the hand pump by 3/8" beer line. The beer isn't replaced by air so it doesn't spoil fast like an actual cask. My plan is to build a nicely finished box at some point but this is what i had sitting around.

PM me if you want to know more about it or how exactly I made it.

I am gonna guess that the inside is not rusted like the outside? Some sand paper and a can of spray paint do wonders :D
 
biohaz7331 said:
I am gonna guess that the inside is not rusted like the outside? Some sand paper and a can of spray paint do wonders :D

You would be correct there. It's not pretty but it works, just like me! :)

For the topic, I brewed a stout for a friend yesterday who wanted to help and see the all grain process. He's a full volume extract brewer who has a garage and a basement full of redundant gear and whatnot. He was amazed when he saw how little room my setup took up.
 
You guys have some awesome tweaks to your setups! I'm amazed how necessity being the mother of invention is renewed every day with homebrewers.

Someday I'll look into a beer engine. My end of 2012 project is going to be shoehorning a Kenmore 8.8 ft^3 keezer where my 5.0 GE once stood. The GE simply has picnic taps inside, the new one is getting a collar and 4-5 perlicks!

The smaller chest freezer will be repurposed as an ice maker and sometimes lager fermentation chamber.
 
RCBIV said:
I think it's a great idea. Everyone has to start somewhere, and most start on a stovetop. I think interesting points to hit on for small-space brewing would be: Storing fermenters, controlling temperatures, maximizing space. It's not brewing beer itself, but I think it could be quite informative.

You hit the nail on the head. I have too many hobbies and a wife. Some examples of maximizing my allowed area from SWMBO and temp control would be useful.
 
I brew in a 650sq ft apartment doing 5g batches with two 16qt stock pots on an electric stove. I brew all grain and mill my grain myself.

For fermentation I wheel the carboys down into our storage locker in the parkade downstairs with a dolly. Much cooler down there anyway. I've got 4 carboys sitting down there conditioning.

I've got a keezer that holds 4 cornies in here as well.

Apartment brewing really isn't that bad. You learn to utilize the space that you have. Sanitation is easy as the kitchen is usually very clean.
 
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