What would you do? Apartment AG brewing.

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phenry

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So my new roommates (mostly BMC drinkers surprisingly) have developed a taste for my homebrew, so much that they want it on tap at all times. I do my brewing at my parent's house right now, they live about an hour away but have plenty of room now that my brother and I are in college. I live in an upstairs loft with plenty of room for my equipment and fermenters, but I'd be doing the brewing outside since I don't want to die of CO asphyxiation. Now here's where I have the predicament: we live downtown on a semi-busy street, so it's not like I have a front yard or driveway to brew on. I have the following options:

1) Brew on sidewalk. For cooling I'd either have to carry the hot wort up a flight of stairs and into our kitchen to put our wort chiller in, or get a super duper long hose rig that runs from our kitchen to the sidewalk. Also, it's a somewhat busy sidewalk and it might not be appreciated that I'm taking up so much space out there.

2) Brew on the roof. We can climb through a window from our kitchen onto the roof (technically frowned upon, but we do it "occasionally" and nothing bad happens), and I could brew out there out of sight and be close enough to a sink for a regular hose to reach the brew kettle, so getting the wort back inside wouldn't be so dangerous.

3) Brew at my friends' house. She lives a few blocks from campus in a quiet part of town, but the only bad thing I could see from this is being an annoyance since I'd be brewing quite frequently (I live with 9 other guys, and there's only one of us who doesn't drink. You can imagine how fast we'd go through 5 gallons). I'm sure supplying her and her roommates with a pretty constant supply of beer would ease things over, but I really don't want to turn into "that guy".

4) Go electric and brew inside. This would pretty much be over my head right now with equipment costs, but if I did this I'd probably just go straight to 10 gallon batches.

So which option would you go for? Also, if anybody has any other suggestions I'm all ears.
 
1. If it's a city sidewalk, I think that would be a no go. I wouldn't want to risk that.
2. The roof thing could work if your willing to risk it. If the apartment manager found out what you were going up there I'm sure he would not approve.
3. 9 guys, your right...5 gallons will not last and you will be over there all the time just to keep up with the demand.
4. Sounds like the best option if you can come up with a way to afford it. I've never looked into electric so I'm not sure of the costs. I'm hoping that your roommates are pitching in on the cost if they are going to be drinking it. Maybe you could price it out and split up the cost between all you guys? Seems like that way could be reasonable on all your wallets.
 
One other thought. I'm not sure of the costs/legal aspects, but I've heard of guys setting up shop in storage units. With the monthly costs though I would rather spend it up front and go electric and get those 10 gallon batches going!
 
I've done 1,2 and 3 in my loft, plus doing stovetop brewing, including doing 5 gallon AG batches by boiling 3.5 preboil down to 2.5 gallons and topping odd with 2.5 gallons of water.

OF the 3 you mention, I prefer to do #3- I do brew a lot at friend's places. But I have a lot of friends (through here mostly) who are brewers, and we do group brews. Usually we all bring samples of our work, and we all chip in for pizza or something. Sometimes if it's just one buddy I'll bring some steaks or something over and we'll make a day out of it.

Sidewalk brewing in an urban setting is not really condusive, and probably illegal in some stupid way. The roof top is hit or miss, if the landlord or someone caught you having a propane setup on the roof.
 
I've done 1,2 and 3 in my loft, plus doing stovetop brewing, including doing 5 gallon AG batches by boiling 3.5 preboil down to 2.5 gallons and topping odd with 2.5 gallons of water.

Ding ding ding I think we may have a winner. I remember reading about topping off partial AG boils on here (it may have even been you talking about it Revvy), and I think this would probably be the best option, since I'd be able to keep my regular brewing equipment at my parent's. Do you use the same water for topping off as you do brewing, or do you use distilled, etc?

And don't worry, we're splitting the cost of each batch. As much as I love sharing my homebrew, I don't love being poor from sharing too much.
 
i believe that for MOST households it is 200 gallons, but technically I think it is 100 gallons per adult of age that is allowed.

as for the brewing, roof+heat+melt='hello attic!'
sounds like you need a big system, a CO monitor, 8 other "investors", and a happy indoor brewery.
 
If you have access to two 20 amp 120v circuits, electric brewing is not that expensive. Build a couple of heatsticks, make sure the outlets you use are equipped with GFCI, and you are in business.

Sure, you have to control it manually, but you are doing that now with gas.

(You're a bunch of frakkin' engineers, that should be no sweat)

:mug:
 
I do 5 gallon full boil all brain batches on my electric stove ion my kitchen with no problems at all. You really don't need a propane burner or a heat stick. Even with the extra time it takes to heat and boil water, I can do a batch in four hours flat - that is if I forgo my glaucoma medication:cross:
 
Thanks for that link. Going electric on the cheap-ish is looking more and more realistic, but for right now I think I'll do the top off method until I get a hold of some ingredient donations from my roommates.
 
I agree with others, the heat-stick method is the way to go... I started brewing when I lived in a 14th floor condo just outside of D.C. I had a gas stove that would bring a 5 gallon AG batch to a boil but it would take over an hour and the boil was weak... SO I built a heat-stick to supplement the stove... We didn't have GFCI outlets so I picked up a GFCI accessory plug at Home Depot that can be used with any device. I actually just used my heat-stick again the other day during my latest brew, I undershot my target mash temp and used the heat-stick to get up to the right temp.....
 
I haven't seen you mention much about the time considerations involved here. Considering how much beer 9 college boys can drink, it makes sense to think critically about the time you will be investing in this venture. Will they be helping out on brew days or will they be drinking the suds while you brew? How many batches a month can you do and still enjoy it? At what point does it become a part-time job?

I'm not saying you shouldn't do this, becuause it could be a lot of fun. Just saying, consider a scenario in which you brew occasionally, just for fun, but the major beer supply is purchased BMC. The costs could be lower both in terms of pints per dollar and in study time.
 
I haven't seen you mention much about the time considerations involved here. Considering how much beer 9 college boys can drink, it makes sense to think critically about the time you will be investing in this venture. Will they be helping out on brew days or will they be drinking the suds while you brew? How many batches a month can you do and still enjoy it? At what point does it become a part-time job?

I'm not saying you shouldn't do this, becuause it could be a lot of fun. Just saying, consider a scenario in which you brew occasionally, just for fun, but the major beer supply is purchased BMC. The costs could be lower both in terms of pints per dollar and in study time.

Don't worry, I'm not going to become their mandatory beer b*tch. I'm looking at getting a keggle to do 10 gallon batches (thank goodness I went with a 10 gallon cooler for my mash tun) so that way it will be more product for just about as much time. I'm hoping I'll be able to teach them how to brew so it'll be a completely combined brewing effort in time.

Also, I'm kinda looking forward to brewing a bunch of batches. It's kind of a pipe dream of mine to start up a micro, but I know if I can't handle fulfilling the demands of my roommates, pro brewing definitely isn't in my future.
 
Option 4. Get a 8-10 gallon pot that fits on the stove. Build a heat stick, you'll only need about 1500watts. Between the heatstick and the stove, you should have NO problem with 5-6 gallon batches. I brewed all grain in my 2nd story condo kitchen.

I use an igloo cooler as a mash tun. That simply sat on the counter. I use an 8 gallon aluminum pot for strike water, sparge water, and as a boil kettle. My stove was able to bring that to a boil. Then I used the kitchen faucet as the water source for my chiller. When the tap water gets hot in the summer, I put a pre-chiller in the sink, and fill the sink with ice water. No problem.

With all that said, my best friend recently got into brewing, and it's 100x easier to brew on his back porch. Propane makes the process much quicker, and clean up is quicker because things can be hosed off.
 

This is definitely the way to go (IMHO).

I also live in an apartment and this is the process I use. The only difference in my process is that I use two 7.5 gal kettles (see below). Depending on the strength of your stove, it is more than likely you will end up having to add a bit of water at the end of your boil if you are doing 5.5 gal batches. My next step will be to build a 20 gal electric Boil Kettle (like this one) to overcome the boil volume limitations of my stove.

DSC_0034.JPG
 
What about a hot water tank build
Old ones are usually free here and its not much work to cut the top off and removing the thermostat

additional heating elements seem pretty cheap too
 
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