Apartment Brewing, Is It Possible?

I'm looking for an honest answer on how plausible it is to brew in an apartment.

I live in a 1000 square foot, one bedroom/bath apartment with no balcony. I've had my eye on home brewing for two years now and with my birthday right around the corner I know what I want... but I'm wondering how realistic it is and if I need to wait till I get one of those grown up homes.

I'm thinking of using my very small laundry room, it has room for a carboy or two but that's about it (but then there's the whole thing about the heat off the dryer and how it might ruin the fermentation process). So realistically, is it possible to brew in an apartment... and if I do, is my entire place going to smell like a brew-pub? (I don't mind, but I know my wife will.)

I've read through the forums and I know some people on here brew in their apartment, so any input on how and if I need to buy anything special to aid the whole process will be very helpful!

Thanks!

I just brewed my first batch in a 500 sq/ft apartment with a ridiculously small kitchen and "apartment" stove (1/2 the size of a normal stove). While it isn't ideal, there's no reason why you can't do it.

My place had a hint of beer smell while boiling the wort, but i kept my beer in a mini-fridge while fermenting and didn't smell anything.

I think my apartment is more like 800 sq feet, and it's tight, but possible. Layout has a lot to do with it, and what else you have going on. What works for one person won't work for all.

Answering strictly for myself......hell, no, I would never try to brew if I lived in a place that small. But do I think it's impossible? No, not really. It just means that you're going to have to be very thorough and thoughtful in your planning. It almost certainly means you'll have more work to do, because your processes and methods will be more fragmented, and there will be more "moving stuff around" to do.

I feel for you- I've got a basement and all the room I want to employ in a big garage, so as long as we live here I can brew just about any way I want.

i brew in an apartment, but have a small balcony and a decent amount of space.

it is more than doable. especially doing partial-boil extract batches. i started in a smaller place with no outdoor space and made it work just fine.

I'm an apartment brewer, in about 1100 sq ft. Obviously, I cook in my kitchen and I have a gas cooktop that puts out decent BTUs. I usually boil 3-gallons and top off with tap water. I ferment in my bedroom, just in a corner behind the door where it is dark and out of the way. I keep all my supplies and equipment in a closet and I store my beer while it is conditioning in bottles on the floor of my closet. I cool my wort in the pot in the bathtub with cold water.

So, quite possible. I wished I was back home and had a house and I would have more crap for sure. A wort chiller would be nice. A bigger sink to wash bottles would be nice. A keg setup would be nice. A refrigerator for temp control and to try lagers would be nice. A .... : )

Thanks guys! I've made up my mind, I'm going to give it a shot. You only live once and I do love my beer.

I heard of people using a mini-fridge for fermenting and I think it'll work best for me, especially since I'm trying to keep things from getting in the way and I'm really concerned about my laundry room being too warm.

One thing that I am lucky for having is a really large kitchen with a deep double sink.

Rico is right though, I will have a lot of moving around to do. But I guess it's a small price to pay.

abroch said:

I heard of people using a mini-fridge for fermenting and I think it'll work best for me, especially since I'm trying to keep things from getting in the way and I'm really concerned about my laundry room being too warm.

Click to expand...

The Haier NuCool is about the smallest footprint mini fridge I have found that is big enough for fermenting. I have two of them on a rack in the corner of our dining area. They work great for fermenting ales. The jury is still out if they have enough cooling power for lagering.

YES!

I brew in my apartment. I do partial boil, partial mash recipes mostly and I make really good beer. If you have room for a couple buckets, a pot and 50 beers, you can do it. I know people do all-grain apartment brewing, but for the amount of space I have, I'm happy.

I have a closet where I store all my equipment and conditioning brews. I used to ferment in my room (college apartment, who cares). Now I keep my carboys in the 2nd bathroom or in the closet. For temp control, a rubbermaid bucket with some water in it should suit you fine.

C4PNJ4ZZ said:

Now I keep my carboys in the 2nd bathroom or in the closet. For temp control, a rubbermaid bucket with some water in it should suit you fine.

Click to expand...

I've heard of people also using wet towels. How does the bucket work?

EvilGnome6 said:

The Haier NuCool is about the smallest footprint mini fridge I have found that is big enough for fermenting. I have two of them on a rack in the corner of our dining area. They work great for fermenting ales. The jury is still out if they have enough cooling power for lagering.

Click to expand...

Cool thanks, I would love to make lagers but that will come later. ;-) I would also love to try to make a pilsner (I am 50% Czech...)

The water works as a big heat capacitor. Just put your fermenters in the rubbermaid bucket and put some water in it. You can keep the water temp down by throwing some frozen 2L bottles of water in there. You can easily keep the water ~65F, so the beer shouldn't get much over 70F.

1000 sq feet is huge for a 1/1 apartment. If your kitchen is a decent size, you should be fine. I have a 3/1 house that is 988 sq ft and I have no problem at all brewing.

yup... all of mine are done in an apt

I should have done more research on everything that was involved when I first got the urge to give it a try... although I wouldn't have tried it in the 350sqft studio I was in, I probably would have went for it in my 600sqft 1/1.

Instead I waited until I moved into a 1,000sqft house with a large kitchen and spare bedroom and all that... I say GO FOR IT!! I wish I would have... I'm about 12 hours away from my VERY FIRST BREW.

I have a 900 sq ft apt with my fiancé. I usually brew 2-5gAllon Batches at once on my electric stove in full 4 and 5 gallon pots. When I just switched from gas to electric my boils actually got much better and more vigorous. You just need to be neat about it. I have a fermentation chamber to hold four brews worth. And heavy duty shelving with about 10-12 cases of beer conditioning and/or ready to drink. It's definitely possible! Don't let it stop you. Although if you ever move all you will be thinking about when looking at places is where your stuff will go. A good organizational system will go a long way!

You guys are living large. My apartment is 280 square feet. And yes, brewing in it works!

Would just like to add my 2 cents. My first brews were in an apartment, and now my wife and I are in our first apt, a 2bed2bath thing (I had a blissful couple of years in a townhouse, but ah well, those times are gone)...

The nicest thing is that it has a relatively small footprint. If you have a dedicated brew kettle, (ie one you aren't using for, like, soup or something very often), you can store all your ancillary equipment in there (bottle cappers, spoon, tubing, hydrometer, etc). So, when "idle" your entire brewery takes up the space of: 1 brew kettle. 1 carboy. 2 boxes of beer bottles, roughly. AND, you can keep the kettle on top of the beer bottles.

Temp can be an issue, but the towel works nicely.

Just keep SWMBO happy - the ONLY thing that cannot fit in a small apartment is a wife's anger.

With a kettle and a heatsick, I think I could brew in a coat closet. Assuming i had an electical outlet available.

Another 500sq Studio apartment brewer here...

I'd stick with mostly partial or extract brewing versus AG for the obvious restrictions

Brewing full size all-grain with a cooler, indoors:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/whos-brewing-08-08-08-ris-post-your-notes-here-49497/index2.html#post497306

Easy Stovetop All-grain

Easy Partial Mash Brewing

Sweet, I can read that partial-mash thread tonight for homework.

Also, I picked up the Homebrewing Companion (I think that's what it's called), and Papa Charlie mentions using a wire hanger for those of us with electric ranges as a way to keep the wort from scorching. I'm trying it out tonight, it is working like a charm so far. (Until I take the kettle off and find it's melted to the burner, I'm sure...)

I live in an apartment with a very small and cramped kitchen, and am able to do all grain brews.
It takes a little work, and I admit my 6 keg keggerator takes up some space in the living room, but I don't want to live without it.
Also need to point out this thread, very help full in me moving to all grain and full boils on a wimpy electric stove.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/improved-boiling-stovetop-53683/

Best of luck.

Cap'n Jewbeard said:

the ONLY thing that cannot fit in a small apartment is a wife's anger.

Click to expand...

Ain't that the truth. ;-) She's skeptical but she also likes to drink and I promised her the first thing I make will be a batch of hard cider.

I'm may be overly concerned here... but the one thing that's scaring me from leaping off the edge right now is controlling the fermentation temperature. I just see it being a problem in my apartment. We can't even keep the ac/heat at a stable temp bc of our temperamental central air unit.

@DeathBrewer. Your posts are awesome, thanks for sharing. I think I have enough info to do this right!

Nope it's not possible to brew while living in an apartment...that's why there are no threads with hints and tips in the "similar threads" box below. (HINT HINT)

None of us who live in apartments or lofts have ever managed to make ANY beer, we just sit here an lament that fact and troll the boards wishing upon a star that we could make beer like everyone else...none of us have ever been able to do all grain (small batch or full 5 gallon batches) in our tiny places with microscopic kitchens, and with very little storage. Nor have we been able to lager in our garage in winter, just using the natural ambient temps....

Nah....Ain't possible...gotta wait til you are a grown up home owner with a garage and lots of storage....we just gotta wait.

None of these pics that I've posted over the last few years living in my loft are real, I just photoshopped them.

This isn't really my "brew closet" in my living room, one of only two closets and three storage places that I have. Where I use velcro to hang my buckets and mashtun and stuff with.



Nor is this my temp controlled swamp "cooler" with frozen water bottles in the summer and an aquarium heater in the winter to maintain constant temps during fermentation.





I've never done 2.5 gallon all grain batches in my tiny galley kitchen using a mr beer keg and a 2gallon cooler as a mash ton, nor did I ever write up a primer on it here,







Nor have I ever filled a carboy in my kitchen and have cool starsan foam.





It's all lies, LIES I say, it can't be done...you might as well go collect stamps or something...Brewing beer in an apartment???? Are you high?????

(I'm being facetious dontja know. )

Yeah.....Have fun!!!

It has it's challenge...storage being the biggest one, but it CAN be done. I do about 70% of my brewing indoors, year round, in my kitchen....

I get the point. ;-)

To be fair I did search the board for "apartment" but my lazy butt didn't click past page one.

I really appreciate the help/input though... not being facetious here, it really is an inspiration!

Revvy=HBT Sarcasm of the Year Award winner, IMO.

the only real issue with apartment brewing is storage. The crappy stove you get used to, and everything else is about the same. Just find a closet or something that you can store everyting in (from full carboys to spare empty bottles) and you'll be fine.

Hey revvy thanks for the pics! I totally forgot that I have a Mr Beer kit sitting in the back of a closet. That shifty plastic keg hasn't been pulling its weight at all! Time to get it fermenting.

I need to scrounge through whatever grains and extracts I've got on hand to see if I can brew something up for it tonight.

weirdboy said:

Hey revvy thanks for the pics! I totally forgot that I have a Mr Beer kit sitting in the back of a closet. That shifty plastic keg hasn't been pulling its weight at all! Time to get it fermenting.

I need to scrounge through whatever grains and extracts I've got on hand to see if I can brew something up for it tonight.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it's great for 2.5 gallon AG batches....also if you are like me and only have one fridge and no room for a dedicated one for temp control, you CAN lager and/or cold crash in a normal fridge and still have room for food and more importantly beer.

I recently came across this company that sells kits specifically to make small 1 gallon batches for people who don't have a lot of space, I thought it was a pretty interesting idea

http://brooklynbrewshop.com/

One gallon... hmmmm now that's a thought, especially if I wanted to go all grain. Which I really want to do and from the looks of it, totally possible for an apartment dweller like myself.

Ok storage... I'm not concerned about the equipment, but I am concerned about maintaining a good fermentation temperature. But I guess there's only one way to find out if it's possible.

i lived in a 700 sq ft. house with a roommate and was totally able to make beer. I had fermentation going on beside my bed. I had all of my empty equipment in the dining/office space. And I had empty beer bottles in the laundry room. So it is possible.

abroch said:

One gallon... hmmmm now that's a thought, especially if I wanted to go all grain. Which I really want to do and from the looks of it, totally possible for an apartment dweller like myself.

Ok storage... I'm not concerned about the equipment, but I am concerned about maintaining a good fermentation temperature. But I guess there's only one way to find out if it's possible.

Click to expand...

As much as I am big on small batch brewing, a gallon (actually 3/4 of a gallon) is a lot of work for little payback unless you are making something like a barleywine where you will end up with only 4 bottles. Or trying to perfect a recipe before scaling it up, where you know you're going to be tweaking it through a few tests until you nail it. You will end up with only about a 6 pack of beer.

Most of my small batch brewing is of the 2.5-3 gallon AG batches, usually in the winter on my stovetop, using an unmodified 2 gallon cooler (which holds 4#'s of grain) or my regular 5 gallon cooler with braid, and either a mr beer keg, a 3 gallon better bottle or a 3 gallon water bottle.

I posted a lot of info in the mr beer thread, including recipes that you may find helpful.

The nice thing about doing 2.5 gallon recipes is that you can split any recipe for 5 gallons exactly in half (including hops) and brew it.

I posted some all grain small batchrecipes here, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/785533-post702.html

And a bit of a primer on AG with pics here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/738927-post659.html

Many of those I show in there were done with an unmodified 2 gallon cooler. But you can do a lot bigger beers with a 5 gallon one. And a 10.00 SS 5 (actually really a 4.5 gallon) gallon pot I got a Dollar general.

One thing that is invaluable for stovetop brewing of ANY kind is fermcap s foam inhibitor. You can have you kettle nearly filled to the brim with a rolling boil and not worry about boilovers.

Fermcap-S Foam Inhibitor- 1 oz. :: Midwest Supplies Homebrewing and Winemaking Supplies

abroch said:

One gallon... hmmmm now that's a thought, especially if I wanted to go all grain. Which I really want to do and from the looks of it, totally possible for an apartment dweller like myself.

Ok storage... I'm not concerned about the equipment, but I am concerned about maintaining a good fermentation temperature. But I guess there's only one way to find out if it's possible.

Click to expand...

AG is definitely possible in an apartment and depending on room you can do more than just one gallon. I am currently doing 2.5 gallon brews in my apartment. The hardest part is getting the wort to a boil on an apartment stove. I just finished up my first AG attempt on Saturday and it was a success.

Look up swamp cooler for fermentation temperture control. Revvy has pictures of one on the last page. Swamp coolers work fantastic. Mine is holding steady at 63F using just a Rubbermaid storage container, water, 4 frozen Coke bottles, and 2 towels. Works like a charm.

sp1365 said:

Look up swamp cooler for fermentation temperture control. Revvy has pictures of one on the last page. Swamp coolers work fantastic. Mine is holding steady at 63F using just a Rubbermaid storage container, water, 4 frozen Coke bottles, and 2 towels. Works like a charm.

Click to expand...

I just picked up for 1.00 at a garage sale this summer an aquarium pump and aquarium heater. In the winter my loft is pretty chilly especially during the day when I am gone because it costs and arm and a leg to heat. I am going to try using the heater to warm the water int he swamp bath and use the pump to move the warm water around the fermenters, so hopefully I can kepep the temp pretty consistent on in the mid to high 60's. I usually end up with somewhat sluggish starts brewing in the winter.

I have no idea how my apartment is going to act in the winter. I am in an apartment off campus and I have no idea how the heating in this building is. Unfortunately, I am guessing not that good so in a couple of months I will be trying to do precisely what you are going for Revvy.

As far as temp control: I just (on Saturday night) discovered something clever. I put my carboy inside a brew bucket, and dumped about gallon of water in the bucket. It makes an insulating layer of water about a half-inch thick all the way around the carboy, and the yeasties seem happy so far. (It's off and krausen-ing). I'll poke a thermometer into the water and see what it's doing for temp control.

Edit: Temp of the water is about 70F, apartment is about 75. So that's nice. If i needed to, I could add cold water twice a day, or something.

ice packs FTW