continuous brewing

Hi I am starting homebrewing very soon and I have a question. I want to make sure that I always have beer in my fridge, and was wondering how long should I wait before I start my next batch after the first one is finished, and should I have two sets of bottles rather than just one. I would like to get on a routine so I never run out of beer!!

Oh and I was also thinking about the posibility of one primary fermenter, and two secondary fermenters. tell me what you guys think of that idea

The answer to that is easy. You should start your next brew now. Most beer benefits from some aging, and it is typical for new brewers to drink their batches before they hit their prime because it is the only beer to drink, and it is usually pretty good.

If you have a batch or two well conditioned, it is easier to wait for the new batch to properly condition.

As to how many sets of bottles you need, I would say two is required, three is better. I brew with moderate freqeuncy and have 7 kegs. (1 keg = 1 batch)

It also depends on your consumtion frequency. If you don't drink much, it is pretty easy to brew up three batches in a short period of time, and then brew a new batch as soon as a set of bottles are free. If you drink frequently, you are going to need a lot of bottles and should brew a lot initially to get a good stock pile.

One primary and two secondaries is a pretty good start.

pivot676 said:

Oh and I was also thinking about the posibility of one primary fermenter, and two secondary fermenters. tell me what you guys think of that idea

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Two secondaries come in real handy when your dealing with stuff that is aged, such as a barley wine which can age up to 12 months, or even stuff as common as lagers where you have a cool fermentation and a cold aging (lagering). If all your doing off the bat though, are say, Irish Reds, Porters, Cream Ale, Alt, and other things your kit says takes 5-6 weeks I don't see where two secondaries would be a serious advantage, and it's these types of kits most newbies (like myself) try. Generally speaking if your kit says "ready in six weeks" you can estimate ahead of time: two weeks in primary, two in secondary, two in the bottles, but remember, most beers improve with age up until a certain point. Always check your gravity with a hydrometer that it stable for several days before bottling.

Bill

I have three primaries(4 if you count the 3G carboy dedicated to Apfelwien(sp?)). I generally don't secondary my ales, but I have one planned that I want to age a few months so I'll probably use a keg as a secondary to age it in. The quantity of my bottle inventory varies as I give away beers and or acquire more bottles that previously held commercial beers. I probably have enough bottles to have about seven 5 gallon batches bottled. I have purchased most of the hardware for my kegerator and 10 kegs. I will also be getting a 15 gallon kettle so I can move up to 10 G batches. Once I start kegging I'll probably still bottle certain beers that I don't drink in high volume.

I have 2 plastic buckets and 1 glass carboy. Any of which can be a primary or secondary. ! have 2 cases each o 22oz and 12 oz, one case each of 16 oz and 20 oz, and 2 mini kegs.

Still loking for more kegs and bottles.

Currently I have beer in both plastic buckets.

I would say that if you brew for the first time and enjoy the process you should brew again as quickly as possible. If you like the process you will want to brew again, and your beer will taste pretty good, and then it will be gone before you know it.

I try to keep two batches in bottles and one in the fermentor at all times. I don't use a secondary but have two plastic buckets and at least one of them is wet all of the time. It takes a month to brew a batch from start to the point where it's fit to drink.

Tom

Well, this is merely a question of mathematics - but we need more data to input.

Lets say it takes about 40 days from stove to mouth. But we have no idea how much beer your drink on a weekely basis. This tends to vary widely from brewer to brewer.

With those inputs, we can help you dial in equipment needs and your required brewing schedule.

I have three ale pails, three 6 gallon carboys, two 5 gallon carboys, a wine pail, a 3 gallon glass carboy, and 14 corny kegs. Oh, and I just bought two Homer buckets a few weeks ago with lids to use for fermenting experimental one gallon wine batches, and am secondarying those in 1 gallon apple juice bottles.

Short answer: you can't brew too much.

I'm using a 3 carboy system. Two big ones and one secondary. Then I have normally 2 batches carbing so NORMALLY at any one time I have 5 batches in the works.

THEN - I have learned that beer REALLY tastes better with at least 4 months of aging so I put 2-3 six packs into the 6 month corner and SLOWLY drink the others while augmenting with store purchased micro brews to make sure there is nothing out there new and outstanding.

Regular trips to AA on weekends is helping .

You're going to finish your first batch way quicker than your second. Just keep that in mind when trying to figure out a good timeline. I brewed my first, which went very quickly (i was excited, as were friends) so I quickly brewed several more batches in rapid succession and I ended up with a beer surplus.

I'm probably in the same boat as Dougan with surplus (basically brewed/brewing 35 gallons right off the bat).

Someone mentioned probably the best way to figure this out.

Assume 50-60 (2 months) days to make a batch and have it decently carbed/aged. Find your monthly beer consumption with your first batch (which will probably be higher than normal), add an extra 50%-100% depending on how liberal you are in sharing with friends (or not). Once you know a rough estimate of your consumption simply scale your brewing to meet that quota every 2 months. 2-3 fermenters would probably be more than enough.


Biggest issue you'll run into is regardless of pipeline, you're prolly gonna want to have a few different kinds of beer on hand. So in a sense, it becomes kinda moot unless it's just a specific beer you love and don't want to wait a little to have another.

Start your 2nd beer right now. Best advice I received on here. That 6 weeks from start to "almost ready to drink" is a long road. Then when you find out that some of your beers are hitting their peak 3 or 4 months out, you'll really want to get that pipeline full. Ask me how I know. I've got 4 primaries full at the moment, and am ready with the next 4 beers as soon as I get these in to the bottle. Of course, my friends and neighbors are doing some serious damage, but I'm glad they are enjoying them. With summer coming up, I suspect they'll be consuming more.

As for a secondary, maybe when it comes time to make some lagers or if I want to do some dry hopping... but for ales, I haven't bothered. 3-4 weeks in primary, and off to the bottles.

3 primaries is adequate, but I'm pretty sure I'll have a fourth before too long....

I brewed 5 batches before the first one finished, and I wished I'd done 1-2 more. I have 3 primary buckets and 2 5-gallon carboys that act as primaries for apfelwein or secondaries for beer. I also have 5 small (1-gallon) PET bottles that are good for yeast starters or split-batch experiments--the cheapest and easiest way to get those is buy the apple juice for your first apfelwein in either PET or glass 1-gallon containers.

thanks for all the good advice boys, much appriciated. And I can definitely see myself drinking a hell of a lot. Im going into my 2nd year of university so thats pretty much all of what my friends do these days. haha. but what would be better, to have more primarys or more secondarys. i still havent figured this part out yet.

I would go with more primaries. There are folks on here to rack to secondary. I have found that 3 - 4 weeks in primary clears up my beer really well and it is less chance of infection in the beer.

Right now, I am keeping a steady 4 carboys going at the same time. We had a classmate who also brewed his own beer while we were in college. Best parties EVER!!!

Brew more. Brew now. Brew often. Drink as needed to empty bottles.

If you start getting into lagers, fruits, etc that definitely call for the use of secondaries, I find it helpful to keep a little calendar of when mine will be free and when I expect primary to move to secondary. Hate to have a nice Urquell ready to lager and no vessel ready for it....

most brewers find that the majic/perfect number of carboys is all ways on hand +1.

VTBrewer said:

If you start getting into lagers, fruits, etc that definitely call for the use of secondaries, I find it helpful to keep a little calendar of when mine will be free and when I expect primary to move to secondary. Hate to have a nice Urquell ready to lager and no vessel ready for it....

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This makes much sense, although complex brewing isn't necessarily the only reason to be organized.

You may also want to keep a notebook which can then also serve as a calendar. That will help you remember how you brewed in case you like a recipe a lot and want to modify it later. It will then also have your brew dates that will determine when you can bottle/keg, hence freeing up a carboy or ale pail.

There is always more to buy. There is always some other gadget (read toy) that you can use to tinker with your brew process and the volume of beer you can produce. That part never ends, at least not for me. Start small and add pieces as you see the need arise or as you can afford them.