Former Home Brewer...On the fence about coming back.

Hello, I just discovered this place yesterday. I was a home brewer back in the late 80s/early 90s. I had a decent all stainless 1/2 barrel system with corny keg fermenters and a recirculating mash system. At the time, it was a decent setup, but now, you guys have gone to Star Trek technology. I did have a walk-in wine cellar with a Breezeaire chiller unit. I had a couple hundred bottles of wine but also enough room for my corny keg fermenters. We moved to a new home 5yrs ago and I basically gave away all my equipment in an ebay auction. I was thinking about starting up again with a grain/extract system. But after seeing all the fancy systems, I just may stick to buying my beer.

You only see all the fancy systems because seeing a pot, cooler and turkey burner like most of us have all the time gets redundant. Come back to the dark side

You do not NEED all that stuff to make great beer. The advances in knowledge and procedures will make better beer than you most likely were making 15-30 years ago, not the equipment. There are plenty of us brewing with minimal equipment, we just don't post it cause it's nothing to show off.

Come on back....you know you want to. And welcome to the forum.

Ain't nothing fancy about my system. It's ghetto all the way, far less than what you had previously, and works just fine. There's something to be said for simplicity.

You know you want to......

Jump right in! The water's fiiiiinnnnneeeeee.............

DO it, DO IT NOW!!! Get back to making the beer you drink!!!! You will never look back!Oh, did I mention DO IT?

Jenks829 said:

You know you want to......

Jump right in! The water's fiiiiinnnnneeeeee.............

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Water? There ain't no water around here.

JOHN51277 said:

DO it, DO IT NOW!!! Get back to making the beer you drink!!!! You will never look back!Oh, did I mention DO IT?

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<in AARRNNOOLLDD voice> I AM HE EAR!!!! DOOOOO IT!!! KILL MEEEE! KILLL MEEEEE NAOW! I AM HE EAR!!!

Equipment-anxiety is common in men. Have no fear! There are like 20 guys on here that have fancy rigs, so they show them off and tell the other 19,980 HBT members about it.

Many of us have setups like sheckys - a cooler, a propane burner, and a pot or two. Chuck in a glass or plastic fermentor or three, and that's mostly it. We've got lots of people working with way less. I did my first batch with nothing but a 5-gallon pot on my apartment kitchen stove. One of the best beers I've made, and I've since switched to AG and upgraded equipment.

Welcome back!

nothing fancy here



double mashing




ghetto measuring device

Fancier systems just gives opportunities for more stuff to break, back to basics is a good idea (My electric boil kettle broke last night so I had to do the boil in my HLT instead).

If I can make beer in my 600sq ft apartment anyone can........

Well, with all these positive waves, how can I lose? I even spotted these little 10 gallon cuties in my garage:

Welcome
Nice setup.

Hell, I'm even more ghetto than most of those above me- I only have a $10 sawhorse to hold my mash tun, and a burner that looks like it was hand-welded in the depression.

I brewed too in the late 80's/early 90's- I didn't even have a bottle filler, had to plug the hose with my finger when switching bottles. And I remember 90 cent/ounce hop prices. As equipment has gotten fancier, more people have figured out how to McGuyver stuff together. I have a $70 10 gallon pot, a $40 cooler with $20 in hardware for a mash tun, and a $20 5 gallon pot. That's all I need. You WILL wish you held onto your carboys, they don't make glass ones in the US anymore, and they're PRICEY. I still have the 5g glass carboy I bought in 1993.

When I started up again about a year ago, batch sparging and Home Depot mash tun conversions convinced me to go all grain. Haven't looked back since, except to remember sanitizing bottles in a shared college dorm bathtub.

One of us...one of us....

Welcome back!

I took 12+ years off before starting up again last summer. Coming back was the best idea I've ever had. By the way my space-age tiered system consists of assorted stools and chest coolers of various heights.

conpewter said:

Fancier systems just gives opportunities for more stuff to break, back to basics is a good idea (My electric boil kettle broke last night so I had to do the boil in my HLT instead).

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On no, what happened to your BK?

The Pol said:

On no, what happened to your BK?

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Well since I haven't worked out my clean in place yet I had moved it over to the sink to clean it and knocked the connection to the element and one of the wires broke. The coupler came loose from the back of the element, I did have it sealed with JB weld but I guess the slick plastic doesn't hold too well to JB weld. I should just be able to pull it apart and reconnect, or just a new element, not expensive parts either way. Then get my CIP system set up (read--hose and shop vac).

Sorry for the I still say... go for it! Brewing is a blast and you don't need a ton of stuff to do it. I'm planning on using another keg to do a Brew In A Bag system that is very simple and very portable.

where are you in the atl? there are a bunch of us on here!

i am up 575 in jasper....

welcome back!

Nobody wants to see ugly junk I'm still using the turkey burner and plastic pails I started with years ago.

+1 in the ugly junk crowd.

I have a turkey fryer setup and a $20 cooler with a valve and stainless steel braid stuck on it.

+1 with the fugglies

3 buckets, 10g aluminum pot, 5g stainless steel pot, a nylon bag and some assorted repurposed utensils (spoons, brushes, thermometers, small pots). I brew in a bag on my stove, but my latest addition is a $30 turkey fryer from Menards. Half my bottles are recycled from commericial beers. It gets the job done!

I was an avid wine collector until about 3 years ago. I still have a cellar with about 250-300 bottles. I sold off about 10% last year because I didn't have the desire and the bottles needed consumed sooner rather than later. This year, I'm considering selling about half of my collection. It's sad to admit, but the proceeds could fund a small brewery.

Homebrewed beer is the best. I can actually drink it with worrying about how much it cost (as I often find with wine). I'm proud of my beers and they taste great (most of the time).

Well, I've spent the last three days reading various threads on this forum, so I guess I'm getting re-hooked. It's amazing what I remember after 17yrs and what I've forgotten.

I am glad to see so many of you still having fun with the "traditional" gear. I remembered that I have two almost new 10g coolers in the garage. I placed a picture of them on pg 2 of this thread. They were used twice at one of my daughter's soccer games and have been on the shelf since. I think I'll look around the net for an 8-10g pot. Someone already mentioned the cost of carboys now, and wow, I was surprised to see $40 for a 6.5g glass carboy online.

This will have to be a garage or outside brewery. My wife would kill me if I boiled over wort on the granite counter tops. I'd be quite pissed at myself. Our outdoor kitchen has an LP burner. I'm not sure if it's powerful enough to boil 5-gal of water, but I'll give it a try.

On another note, I remember having a bag of liquid extract at our previous house. It leaked on our basement floor and I could not get it up. I let it harden and used a heat gun and a trowel to get it up. I don't want to ever repeat that.

You can get Plastic "Better Bottles" too. They are only $25 at my LHBS. They are safer than glass and are food grade.

R2-D2 said:

I was an avid wine collector until about 3 years ago. I still have a cellar with about 250-300 bottles. I sold off about 10% last year because I didn't have the desire and the bottles needed consumed sooner rather than later. This year, I'm considering selling about half of my collection. It's sad to admit, but the proceeds could fund a small brewery.

Homebrewed beer is the best. I can actually drink it with worrying about how much it cost (as I often find with wine). I'm proud of my beers and they taste great (most of the time).

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I agree about the wine. Having the wine collection and the walk-in cellar was once a point of pride for me. However, it got to the point that some were going bad even in a controlled room. I just wasn't drinking them. I eventually traded some once prized high end wines for cases of wine for drinking...imagine that. That sounds funny, but when you have bottles that are worth a few hundred $ each, you just don't want to drink them. My father in-law and I used to split cases of high-end stuff like Chateau Latour and Petrus, Stags Leap as well as Caymus and a lot of Berringer Private Reserve. I once had a complete vertical collection of the Berringer Private Reserve. I still have some of those as well as 2002 Joseph Phelps Insignia which was Wine of the Year. That's another bottle I may trade.

But, again, I just don't like to drink the "good" bottles. With beer, I'm always happy to share a good beer with a buddy.

Sacdan said:

You can get Plastic "Better Bottles" too. They are only $25 at my LHBS. They are safer than glass and are food grade.

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Thanks for the tip. I don't know if the plastic ones were available back in the early 90s.

webstaurantstore.com has decent prices on aluminum stock pots. Alot of people cut the top out of a 15.5 gallon keg and boil in that... it is great!

I have some of each. Get that and a propane burner and rock it outside.

Or if you are a little DIY savvy, go electric in one of those coolers for an HLT and maybe an electric boil kettle...

PUSH!!! PUSH!!! PUSH!!! That was me pushing you back over to the "brewing side" of the fence....

If you are looking for some free homebrew stuff, look at This Thread starting November 1st.

chefmike said:

webstaurantstore.com has decent prices on aluminum stock pots. Alot of people cut the top out of a 15.5 gallon keg and boil in that... it is great!

I have some of each. Get that and a propane burner and rock it outside.

Or if you are a little DIY savvy, go electric in one of those coolers for an HLT and maybe an electric boil kettle...

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My old system that I sold had two kegs. I just remembered I also had a really nice filtering system and a lot of yeast culturing stuff. Since that is gone, I'll just get a 40qt brew pot and use those two coolers. I think I will buy a 2200w submersible heater.

That's the spirit!

Some of them on here have some pretty nice brewing systems, but most of us are turkey fryers and plastic buckets. (unless you are brewing on your stove...)

Some of that stuff will help your beer, but mostly it's the ingredients and process that will make the biggest difference. And practice!

It's time to get back on that horse and go for a wild ride!

Well Lads, I did it. I ordered the equipment needed to start this hobby again. I just need to decide what to brew for the return. I had the Sammy Seasonal tonight and somehthing like that would be a good return. A good pale ale would also be just fine wiht me.

so you can clean and boil with old kegs? I have access to some used kegs for free, that could cut costs.

kryznic said:

so you can clean and boil with old kegs? I have access to some used kegs for free, that could cut costs.

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Many people here cut the tops off of old kegs and use them for brewing; Boiling, mashing, etc.

I found an old beat up one that I *might* end up using if I can clean it up and get it to sit flat.

There is a warning about the bottom ring blowing up if you have one and it doesn't have a way for the expanding air to escape. Check the top of the equipment page for the link for better explanation. I'm not handy enough yet to figure out how to link that thread.

cool thank you!

Things just got even better: I discovered that I still have a brand new pump and speed control that I purchased from Grainger probably 15yrs ago. I also still have the Johnson Controls thermostat that I used in a chest freezer.

My first two brews are scheduled for next week...if all the equipment gets here. Most arrives today and tomorrow. The new chiller arrives next Wed. I am going to brew an extract/mash batch first using DeathBrewer's bag method and then his all grain banana bread beer will be second. I sold all my kegging stuff years ago, but will have 6 Tap-A-Draft bottles for these two batches.

My new brew 40 Qt aluminum pot came today ($39.99)



This is a AAA battery on the rim to show the thickness:

See now you've got some shiny stuff to show off!

Most of our stuff is ugly, though the more we drink the prettier it gets.