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Yooper

Yooper

Ale's What Cures You!
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I've been making wine, and I think I have most of the stuff I need for beer. A couple of questions, though- I've been reading about wort chillers. Is this absolutely necessary? An extra refrigerator? I've got carboys, buckets, racking hoses, etc, a cold basement (55 degrees) and cool-ish house (temperature wise!).
Also, I found some great websites for winemaking. Are there any good step-by-step websites for new brewers? Is it better to start with a kit?

Thanks!
Lorena
 
1. A wort chiller is not necessary, instead you can use an ice bath or other method of rapidly cooling the wort. The wort chiller is just faster.

2. You definitely don't need another refrigerator, but your basement may be a little too cool (unless you're planning on making lager). Most ale yeast likes temperatures between 65 and 75 degrees depending on the style of beer you're making (around 70 is pretty good).

3. "How to Brew" by John Palmer. The website is one edition behind the print version, but it is a great resource. http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html
 
On the other hand, while your basement is a bit cool for ales, you have a very nice temperature for making lagers, which most of us don't even attempt for the lack of that kind of ambient temperatures.

But GF above is dead on - neither is an absolute necessity. When I want to get a nice "cold break" (in order to minimize chill haze, basically what the wort chiller is for), I empty my ice trays into my kitchen sink and put in several inches of cold tap water. My just take my whole boiling pot and put it in the cold water until the ice has melted. This drops the wort temp pretty well. The results have been good.
 
You are lucky to have such a cold basement as you can make lagers. I probably wont even attempt a lager until winter. As far as the wort chiller goes, I do not use one. I just dump all the ice I have in my freezer into the kitchen sink and fill it up with water. Put the pot in that for approx 20 min. To chill faster you can stir the wort briskly in order to create a whirlpool type effect (like a toilet flushing). This will cool it off a bit faster.
 
I'd like to start my beer soon. As a newbie, is it better to order a kit in a type of beer I like, or to find a recipe and order the ingredients? I'd like to start with something fairly simple, but something that I like.

Thanks again,
Lorena
 
SteveM said:
On the other hand, while your basement is a bit cool for ales, you have a very nice temperature for making lagers, which most of us don't even attempt for the lack of that kind of ambient temperatures.

But GF above is dead on - neither is an absolute necessity. When I want to get a nice "cold break" (in order to minimize chill haze, basically what the wort chiller is for), I empty my ice trays into my kitchen sink and put in several inches of cold tap water. My just take my whole boiling pot and put it in the cold water until the ice has melted. This drops the wort temp pretty well. The results have been good.
Click to expand...
If you add salt to your ice water bath it will cool it even faster :mug:
 
lorenae said:
I'd like to start my beer soon. As a newbie, is it better to order a kit in a type of beer I like, or to find a recipe and order the ingredients? I'd like to start with something fairly simple, but something that I like.

Thanks again,
Lorena
Click to expand...

I started off with kits, but I'd say take the plunge and go for a recipe and ingredients. Your beer will be much better than kit-beer.

We could help you with a good simple recipe, too, if you tell us what kind of beer you want to brew.
 
just hunt around for a recipe you like.. the first brew i did was a partial mash.. and i thought.. omg what have i gotten myself into..now that im drinking it.. im brewing again today.. so we shall see.. its pretty addictive and NO beer tastes as good as your OWN!
 
Kits are nice and easy to start but they often have some weaknesses (like, substituting sugar for malt or using hpped extracts). If you have a good HBS (home brew store) locally, you can do better by asking for help with your first try. They should be able to suggest a recipe based on what kinds of beers you like, plus they should be able to give some tips and hints for surviving the first try at this.
 
There aren't any LHBs locally at all- at least 2 hours away. I was going to order from Austin homebrewers (free shipping over $60). I like ALL beer, but my husband likes nut brown ales especially. I thought an amber ale, nut brown ale, or anything not like a porter. (My husband does not like stouts or porters). I particularly like Mai Bocks, but again I'm not really fussy about types of beer.
I'd LOVE an easy recipe to start with, if anyone has one that a newbie can handle.
Since I make some wine, I have carboys and fermenting buckets and the like. I have a hydrometer, siphoning tubing, etc.

Again, Thanks!
Lorena
 
There are not anything wrong with good ingredient kits for the beginner. They come with everything you need except maybe the yeast. They make fine beers. If you can follow directions and have made wine in the past it should be rather easy. Look at the kits at Northen Brewer. They list everything that is included and they are a good shop.
 
Here's my House Beer recipe - simple and darn good, kind of a Califormia Ale, though - not exactly what you said you like, but I always have some around:

Two cans of some kind of light LME.

A pound of steeping grains - I like #20 lovibond.

Nottingham dry yeast

Five gallons of spring water.

A spoon of Irish Moss.

Two or three ounces of pellet hops. I usually use something like Columbus (at about 15% alpha acid or so) but this gives the brew an astringent quality (to say the least) that not all enjoy equally. I suggest something in the 5% range.

3/4 cup of priming sugar.

Sanitize your fermenter and everything that could contact your beer carefully.

Refrigerate three gallons of your spring water in advance (I buy gallon bottles). The other two, put over high heat in a really big pot. Put the steeping grains in a steeping grain bag of some kind and leave them in the water until it is just short of boiling.

Take the steeping grains out just before boiling and pour in your LME. Stir while pouring, and then put some real hot water in the cans, pour back and forth and dilute the last little bit so that it can go in the boil pot also (I hate to waste fermentables).

Boil an hour - half the hops in at the beginning, half with ten minutes remianing. Irish Moss goes in with fifteen minutes left.

Put all your ice in your freezer into your kitchen sink, and fill with about six inches deep with cold water. Cool your boiling pot, wort and all, in this after an hour. Put your three gallons of chilled water into your fermenter. Once the ice in the sink has melted, pour the entire contents of the boil (less any sludge remaining at the bottom) into the cold water.

Sprinkle the yeast on top (it will be at a nice, yeast friendly temperature at this point) and close the fermenter up.

After two weeks, boil up a pint or two of spring water with the 3/4 cup of sugar for five or ten minutes. Pour this into your (sanitized) bottling bucket, and then siphon your brew in as well, leaving behind however much sludge you can. Bottle 'em up, let 'em sit a week (minimum), chill and crack one open.

This is easy but makes a darn good beer.
 
chask31 To chill faster you can stir the wort briskly in order to create a whirlpool type effect (like a toilet flushing). This will cool it off a bit faster.[/quote said:
You don't want to do that as it will get oxygen into the wort before it is cooled down. Stirring don't hurt as long as you do it slow without creating the whirlpool.
The site mentioned "How to Brew" is a great starting point. A lot of us more seasoned brewers still refer to it from time to time.
Welcome to this site and to beer making.:mug:
Click to expand...
 
lorenae said:
I like ALL beer, but my husband likes nut brown ales especially. I thought an amber ale, nut brown ale, or anything not like a porter.
Click to expand...

This is the recipe that I used for my first batch, a Nut Brown Ale kit from my LHBS:

6.6 lb. Munton's Amber LME
½ lb. Crystal 60°L
½ lb. Carapils 20°L
½ lb. Briess Toasted Malt 25°L
¼ lb. Chocolate Malt 338°L
1 ½ oz. Kent Goldings U.K. Hops (60 Min)
1 oz. Fuggles Hops (5 Min)
Wyeast # 1098 XL British Ale Yeast


Steep grains in 1.5 - 2g of 150F-160F water. Remove grains, add LME, and boil for 60 min, adding hops according to schedule. Cool to 78F, rack to primary fermenter, top off with H20 to 5 gallons, and pitch yeast.




If you use this recipe, I would suggest increasing the EKG to 2 - 2 1/2 oz, as my brew came out a little less hoppy than I had hoped, but otherwise this is a great beer that I'm quite pleased with, and is very easy to make.
 
Both recipes sound good- I'll try both! I stopped today at a small LHBS when I was at an appointment with the kids, and went ahead and bought an "English Brown Ale" kit. Seems easy, and a good price ($24.00 including yeast). That little store had a pretty good selection of supplies, and it's only an hour from here. I'll start this kit tomorrow, and then try both of your recipes.

I realize that my basement is too cool (55 degrees) for fermenting, but how is that for conditioning? Could I bottle and then put in the basement for a while, or is that too cool to carbonate? My first floor laundry room (a perfect 68 degrees) is already full of wine carboys. I'd have to remove the washer and dryer to have enough room to keep fermenting! (I think I'm going to be addicted.)

Thanks for all your ideas. I appreciate it.
 
At 55 degrees, you could actually experiment with lagers. In that case, you are dead on. And get rid of the washer and dryer! You need that space!
 
haha- when I suggested that to my husband, he mentioned that I have officially gone "out of your mind". He also used the word obsessed. This same husband has been drinking "beer machine" beer, homemade hard lemonade, and the first of my homemade wines without complaint. When he gets a taste of homemade brown ale, he'll fall in love with me all over again. (And maybe get rid of that pesty washer and dryer in the laundry room.)

I'm sure I'll be back tomorrow with more questions. You are a great group.

Thanks, all!

Lorena
 
lorenae said:
I realize that my basement is too cool (55 degrees) for fermenting, but how is that for conditioning? Could I bottle and then put in the basement for a while, or is that too cool to carbonate?
Click to expand...

55 is probably a little chilly for carbonation. I think an ale yeast would pretty much go dormant at those temps, or at the very least take a LONG time for your brew to be fully carbonated. I would ferment and carbonate in your laundry room (and I agree with Steve - clean clothes are so overrated). Once your bottled brew has been in the laundry room for about 2-3 weeks and is fully carbed, you can move it to the basement to further condition it. Even after your beer is carbonated, it will continue to change and grow over a long period of time, and many people will bottle condition their beer at cooler temps for weeks or even months. Sounds like you've got an ideal environment to make a whole spectrum of home brews - a nice warm laundry room for ales, and a cool basement for lagers and extended conditioning....rock on!:rockin:
 
I'm going to give you some really bad advice. Everyone here will tell you it's bad advice to well. The advice was given to me by two guys at the home brew shop I go to who have been doing it for ten years on hundreds of batches with no infections.

To cool the wort, just get a bag of ice from 7/11 or WalMart or something. Seven pounds of ice is one gallon of water. Put it in the primary fermenter with another gallon of water. It will melt and be ice cold.

This is assuming you are boiling three gallons. If you're boiling less, you just add another gallon of water to the primary.

Take your wort off the stove, and dump it in.

I've only done this on one batch (my second batch, currently in primary, with no infections). But I used a 2.5 ice water/2.5 boiling wort ratio. It cooled it to 85 degrees *instantly*. Tossed in the yeast and closed it up.
 
pariah said:
I'm going to give you some really bad advice. Everyone here will tell you it's bad advice to well. The advice was given to me by two guys at the home brew shop I go to who have been doing it for ten years on hundreds of batches with no infections.

To cool the wort, just get a bag of ice from 7/11 or WalMart or something. Seven pounds of ice is one gallon of water. Put it in the primary fermenter with another gallon of water. It will melt and be ice cold.

This is assuming you are boiling three gallons. If you're boiling less, you just add another gallon of water to the primary.

Take your wort off the stove, and dump it in.
Click to expand...

I agree that you won't get infections like this. But you have to pour your hot wort into the fermenter. This means one of two things:
1. You don't strain it, so all the hops and other junk from the kettle go straight into your fermenter.
2. You do strain it, to remove all those things. This means a very good chance of oxidising your wort.
 
I wrote a 3000 word article on homebrewing you might find interesting. It has most of the major steps in it and gives you an idea of what it is like,

I am a fan of DIY brewing and make all my own equipment. A thing does not have to be expensive to be good.

A chiller is a good investment, it isnt cheap but a handyman can put one togather for 30 bucks.

Well worth it IMHO.

If you decide you like brewing, make the switch to kegs early, the time you save will astound you.

Cheers,

knewshound
 
hello everyone i'm new to this website and i haven't yet figured out how to start a new thread but would like to know of a lemonade recipe that is non alcoholic and required real lemons. if anyone could help me out it would be much appreciated.
 
Bryan said:
hello everyone i'm new to this website and i haven't yet figured out how to start a new thread but would like to know of a lemonade recipe that is non alcoholic and required real lemons. if anyone could help me out it would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...
lemons, sugar, water.
i'm not entirely sure what this has to do with homebrewing..... :confused:
 
sorry guys you may have misunderstood me. in Australia when we say lemonade we're talking about a carbonated soft drink that is fizzy like coke but tastes lemony, and it can be brewed. i think that's how to make it properly
 
Austin homebrew is a great place to get the fresh ingredients you need. They have hundreds of recipies, and each one comes with specific instructions for brewing them. they also have tech support to help you with anything. They talked me through the whole process when I went there and now my first brew is in secondary.
 
Anyone want to help me come up with a recipe, my roomate graduated and took his kit with him (how sad?), so I went out and bought a kit for myself. Something that is gingery and citrusy, gotta have something refreshing for the summer, I wouldn't be opposed to a high alcohol content, but it's definately not a necesity either.
 
If I wanted to make a wheat ale using that same recipe, do you think I could just subsitute a different can of unhopped malt extract? and, when making my wort is it more effective to use lemon zest or real fruit to get citrusy hints?
 
Yooper said:
I've been making wine, and I think I have most of the stuff I need for beer. A couple of questions, though- I've been reading about wort chillers. Is this absolutely necessary? An extra refrigerator? I've got carboys, buckets, racking hoses, etc, a cold basement (55 degrees) and cool-ish house (temperature wise!).
Also, I found some great websites for winemaking. Are there any good step-by-step websites for new brewers? Is it better to start with a kit?

Thanks!
Lorena
Click to expand...

Yooper, have you decided yet whether or not to get a wort chiller? Have you tried this beer yet? ;) :ban:
 

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