You know you're a home brewer when?

When you stop buying beer, as you are able to consume only what you have brewed yourself.

When're working on this equipment rack, and keep thinking you can't wait to get home and crack one open..


Sent from my van, down by the river.

Wife and I were a Lowe's yesterday, as we were walking by the pond supplies she stopped and picked up a plastic mesh cone. I looked at her and said "You fill it with the filter media then attach the pump tube." She said "Ok, to bad it's not stainless we could use it to drain the grain bag. I think I want to brew a small batch tomorrow."

I gave her a big hug I almost cried

When you catch a whiff of the grapefruit-scented dish detergent your wife bought, and you start craving an IPA.

When your phones internet thing with all the pages looks like this

M r


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NTXBrauer said:

When you stop buying beer, as you are able to consume only what you have brewed yourself.

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I'm pretty proud to say that for the last month the only beer I have consumed has been my own or from a new nano about a mile from my house. It took some coordination and work but its cool to have about 6 different brews around. Now I just need to keep that pipeline going.

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When you have gone through a 32 pack box of Knox gelatin in 4 months and you never make any gelatin desserts.

Setesh said:

When you have gone through a 32 pack box of Knox gelatin in 4 months and you never make any gelatin desserts.

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What? I get 2.5 kegs per packet. How much beer are you making, or how much gelatin are you using?


When you sell (qty: 6) five gallon (1/6) sanke kegs off Craig's list and make a hell of a profit off them, but you immediately regret selling them even though they've been sitting on a shelf for 2 years un-touched. *sigh*

You're watching a movie and in the background is a water cooler. You think "I can make a hot liquor tank or mash tun with that." ( Happened to me last night -- Dallas Buyer's Club. )


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When you're brewing coffee in a pour over filter and you tell your wife you're fly sparging.


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insanim8er said:

What? I get 2.5 kegs per packet. How much beer are you making, or how much gelatin are you using?


When you sell (qty: 6) five gallon (1/6) sanke kegs off Craig's list and make a hell of a profit off them, but you immediately regret selling them even though they've been sitting on a shelf for 2 years un-touched. *sigh*

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I use one packet per 5 gallons of beer. It has worked great for me so far. And yes, I do make that much beer, but I don't drink it all, I give a lot of it away.

Conversation with my wife this morning:

Wife: I'm making bangers and mash for breakfast. Can you grab a couple beers from the fridge?

Me: Sure, what kind?

Wife: I don't know. A stout or a honey.

Me: What kind of flavor are you going for?

Wife: I'm not going for any kind if flavor. I just want a couple beers.

Me: Ok, I'll get the honey ale.

Setesh said:

I use one packet per 5 gallons of beer. It has worked great for me so far. And yes, I do make that much beer, but I don't drink it all, I give a lot of it away.

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Ya it'll work, but you're wasting $. I get just over 2 (5gal) kegs with one packet and it works perfectly.

32 batches in 4 mo is a lot, unless they're 1 gal batches I thought racking 30gal of beer in a weeks time was a lot.

That brings me to my next one...

When you're back hurts like hell from lugging equipment and full kegs of beer... Just finished a 12 gallon batch of an American wheat that I'll split into a lime and one into a grapefruit. We'll see how this turns out in 3 weeks...

insanim8er said:

Ya it'll work, but you're wasting $. I get just over 2 (5gal) kegs with one packet and it works perfectly.

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You've convinced me to give it a try. Next time I'll use 1/2 packet on one half of a batch and my normal approach on the other half and see what happens.

insanim8er said:

32 batches in 4 mo is a lot, unless they're 1 gal batches I thought racking 30gal of beer in a weeks time was a lot.

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I normally don't brew this much but after finishing my new EHERMS and Kal panel I wanted to get used to it and get everything dialed in. Which leads me to:

You know you're a home brewer when you expand your carboy collection to 8 so that you can properly break in your new brewing system without running out of space.

Setesh said:

You've convinced me to give it a try. Next time I'll use 1/2 packet on one half of a batch and my normal approach on the other half and see what happens.

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You just need a teaspoon. This is the method I've used and have had success.

http://www.bertusbrewery.com/2012/06/how-to-clear-your-beer-with-gelatin.html

I even use less water than what he says to use.

I laughed at the expansion of carboy collection. Only because I had 14 carboys at one point. It took up a crazy amount of space. I ended up selling them all off.

Now I ferment in 1/4 slim kegs using the method in my sig. They hold 7.75 gal, so even when I have 6 gal, there is a lot of head space. I have 6 total, so I can have 3 full batches (I do 10-12gal batches) going at any given time. I'd never consider changing to anything else, not even for a conical.

And if I need to age, I transfer to a corny keg since I acquired a ton of them and decided to sell off all my 1/6 sanke kegs. It's a great system.

How light/clear are you guys going for? I've only been doing all-grain for about 4 months but I've never had a beer be cloudy or that I couldn't see through (cept porters/stouts).

Granted I do a 90minute mash at 150-148 but that shouldn't have too much to it

Caught myself telling swmbo to give the eggs a 13 min boil then chill them in an ice bath. Instead of oh yea when it starts bubbling time 13 mins then put them in cold water

skitter said:

How light/clear are you guys going for? I've only been doing all-grain for about 4 months but I've never had a beer be cloudy or that I couldn't see through (cept porters/stouts).

Granted I do a 90minute mash at 150-148 but that shouldn't have too much to it

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Crystal clear... Read a newspaper through it. I can read the address from across the sweet through a glass.

It's something I use for the cream of three crops or the centennial blonde. Very clean light beers.

All beers will eventually clear, but the gelatin clears it over night.

skitter said:

How light/clear are you guys going for?

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Crystal clear, like water with color to it:


You know you're a home brewer (possibly an anal one ) when you are holding your glass up to the monitor (or newspaper) to see that it is up to your high standards of clarity.

Ahh, I bottle condition so that may be why I don't have those issues

skitter said:

Ahh, I bottle condition so that may be why I don't have those issues

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We all have our issues, what gets us through each day is acceptance.....and lots of beer!

Indeed, I wasn't saying it was a bad thing, I was just trying to understand. I do plan on getting into kegging when the funds become available

Due to some financial stuff the beer budget has been severely cut so no buying new beer. But fortunately there is a good little stock pile built up


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amfukuda said:

Due to some financial stuff the beer budget has been severely cut so no buying new beer. But fortunately there is a good little stock pile built up


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Word. I haven't been able to brew for a few months with utilities going so high this winter. Got house refinanced,so that'll change soon. To bad big stock pile is gone.

Thankfully my half batches cost so little I can keep 2 going

unionrdr said:

Word. I haven't been able to brew for a few months with utilities going so high this winter. Got house refinanced,so that'll change soon. To bad big stock pile is gone.

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We do a program called "Smart Hours" in the summer months and electricity becomes inanely expensive between the hours of 2-7, but weekends are still normal rate. Weekends are the only time I have to brew anyways so probably won't effect me. Luckily our winter months are normal rate here.

skitter said:

Thankfully my half batches cost so little I can keep 2 going

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Half batches can be a great way to keep the pipeline moving!


"Sometimes Im right half of the time ...."

Man when money is tight, brew some cream of three crops. I don't know what grain costs are where you guys are, but I paid under $20 to brew ten gallons.

To keep cost down, I did use regular rice I had on hand instead of minute rice. I just boiled it into a gel first.

Just. Keep. Brewin.


"Sometimes Im right half of the time ...."

Nothing to say eh?

Setesh said:

Nothing to say eh?

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maybe it was his way of saying, "you know you're a homebrewer when you don't even have time to post about why you're a homebrewer because you're too busy being a homebrewer."

When you get a burn on your lower leg moving your keggle after a boil to chill, happened today during my parti-gyle brew day

When this site excites you

Or this too

Forgot pic

Or this: canning starter wort.

Or this: using starter wort to grow up some Abbey Ale yeast for brewing a Trippel on Wednesday.

Still havnt bothered harvesting yeast. Seams like a huge pain in the ass. I still only use dry and only half a packet per batch

When you can get lost in time watching fermentation thru the glass car boy and high on sniffing the airlock lol, I swear I sit there in amazement and it feels like a minuet but ends up being 5-10 mins each time i pass the fermenters