Open Brewing/Bottle Fermenting

Hi, I'm new here and HOPEFULLY not repeating something I didn't find. My friend and I have been working on making an extract homebrew to our liking, and I'm having trouble finding pointers on the way we do it. Sooo, I guess I'll try to just do a quick listing of how we do it and see about good pointers. We boil up our water (5 gallons bottled) in a large pot, add 5 pounds of regular white cane sugar, mix it in and pour in a pickling crock. Then we add in our malt extract and stir it all up. Let it sit until it cools down to temperature that the refrigerated dry yeast says it will survive at, and add the yeast. Then we cover it and let it work for approximately a week (or thereabouts when we think it's not working as much). Bottle it up and let it finish in the bottles for approx 4 weeks. Looking forward to start adding hops and flavorings to toy with soon, but posting in hopes for anyone that has brewed like this to give any thoughts and/or pointers. Thanks.

Yeah your close to what you need to be doing. Start by reading all the sticky postings on this page
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/

Thanks, I'm going to start reading through them now.

Also, add hops (beer needs hops/bittering agents), and quit with the 5lbs of white sugar.

Your recipe borders on prison hooch more than beer, but you have the concepts right.

http://howtobrew.com/ A bit dated since the free version is the 1st edition and he's on the third, but still very useful.

Yours sounds like barely flavored alcohol since you didn't even mention how much malt extract or what kind you're using. Pretty close to beer though.

Toss the sugar, use malt extract (approx the same weight maybe a bit more to 7 lbs) add hops, boil. Toss in the crock and add a decent (not bread) yeast.

That explains why it get such alcohol. I forgot to mention we use approx 5lbs (if i remember correctly) of malt extract. Half dark, half wheat. And we are using a decent yeast, I think. Thanks for all the pointers. While perusing the site, was also looking into possibility of a week home brew class at Siebel Institute of Technology and if it's worth it.

FozziePo said:

That explains why it get such alcohol. I forgot to mention we use approx 5lbs (if i remember correctly) of malt extract. Half dark, half wheat. And we are using a decent yeast, I think. Thanks for all the pointers. While perusing the site, was also looking into possibility of a week home brew class at Siebel Institute of Technology and if it's worth it.

Click to expand...

Go for the homebrew class, a picture is worth a thousand words.

And stop with the sugar

Thanks again all, am looking into the 2k it would cost to take the class, and wondering if anyone here has taken it?

The seibel classes are for more than the average homebrewer.

Its more like a step towards a formal education and professional brewing IMO.

The homebrewer doesn't need anything more than a copy of How To Brew by Palmer for $20.

malkore said:

The seibel classes are for more than the average homebrewer.

Its more like a step towards a formal education and professional brewing IMO.

The homebrewer doesn't need anything more than a copy of How To Brew by Palmer for $20.

Click to expand...

:rockin::rockin:

Hmmm, I still may consider the class as I do enjoy overkill. Even though I have billions of things to learn from the books and here and even the wiki. :cross:

malkore said:

The seibel classes are for more than the average homebrewer.

Its more like a step towards a formal education and professional brewing IMO.

The homebrewer doesn't need anything more than a copy of How To Brew by Palmer for $20.

Click to expand...

Except scratch that 20 bucks homes....


http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter1.html


boo yah

Hoppin_Mad said:

Except scratch that 20 bucks homes....

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter1.html

boo yah

Click to expand...

$20 homes?!?!? Where????

It's Holmes, Holmes, not homes

And that's the first edition, there have been changes, I believe edition 3 is the current one

FozziePo said:

Hmmm, I still may consider the class as I do enjoy overkill. Even though I have billions of things to learn from the books and here and even the wiki. :cross:

Click to expand...

Learning is a great thing, and I would never discourage taking a course. But...if you're into overkill I can think of some pretty sweet brewing equipment you could buy for 2k. Just a thought.

I'm only a few months into the brewing obsession myself, but I have learned a ton just by reading some of the books out there, brewing, and spending some time looking through the HBT archives. There is a lot to be gained just by reading, talking to those with more experience, brewing, and reading some more. And there's always youtube too, there are some awesome brewing videos that help put it all together. Like I said, I wouldn't want to discourage you from taking the class, but you might get more out of it if you exhaust some of the more basic resources first.

Very good point, I should put my efforts more into learning the basics from here and books, and putting more brews down. Thanks again all.

Look up the following:

www.Beerrecipes.org
www.Northernbrewer.com
www.tastybrew.com
www.homebrewzone.com
www.hopville.com

these will all have recipes and styles for you to use.

you should be boiling your DME and adding Hops.

there is a $7 beer (costs $7 to make) that i am working on right now. it is an american pale ale style

if you are truly serious about this endevour. invest in an Ale Pail and airlock.

I've been spending endless hours reading helpful hints on this site and those all have helpfully linked in this thread and throughout the site. Learning learning until I can next get to the equipment (at friends place, not mine) and put some more batches down. hoping to get some caruoys from my folks who have them filled with matchbooks, clean them out and set up a system with airlocks and all that, while continuing to learn how to do the open fermentation in the crock and fix that recipe up. YAY BEER!