Brooklyn Brew Shop Everyday IPA Kit Tips

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Great question jnalpak since I would have probably asked this as well.

I have another question - After bottling should I store them in the same closet I used for fermenting?

Depends...what temp is your closet? Anywhere above 65 degrees does the trick, 70 degrees for three weeks seems to be the standard for getting all your beer primed. If you use honey, wait another week.

Just make sure its warm, temps don't swing too much and you keep the beer out of the light. I keep my bottles in a case with the flaps covering them and a towel over it to make sure they never get any light. My house is usually around 65-68 degrees so I add another towel in the winter to make sure its warm enough
 
Looks like my closet will do the trick. It stays right around 70 degrees. I'll try to wait three weeks if I can.
 
Yay! Brewed my Grapefruit Honey Ale on Sunday. I ended having to add extra water to lower the mash temperature, so I didn't fit it all in my gallon jug. That said, the initial fermentation brew the rubber stopper out the first day! I definitely like the screw cap stopper from the kit better.

I'm already thinking about summer beer floats.

Coffee & Donut Stout + vanilla ice cream

Grapefruit Honey Ale + blood orange sorbet

Jalapeno Saison Mild + ?
 
I just discovered this thread yesterday — BlakeL, you and I seem to be on an almost identical timeline brewing with this kit! It's my first attempt at homebrew, as well.

Mine's been fermenting for a little over two weeks. I think I'm going to skip the cold crash and go straight to bottling tonight. Let me know how it goes for you.
 
I just discovered this thread yesterday — BlakeL, you and I seem to be on an almost identical timeline brewing with this kit! It's my first attempt at homebrew, as well.

Mine's been fermenting for a little over two weeks. I think I'm going to skip the cold crash and go straight to bottling tonight. Let me know how it goes for you.

Good luck with bottling. Let me know if you have any tips. I'll be going to the LHBS tomorrow to pick up what I need for bottling (Capper, Caps, more Sanitizer, Bottle Filler and another stopper/airlock for a second 1g carboy). I'll start the cold crashing tonight then set it out on the counter on Friday night to settle. Bottling should begin Saturday morning and they'll be going back to the closet for 2-3 weeks.
 
Very exciting man!

Brings me back to think of my first brew with the BBS kit! The first one I cracked was easily the best I ever brewed with one of their kits. Probably just my perception now but I was so happy!
 
Cold Crashing!

ColdCrashing.jpg
 
Stoked for you. I am planning out my grain orders and brews for the next few months. Excited.
 
kc1123 said:
Stoked for you. I am planning out my grain orders and brews for the next few months. Excited.

I'll be doing the same when I get paid next. I'll probably buy enough grain/hops/yeast for a bunch of 1g batches so I can make the flat shipping worth it. I would get more stuff from my LHBS but I'm not a fan of the place.
 
I haven't heard of Brooklyn Brew Shop before but I'm intrigued by the idea of 1-gallon kits. Are the jugs just a regular 1-galon jug? It sounds like they can hold a little more than a gallon of liquid (I think I saw instructions saying you'll end up with 5 quarts). Could I make one with a 1-gallon jug from my LHBS?

I'm looking at playing with flavoring beers and I'm thinking I could make a few 1-galon fermenters and divide a recipe so I can see how a beer tastes with different qualities of flavoring, getting a comparison that eliminates most of the other factors.
 
I haven't heard of Brooklyn Brew Shop before but I'm intrigued by the idea of 1-gallon kits. Are the jugs just a regular 1-galon jug? It sounds like they can hold a little more than a gallon of liquid (I think I saw instructions saying you'll end up with 5 quarts). Could I make one with a 1-gallon jug from my LHBS?

I'm looking at playing with flavoring beers and I'm thinking I could make a few 1-galon fermenters and divide a recipe so I can see how a beer tastes with different qualities of flavoring, getting a comparison that eliminates most of the other factors.

They do hold more than a gallon, there is a mark slightly above the collar that shows where a gallon is. You really can't ferment more than 1 gallon, especially if you try a bigger beer, the overflow of the krausen really clogs the neck, its impossible to get a siphon or dryhop without having huge chunks of krausen fall in. Its one of the reason I recently gave up on my 9.5% beers. On the other hand, 7%ish beers tend to get krausen an inch or to from the top at most, its really great.

Also, you can use 38mm screw caps which perfectly fit an airlock and tubing, no way to blow those off!
 
You should be able to get the jugs at your LHBS or grab some apple juice from whole foods which is what I did.
 
I'll be doing the same when I get paid next. I'll probably buy enough grain/hops/yeast for a bunch of 1g batches so I can make the flat shipping worth it. I would get more stuff from my LHBS but I'm not a fan of the place.

Where are you ordering from?
 
I haven't decided yet. It's a toss up between Northern Brewer, Brewmasters Warehouse or Austin Homebrew because of their shipping prices. I would rather order from a place more local in Florida but the shipping prices are not great from the smaller shops online. I'll do research before I buy to see who grinds the best since I don't want to do it myself. Efficiency problems because of poor grind was another complaint of my LHBS.

Edit: I just looked up Brewmasters Warehouse and it looks like they're the closest to me in Georgia so I'll probably go with them. They also have the cheapest shipping unless I order $100+.
 
I like Midwest Supplies, but they don't have flat rate. I don't drive, and my LHBS is not very local at all, so the shipping cost is worth it to me. My only prob with Midwest is that they don't stock all the grains I need, so I have to make certain substitutions.

Northen Brewer grain costs seem a little pricey, and they charge to crush grains. It seems like Austin Homebrew does not. I'd like to try them soon.
 
I like Midwest Supplies, but they don't have flat rate. I don't drive, and my LHBS is not very local at all, so the shipping cost is worth it to me. My only prob with Midwest is that they don't stock all the grains I need, so I have to make certain substitutions.

Northen Brewer grain costs seem a little pricey, and they charge to crush grains. It seems like Austin Homebrew does not. I'd like to try them soon.

AHS and Brewmasters Warehouse will be the two I use. AHS has a better selection of grains it looks like. The G'Knight clone I want to brew next requires Carastan which Brewmasters Warehouse does not carry but AHS does.
 
So, bottling was... interesting. The BBS instructions for bottling make the whole siphoning process sound a lot easier than it was for me.

First off, it's useful to have an extra pair of hands around so someone can tilt the carboy/pot to get all the beer out while you are siphoning. Although even without cold crashing, we didn't have much of an issue with trub getting stirred up.

I recommend following the advice of others on the board and getting an autosiphon, if you haven't already. As it happened, I lost suction a couple times and had to restart it with my mouth. Not ideal, but on the plus side, it did taste like beer! If you are doing manual siphoning, just make sure you position the thing you're siphoning from centered above your target so you get the most out of gravity (basic physics, but hey).

Other than that, things went pretty smoothly. As long as you've got a system worked out for moving your bottles through efficiently, it's not difficult. In the end I only got 8 bottles out of it, but that's because overboiled my wort and didn't realize I was short of the gallon mark in the fermenting stage. Live and learn.

Good luck this weekend, and keep us posted!

EDIT: Next up, the Bourbon Dubbel kit from BBS. Very excited about this one, and feeling more confident with one batch under my belt.
 
I have an autosiphon and it's awesome! The tube clamp is not the best so I just ordered a bottle filler. I am interested to try cold crashing the next time I bottle so that I don't have to worry about trub as much. I also ordered a grain bag to line my strainer when I sparge... hopefully that will reduce the trub amount so I can get more bottles. I got 8.5 from my first batch.
 
I have an autosiphon and it's awesome! The tube clamp is not the best so I just ordered a bottle filler. I am interested to try cold crashing the next time I bottle so that I don't have to worry about trub as much. I also ordered a grain bag to line my strainer when I sparge... hopefully that will reduce the trub amount so I can get more bottles. I got 8.5 from my first batch.
Where did you get your autosiphon? I was going to order one along with a new thermometer (broke the one that came with my kit), some StarSan & other supplies, but don't know if one shop is better than another for that sort of thing.
 
I should of bought an auto siphon but thought I could do without it since they are kind of expensive at my LHBS compared to online. I did buy a bottle filler though which will make it easier than using the clamp.

As far as cold crashing, I noticed a considerable difference in the trub at the bottom after one night. The trub seems to have condensed to half the original size when it was at 70 degrees. I'm going to set it out on the counter late tonight so it can settle and will be bottling tomorrow morning. I filled the jug above the one gallon mark so I hope to get at least 9 bottles.
 
Where did you get your autosiphon? I was going to order one along with a new thermometer (broke the one that came with my kit), some StarSan & other supplies, but don't know if one shop is better than another for that sort of thing.

When I was just getting started brewing I ordered a bottle capper, caps, auto-siphon, and more C-Brite from BBS. Probably cheaper elsewhere, but I didn't know much at the time.
 
Brooklyn Brew Shop has great customer service! I asked them where I could get their ingredient mixes locally since I didn't want to pay for shipping and I mentioned the kit I bought was expired. Even though I already brewed it, they will be sending me a replacement mix. I picked out the Grapefruit Honey Ale.
 
I should of bought an auto siphon but thought I could do without it since they are kind of expensive at my LHBS compared to online. I did buy a bottle filler though which will make it easier than using the clamp.

As far as cold crashing, I noticed a considerable difference in the trub at the bottom after one night. The trub seems to have condensed to half the original size when it was at 70 degrees. I'm going to set it out on the counter late tonight so it can settle and will be bottling tomorrow morning. I filled the jug above the one gallon mark so I hope to get at least 9 bottles.
You'll be fine without the autosiphon. Just follow their instructions for getting the siphon started and try not to lose the flow, or you will have to disconnect the tubing and repeat the steps for getting it going -- or get fed up and use your mouth, like I did.

My best advice is to keep the carboy as close to directly over the pot you're siphoning into as possible. Also, be sure to tip the carboy when it gets low to get as much liquid out as possible. Bottling should be no problem with the bottle filler and capper.
 
I started brewing with a brooklyn beer shop kit (summer wheat) and the tip i wish i'd had at the time was how much easier brewday would be if i used a BIAB method instead.
 
I started brewing with a brooklyn beer shop kit (summer wheat) and the tip i wish i'd had at the time was how much easier brewday would be if i used a BIAB method instead.

I'm going to try this next. It should work great for doing 1g but anything larger I think i'll need a bigger pots. All I have now is a 10 and 8 quart. Also, with my coil burner, heating anything larger than 1.25g to a boil would take forever.
 
I'm going to try this next. It should work great for doing 1g but anything larger I think i'll need a bigger pots. All I have now is a 10 and 8 quart. Also, with my coil burner, heating anything larger than 1.25g to a boil would take forever.

Yeah. I made several 1g batches using recipes from this site, brewtarget and simple math to convert the various batch sizes found here to 1g batches, and a digital gram scale to measure out tiny quantities of hops. A regular kitchen scale to measure grain if i needed to.

I can recommend Happy Wife Pale Ale if you want to try your hand at assembling ingredients by yourself. Only two kinds of grain. iirc i fudged it to 2 pounds of 2-row and 4oz of cara-pils/dextrine.

After scavenging local classified ads and whatnot for months, I made my first 5 gallon batch in the back yard two weeks ago. Going to make another this weekend.

I've got a couple 34qt pots, various propane burners, 10 gallon rubbermaid mash tun, 6 gallon glass carboys, 11 kegs, 20lb steel co2 bottle . . . .
 
Yeah. I made several 1g batches using recipes from this site, brewtarget and simple math to convert the various batch sizes found here to 1g batches, and a digital gram scale to measure out tiny quantities of hops. A regular kitchen scale to measure grain if i needed to.

I can recommend Happy Wife Pale Ale if you want to try your hand at assembling ingredients by yourself. Only two kinds of grain. iirc i fudged it to 2 pounds of 2-row and 4oz of cara-pils/dextrine.

After scavenging local classified ads and whatnot for months, I made my first 5 gallon batch in the back yard two weeks ago. Going to make another this weekend.

Congrats on going big with the 5g batches. If I ever get to that point i'll defiantly do what you did and check craigslist and forums for local people getting rid of equipment to save money. My problem is I don't have room for large fermenters and wouldn't know what to do with 5g worth of bottles. My house is only around 750 sq ft so I don't have much extra room in the air conditioning.
 
Congrats on going big with the 5g batches. If I ever get to that point i'll defiantly do what you did and check craigslist and forums for local people getting rid of equipment to save money. My problem is I don't have room for large fermenters and wouldn't know what to do with 5g worth of bottles. My house is only around 750 sq ft so I don't have much extra room in the air conditioning.

There is always someone getting out of brewing or going bigger. It's also common to find turkey fryer apparatus used for less than $40, including a big enough pot -- that you will have to clean very well.

BIAB = Brew In A Bag?

Yep.

I used a 14qt stainless pot i bought at BigLots for $13 and a 5 gallon paint strainer bag i bought at Lowes in a 2-pack for like $2.

Also, a digital probe thermometer, which is much faster to read the temperature of the mash than the glass one BBS ships.

I used a 90 minute mash, with temperatures fluctuating between 150 and 160. All of the water that was ever going to be in the beer at once.

When the mash is done, turn up the heat. When it hits 170, lift out the bag, tie it off, and put it in a colander balanced over the wort.

The boil is done as usual.

It took some tinkering to get the equipment and mash programmed into brewtarget but generally the total amount of water to start with is about 6.5 quarts.

Now that i have a 10 gallon insulated mash tun, I just pour in water at the temperature recommended by brewtarget based on the recipe and equipment, pour in the grain, stir a bit, lid up, and walk away to go prepare for the next steps for an hour. Beats the heck out of worrying a pot on the stove for an hour and a half.
 
Finished bottling this morning! I can't wait to try it after two weeks. To make bottling easier in the future, i'll probably buy an auto-siphon and bottling bucket.

Bottles.JPG
 
Don't try after two weeks, wait three or four. It will be difficult, but the result better.
 
kc1123 said:
Don't try after two weeks, wait three or four. It will be difficult, but the result better.

I'll try. I plan on brewing my second batch next weekend. It will be the Brooklyn Brew Shop Grapefruit Honey Ale. Hopefully once I order some ingredients, I can stagger my fermenters so that I am always bottling some beer every few weeks. I just need a couple more 1 gallon jugs or maybe a 2 gallon bucket and some more bottles.
 
Finished bottling this morning! I can't wait to try it after two weeks. To make bottling easier in the future, i'll probably buy an auto-siphon and bottling bucket.


Looking to bottle this afternoon. a few questions on your bottling:

  1. Did you use the honey recipe for your primer or did you opt for priming sugar? If priming sugar, did you make your own or purchase from a LHBS?
  2. re: Sugar - Did you add the primer to the 1Gallon jug, swirl it around and wait 30min for the sediments to fall and then bottle straight from the 1G Jug into the bottles? Or did you add primer directly into the bottle? if the latter, how much? for each?
  3. re: Honey - If you went HONEY, I'm reading that using the honey method can be tricky since not all honey is concentrated the same and that I would need to test the gravity. What brand did you use and how much + water? This recipe would be helpful
  4. I was originally thinking of siphoning into a second pot filled with priming sugar (or honey) but after reading that you can go directly into the 1G jug I may opt to go this method. This would remove the need to siphon twice.

or am I thinking to much and you just followed the instructions listed with brooklyn brew? If you did anything different it would be great to hear your steps.

All the best!

TIP - an advanced Homebrew friend of mine said that you should line these newly primed bottles under a heavy-duty garbage bag. The thought is, if you overcarb the bottles, you don't want exploding beer all over your house/apt/garage!
 
jnalpak - The bottling kit I bought at my LHBS included 1lb of corn sugar so I used that. Most people recommend it over honey. First, I dissolved and boiled 25g of the corn sugar and water. Then I added that mixture to a 10qt pot and siphoned the wort over top and stirred it up a little bit. After that I filled and capped the bottles. It was pretty easy but defiantly requires 2-3 people. I had my wife taking care of the racking cane and my father-in-law handing me bottles.

Your trash bag idea is pretty good but since I used the recommended amount of corn sugar, I hope I won't have that problem.

Tips:
  • Get an auto siphon and bottle filler. I didn't have an auto siphon but the bottle filler was nice to have.
  • Put a towel or container down where you will be filling the bottles to catch any overflow. I didn't do this and had a mess to clean up after.
 
jnalpak - I used the honey called for in the recipe, but I measure my 3 tbsp. a little "under" because I was worried about overcarbing. I put my honey and water in a glass measuring cup and microwaved it. I mixed it up really well and poured it into the bottom of the pot I was using to bottle. I siphoned from my primary into the pot on top of the mixture. I would not recommend adding sugar to the primary. In retrospect I wish I could have gently stirred the beer + priming mixture for a few seconds to distribute everything better. I had no exploding bottles, though I did find the carbonation was a little inconsistent. One bottle was very carbed, another just right, etc.
 
Another thing that could lead to overcarbing is bottling before primary is done. I waited three full weeks before bottling.
 
I would stick with sugar regular table sugar with like a 1/3 to 1/2 cup of water heated to at least 170 degrees or just before boil in a 6qt pot so it can hold the beer. Let it cool and then siphon the beer into the pot and then bottle from that. worked for me everytime. I have never had a bottle bomb yet and each bottle carbs the same.
 
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