Just brewed my first beer!

I followed the directions at the below link almost exactly, except that I added the hops at the beginning of the boil by accident. It seems that during the boil it condensed quite a bit by lost steam - the end product was only 1 quart. I fit it in 1 quart jar. Also I used baker's yeast.

Gosh this took a while, and was not an insignificant amount of work. But I'm excited about the brew! looks THICK.

BTW Hello Everyone!
<-- first post, first time here.

How to Brew Beer in a Coffee Pot

Uhhh... Man you gotta upgrade to a pot.

I would be willing to accept donations of brewing equipment.

Otherwise, I'll have to make do. I have four kids with one on the way and we're single income.

Actually I got into this because I'm a beer snob and I can't bring myself to spend the money on beer. But minus the equipment, the ingredients are cheap!

Well what did you brew? Ingredients?

Welcome to HBT! You might want to look into getting a brewing setup that is a little more efficient that your coffee pot.

You might like to read through this link for some interesting views on your brew technique.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/breakthrough-how-brew-beer-5-days-99786/

I used "Briess 6 Row Pale Malt" and "Cascade Pelletized Hops". Dunno what those will taste like, I just asked the shop to give me whatever is "commonly popular".

Eventually I would like to work towards Optimator Spaten. haha, if only I could brew something that good......

Go to Wally world and pick up a cheap ceramic 3 or 5 gal pot. Just think of the convenience, and the time you will save wit a $25 investment.

Congratulations on your first brew! I can only hope that it comes out great and that you find a way to upgrade to a full brew kit. For now though, congrats on your first creation!

I'll let you guys know how it tastes.

So, I wait a week and then bottle it. Do I add a small amount of sugar when I bottle it, for carbonation? And then it needs to sit for another week in the bottle?

In the meantime I'm going to read up everything I can from this site and make brew number 2.

Sweet jeebus....is this for real?

Dude, I hope this comes out tasty, but if it doesn't don't be discouraged. Just upgrade and use some more traditional methods. By the way, yes, adding some sugar at bottling will get you the carbonation.
How to Brew - By John Palmer

Congratulations on your first brew! If you continue I think you'll get a natural urge to upgrade, and we'll be here to guide you and answer your questions! Maybe donate or sell some left over equipment to you! So... Be nice and make friends. Homebrewers are a clannish lot. You've just joined, enjoy the spoils!!!:rockin:

Thanks for the link man, I'll learn up. Yeah, this is real. Everyone has to start somewhere, and I'm starting at the rock bottom.

I had this idea... 'Hey there's evidence that cavemen brewed beer. If they could do it with rocks and clay pots, I can do it in my kitchen." Sure enough, googling "How to brew beer", hit 3 was this walk through of using a coffee pot.

And you gotta admit, that without ever knowing anything about brewing, that's a pretty simple intro.

Yeah, I'm not expecting much. But I'm willing to learn over the long haul. Looks like a lotta good info here!

Congrats on the first brew!!

If you have a 3-6 gallon pot kicking around that'd be a good start to all out brewing! (6-7 you could do a brew in bag brew, or easy-stovetop-all-grain-brewing you can get food grade buckets from grocery stores/bakeries (I'd advise not using pickle buckets) and drill a hole in the lid, airlocks are cheap!!

For 40 bucks or so you can have a full out 5 gallon brewing setup!!! Grain is cheaper than extract!

I can swing $40. If I knew exactly what to get, I would spend that. I would just hate to waste money.

Say my wife has access to a pressure cooker, would that do? It's pretty darn big.

Hi everyone, I feel pretty welcome here. I'm excited about my new hobby! I'm looking forward to years of brewing fun.

That stovetop link looks great, I'll absorb it when I get back to work on Tues.

Yeah, DeathBrewer has some great tutorials. He has one for Partial Mash as well. There is a wealth of information on this site!

So given the ingredients I listed, what kind of brew is this going to be? Some kind of pale lager? It looks pretty freaky. I wouldn't say that it's "fermenting" so much as "brooding"

From what I know a lager has to be fermented with lager yeast at lager temperatures (between 45-60 degrees IIRC, someone here can correct me.)

What you made will most likely just be an ale, referred to here as SMASH (Single Malt and Single Hops.)

Im sure it will be tasty!

Congrats of the first beer! I hope it turns out great. If not, think of it as a learning experience.

As far as upgrading to some "brewing equipment": If you do some research before each purchase you can save some money. Assemble your own set up instead of buying a kit.

I think you'll also find that brewing 5 gal batches is about the same amount of "work" as 2 quart batches. So you might as well get 50 or so beers for your efforts. (Before long you'll be applying the same logic to 10 gallon batches and looking for a really big pot. :rockin: )

Good luck.

10 gallons... sounds like heaven.

I've got this smash downstairs in a cellar, I think it's in the mid fifties down there... I had heard that cool and dark was the way to go, and I can do that

Okay, according to the site I followed it's done fermenting today. I bottled it with about half a teaspoon of sugar.

Basically, the whole batch just made one 16 oz bottle of beer, plus some drippings. It doesn't look very appealing.

I'll be brewing tonight again with a pot, though, so I have better hopes for the next batch.

Questor said:

Okay, according to the site I followed it's done fermenting today.

Click to expand...

For future reference, you can't tell if it's done fermenting from a web site. Measure with a hydrometer and see if you get the same reading 2 days in a row.

How long it takes depends on how much fermentable stuff was in the beer (varies based on how you made it, quality of grain, etc), the qualities of the water you used, the temperature of the fermenter, how much the temperature varied, how many active yeast cells were pitched, the health of the yeast, and tons of other factors.

As a one time thing it's probably okay, but sometimes it takes a lot longer than others and you don't want to bottle until it's done or you could wind up with exploding bottles. In the future, measure!

Way to go! Let the addiction to brewing begin....

~M~

AAAAAAAAAAAAck it's horrible! one sip, I recoiled, and poured it out. Next batch...

Questor said:

AAAAAAAAAAAAck it's horrible! one sip, I recoiled, and poured it out. Next batch...

Click to expand...

Never dump a beer!!!!

Oh no, sir, this was horrible. It tasted nothing like beer. Instead, it tasted like one would imagine bong water to taste.

Don't get discouraged, especially by some of the naysayers on here. You can brew 5 gallons with the bare minimum: stockpot, 5 gallon bucket w/lid etc, etc. I'll bet with $40 or $50 you can get enough equipment to brew something drinkable. Like you said, everyone's gotta start somewhere. Good luck!

Welcome to the brewing world and keep on trying. I think everyone here would say that their best batch was not their first. Depending on where you live there's lots of random places to pick up free/cheap basic brewing equipment.

BTW, most people wait longer than a day to open the bottled homebrew. Keep reading and you will make good beer.

edit: sorry for the multiple posts. SWMBOs computer is acting up.

well if you only bottled it today and then opened it today there's a good chance that it didn't taste too well.

If you like beer, then continue reading books and browse this website and in no time you'll have a good feel on how to brew some great tasting beer.

Um...another duplicate post.

Have a and a I'm leaving to get my corny ready.

Hey man, sorry to hear that your first attempt wasn't as acceptable/drinkable as you would have liked.

Take some time with this. I brewed my first batch on January 10th. They are still conditioning in the bottles. The wait can be a bit of a bear, but it's worth it in the long run.

Get yourself a better set up and pick up a 5 gallon extract recipe kit to start with. You'll appreciate it a little more.

Overall though, be patient.

Questor said:

AAAAAAAAAAAAck it's horrible! one sip, I recoiled, and poured it out. Next batch...

Click to expand...

1) It's at _least_ 2 weeks from bottling day to fully carbed, and the flavor will change dramatically in that time.
2) It can take another few weeks or months to fully condition. If a beer is bad, put it in a closet for a couple months and taste again (unless it's obviously infected).

SumnerH said:

1) It's at _least_ 2 weeks from bottling day to fully carbed, and the flavor will change dramatically in that time.
2) It can take another few weeks or months to fully condition. If a beer is bad, put it in a closet for a couple months and taste again (unless it's obviously infected).

Click to expand...

i think this guy is in a different boat, being right now, he is brewing 1 bottle at a time.

personally (and i wouldn't recommend this with 1 16oz bottle), i usually wait a week (and try 1 or 2) and most of my beers are plenty carbonated by that time. after 2-3 weeks, i'll have 1-2 more, and if i feel they're good enough, i'll start dishing them out to company.

OP - i admire what you're doing here - it's ingenious. i say adventure a little more with the coffee maker and read up on this site. once you take a quote on how much you can spend and how much it would cost you, then go out and get all you need to do some 5 gallon batches.

I just finished brew number two, this time using pots and a bit of new know-how from this site. Same barley and hops smash. This time I maintained a "mash" temp of 152-160 usually 154. And my "sparge" temp was 170.

When I was done, what had started as 42 fluid ounces had become about 15. I backfilled to 42, which cooled the wort pretty much instantly. Then I added brewers yeast (not baker's yeast this time) which I had primed with warm water and a bit of sugar.

So this time I made approximately double what I made last time, used pots, watched my temps, and tried generally to brew a bit more in line with this site.

I hope to see some yeast activity sometime before the end of the weekend!

I plan on waiting until the yeast is inactive before bottling, and then leaving it bottled for 2 weeks before drinking. Question - how much sugar should I add to the bottles?

Maybe you should spend some time making some labels for the bottles. Some thing like " Pope Benedictine's Holy Bong Water" Then if someone has one, they can't complain that it does, in fact, taste horrid.