Thoughts/input for a newbie getting into the hobby

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AlbertaBeer said:
Thanks, yea sitting and reading a book isn’t really my thing lol. Reading around forums and watching YouTube tutorials and such are definitely more my style!

Unfortunately where I am it’s a 2h drive one way to the nearest homebrew shop and they really don’t have a lot there, they cater more to the wine side. The nearest one that really has anything for beer gear is a 4h drive one way


Thanks, yea sitting and reading a book isn’t really my thing lol. Reading around forums and watching YouTube tutorials and such are definitely more my style!

Unfortunately where I am it’s a 2h drive one way to the nearest homebrew shop and they really don’t have a lot there, they cater more to the wine side. The nearest one that really has anything for beer gear is a 4h drive one way. So really nothing is close and readily accessible. I can’t just jump in the truck and run to the store and be back in an hour if I’m missing something lol



Like I’ve said, we go through quite a lot of beer around the shop. Even just between myself and a few buddy’s we can go through a lot just having a night hanging out at my house. 48 beer a night is not out of the ordinary, even when we are working full pin and the crew has only one or 2 beer each at the end of the day that’s 24 beer down the hatch. We don’t usually just go down to the liquor store and pick up a box or 2, we literally order a pallet and believe me it doesn’t sit around long enough to go bad when a dozen guys dig into it 😂

Now, I’m not looking to supply beer for every thirsty soul around the area. But the more the merrier if everyone likes it. I definitely dont see scaling it up to bbl sized batches or anything!

I have 100amp 240v service in my toy shop where I want to brew so no issue with power

Also like I’ve mentioned we’re all mostly lager drinkers. So that’s what I want to end up brewing in the end, but I’m thinking I’ll start with some ales before we overcomplicate things right away
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Great, sounds like you are on the right path.

Making lagers takes longer. Figure 2 weeks for your fermentation. Lager yeast likes it cold, around 50 degrees. Thats what stops some people from making them, not having a dedicated fridge or chamber you can control to 50 degrees. Then after fermentation finishes you transfer the beer to another clean and sanitized fermenter and drop the temp to near freezing, 33 or 34 degrees and it sits that way for about a month before you bottle or keg. High level.

Light lagers are also what they call “naked brewing”. You don’t have anything to hide behind or cover up any off flavors like you would say in a hoppy ale or a dark stout. If anything is wrong with your process, you will definitely know. Most people make lagers after they have some experience brewing other things. But I admire your willingness to jump right in. Honestly, you won’t find it that hard after you’ve done it a couple times.
 
The great thing about the Foundry too is you can control the mash temp and even do step mashes - which is another great tool to have for making lagers.
 
That’s all kind of the reason I’m looking at the equipment i am looking at. I can chill the g4 and let it do it’s thing in there. Although that is going to tie up that unit until it’s done. So I’d be waiting or having to get another fermenter if I wanted to make batches in between.

I’ve been looking into doing double batching and going with a 14gal unitank as the price difference from the 7g is negligible. Lots of mixed reviews on doing the double batches and when/how to pitch yeast. But the argument usually always comes down to breweries can make it work so why can’t a home brewer! To me this makes more sense to try and double batch once we’ve figured out a recipe and process that works rather than just going to a larger foundry and losing the ability to still do a 2-3gal batch of I want to. I also haven’t really come across anything to say that an oversized fermenter is a bad thing, say if I was to ferment a 3gal batch in a 14gal fermenter. Other than of course the airspace, but again I’ve got co2 already so its nothing to purge the fermenter and remove air

But hey, if there’s an ale that we enjoy maybe I’d stick to making an ale over lager and I’ll just have a really fancy fermenter that I don’t need 🤷‍♂️
 
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Heat won’t be a huge challenge but it’s still going to be an issue. The toy shop stays fairly cool through the summer as long as the overhead door stays closed but it’s still around 70 in there most of the time on average.
 
Mutant said:
Realize that you will be doing lots of cleaning and sanitizing - this is the unfun part of homebrewing.
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Honestly it doesn’t deter me, but it also is a reason I want to just jump into stainless gear. Pop in some cip’s and I can they can handle the bulk of the work rather than spending half a day head first into a pot trying to scrub it down 😂

I don’t know if it really makes that much of a difference in brewing but we used to use a lot of plastic and wood in our meat shop and cleanup with stainless is so much easier and faster.

Of course I haven’t brewed yet, but from anything I’ve been reading/watching basically any kind of contamination whether it’s poor washing or even air is going to be detrimental to the quality of the beer. I just want to try and avoid that whole situation as best as I can before I even start
 
From one newbie to another, I would suggest staritng with a couple of basic kits, and learn the craft as you go. I watched a lot of videos and read a lot about brewing before I started and thought I was ready to go 'all-in' on the most complicated recipe. A friend talked me into starting with an extract kit, and then a simple all-grain recipe. I'm glad I did, because I learned so much just actually doing it - questions that come up while you're in the middle of brewing can't be compensated for with all the videos/reading in the world. But, I do admire your goal of using your own grains - that would be amazing!

And as far as being in a remote area, there are quite a few really good Canadian shops that have online stores. I'm not sure if listing good shops is allowed on the forum, but I can point you in the right direction for a few really helpfuly places I've ordered from.

Cheers!
 
Dave77 said:
From one newbie to another, I would suggest staritng with a couple of basic kits, and learn the craft as you go. I watched a lot of videos and read a lot about brewing before I started and thought I was ready to go 'all-in' on the most complicated recipe. A friend talked me into starting with an extract kit, and then a simple all-grain recipe. I'm glad I did, because I learned so much just actually doing it - questions that come up while you're in the middle of brewing can't be compensated for with all the videos/reading in the world. But, I do admire your goal of using your own grains - that would be amazing!

And as far as being in a remote area, there are quite a few really good Canadian shops that have online stores. I'm not sure if listing good shops is allowed on the forum, but I can point you in the right direction for a few really helpfuly places I've ordered from.

Cheers!
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Thanks. I do intend to start with kits. Probably extract to start then all grain kits and basically slowly work my way up to my final goal.

I just want to make sure I’m set up pretty decent to start with so I don’t have any extra complications or have to keep upgrading components to get to my final goal of all grain lager with our own grains.

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being cheap and not buying what I really need right away and eventually having to buy it anyways. now I’m out even more money because I was trying to be cheap, and probably pissed off because what i started with wasn’t exactly ideal. I’m definitely a buy it once and be done kind of person 😂

If you know of any good shops in northern Alberta please don’t hesitate to pm me if you want. Google isn’t anyways the best for finding places, especially some of the little mom and pop brick and mortar shops that are usually the better places to shop! Shipping is usually a killer for most things so I’d prefer to shop as local as possible
 
AlbertaBeer said:
Thanks. I do intend to start with kits. Probably extract to start then all grain kits and basically slowly work my way up to my final goal.
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I think that's a great progression into the hobby. While it's not terribly hard to jump into all-grain right away, there's something to be said for starting out with extract kits. You don't have to worry about recipe building, mash, or water chemistry. You can focus on the boil process, hops additions, chilling the wort, pitching yeast, fermentation control and packaging.

Stepping up to all grain kits, you add the elements of controlling mash temps and water chem (the chemistry is not overly complicated and you can easily get into the ballpark).

Next step is creating your own recipes. This is where the fun really begins. You make the beer you want to make, with your ingredients.
 
Also, remember your end game is different than most people posting here, who are looking to brew 3-15 gallon batches of every type of beer imaginable. Your goal is seemingly to brew just 1-2 good beers using your own malt that your friends and co-workers will like and drink a lot. Fun goal/challenge, but remember that difference as to read info and advice. Not all advice is written/given with that end goal in mind.
 
MaxStout said:
I think that's a great progression into the hobby. While it's not terribly hard to jump into all-grain right away, there's something to be said for starting out with extract kits. You don't have to worry about recipe building, mash, or water chemistry. You can focus on the boil process, hops additions, chilling the wort, pitching yeast, fermentation control and packaging.

Stepping up to all grain kits, you add the elements of controlling mash temps and water chem (the chemistry is not overly complicated and you can easily get into the ballpark).

Next step is creating your own recipes. This is where the fun really begins. You make the beer you want to make, with your ingredients.
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Yep, I get starting with all grain kits is really not much different but I’m a true believer in starting simple, get the process down pat then she’s hair straight back from there!
GoodTruble said:
Also, remember your end game is different than most people posting here, who are looking to brew 3-15 gallon batches of every type of beer imaginable. Your goal is seemingly to brew just 1-2 good beers using your own malt that your friends and co-workers will like and drink a lot. Fun goal/challenge, but remember that difference as to read info and advice. Not all advice is written/given with that end goal in mind.
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Yes that’s been fairly obvious haha. Which by all means were all in it for different things. None of us are real beer connoisseurs here so I’ll be less focused on making every recipe under the sun, but perfecting one or 2 in larger 5-10g batches. But don’t get me wrong i will definitely be doing some experimenting in the off-season when fiddling around with a couple gallon batch is going to keep up to demand

The more I’m thinking about it, the more I want to try and make kegs work though 😂
 
AlbertaBeer said:
The more I’m thinking about it, the more I want to try and make kegs work though 😂
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You're catching on quickly. Think of it being one large bottle to clean, fill, and carbonate.

Us, homebrewers use mostly Corny kegs, not Sanke kegs. The latter being the kegs of trade for commercial breweries.
The main reason is: cleaning of Cornies is much easier. You could check around for good used Corny kegs in local markets. Or just buy a couple new ones.
 
AlbertaBeer said:
Is that on an audiobook somewhere? I honestly have way too much adhd to sit and read a 600 page book 🤣
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I am also a new brewer (7th and 8th batches are lagering and bottle conditioning respectively). I strongly second the suggestion to get Palmer's How To Brew book. You don't sit down and read it end to end, I use it as a reference as I prep and on brew day. Chapter 11 "How to Brew Lager Beer" was worth the book by itself.
 
@AlbertaBeer you have been given a lot of good info here. I know it is a lot to digest. I urge you seek out several on line videos on homebrewing before starting to build your brewery. I see from your comments that you don't know other local homebrewers but I bet there are some you just haven't found yet. Either way, the knowledge you will gain by watching others actually go through a brew day is immeasurable. It will behoove you to watch others brew be it in person or via videos.

I admire your desire to invest in quality equipment right from the start. You will not regret that decision. Do your research and buy equipment that will last a life time and perform the functions to fulfill your needs. While certain inexpensive plastic fermenters are capable of doing a good job their life expectancy is short in comparison to stainless fermenters. I'm impressed with the fermzilla, it offers a couple of good functions a plastic bucket can never do. But it pails in comparison to a Conical.

Additionally spare yourself the labor, frustration and disappointment with bottles. With a dozen beer drinking buddies a 5 gallon batch (48 - 50 bottles)
will last ONE session. Kegging involves far less labor, is easy to maintain sanitation and taste better (I don't care who says otherwise). Now a 5 gal keg will also only last one session. But it is much easier to produce. As with brewing itself you will learn how to keep the pipe line in motion.

Welcome to the madness we call a hobby! Go ahead, jump in. But remember once you slide off that slippery slope into homebrewing, there is no return.

Cheers
 
Unfortunately (we’ll, not really unfortunate lol) I don’t live in a densely populated area so there a no clubs or anything of the sort.

Just a few ‘locals’ that make wine and a couple that make shine lol. Doesn’t seem to be anyone nearby that does beer so I think it’s all on you guys and YouTube for teaching 😂
 
If you have family in populated areas I would highly recommend you keep an eye on craigslist or similar for people selling entire brew setups for real cheap. I check every week or 2 for deals, but if you are in more rural/remote areas that may not be an option.
 
Not Alberta, but closer than ontariobeerkegs.com ;
https://prairiebrewsupply.ca/Saskatchewan.
I've gotta echo @IslandLizard 's mention of Corny NOT Sankey here; Sankey's are hell to clean. Since you're primarily interested in lagers, unless you're going to do warm-ferments ( Warm Fermented Lager Thread ) You'll need to make space for either a temp-controlled fridge or other fermentation chamber or a glycol chiller to accompany your unitank. Since you say you already have CO2 gear, it only makes sense to get at least a corny keg or 2 even if to bottle from. If you have something to ferment in, then as others have said; Look into the Fermzilla's or something that make it easier to transfer without moving to keg or bottles.
As far as used gear goes, here in Canada we always have kijiji.ca
https://www.kijiji.ca/b-alberta/beer-brew/k0l9003?rb=true&dc=trueBest! :bigmug:
 
I'll throw in another vote for prioritizing kegging (and also vote Corney not Sankey). Like many other new brewers I also focused on making wort and fermenting early in my brewing hobby days and put off kegging but really that step made the entire hobby so much easier and more practical. As my enthusiasm for the hobby increased I was quickly buried in bottles - clean, dirty, full, cold, room temp...they were all over the place. It was a nightmare. That was doing 5 gallon batches, then I upgraded to 10 gallon batches. Now 15... No way I could keep up with bottles.
 
Currently the selection on kijiji within a days drive from me is a chopped up cooler and a small kettle for $600. She’s slim pickings around here.

There’s a guy in Calgary selling off a bunch of gear, but the prices don’t really justify 20hours of driving!

Even finding a decent little freezer to make a keezer is tough around here. Coworker watched the classifieds for probably 4 or 5 months before he came across one to build his keezer. He usually buys a couple kegs when he goes to the city, maybe I can steal the business 😂
 
AlbertaBeer said:
Thanks guys.

Definitely agree on doing kits first rather than jumping in head first with all grain, the all grain brewing is just my end goal.

I totally agree that expensive gear isn’t going to make the beer any better. That’s true for a lot of things, our $800,000 air seeders don’t make a better crop than the neighbours $1500 box drill from 1970. But it sure makes doing the job a lot More enjoyable 😂.

Like I said, I just don’t want to have to keep buying gear and upgrading stuff, surely the gear I’m looking at holds some kind of resale value if this doesn’t work out? I’ve actually looked and don’t see much for homebrew gear other than kegs and little trinkets on the local buy&sell, so maybe it would be a hard sell? 🤷‍♂️ I’m not set on that specific equipment, thats from what I’ve seen is decent quality stuff and is available at this time. The g4 is definitely way over the top, but it’s what’s in stock when I was shopping around. I didn’t intend on dropping $1500 on a fermenter but my theory is always that it should at least be worth something in the end

Kegs are definitely a lot less work, that’s without a doubt. I’m not against them, I just have to figure out how to make it practical. The office is fairly small so we don’t have room for a kegerator and the fridge we have in there now is just too small I think to put a mini keg and co2 bottle into. It’s a large mini fridge, so not a lot of room and we do like to use it for a little bit of food not just booze lol. It would be a pain but a guy could just lug a chilled keg in there every time we’re having drinks, but that’s probably not the best option if there’s any sediment in the tank. I don’t know, I’ll have to think about How we could do that
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I appreciate what you are saying and have gone down the cheap plastic gear only to upgrade in fairly short order. I like stainless because it is easy to clean and conical because it is easy to package directly from the fermenter without the traub. That said perhaps start small with a 3.5 gallon and expand with experience. I added a 7.5 gallon fermenter earlier this year so I can do 5 gallon batches, while the 3.5 can be used for new recipes or different brews. I often have both in production over the course of a brew cycle and have fun with the variety and experimentation. Bottling hasn't been that big of chore for me, although I rinse bottles each evening and store till use. Would like to kegerate eventually, but have not found space and not ready to get that technical yet. So far my consumption has not kept pace with production but summer is coming with more opportunities for social activities. Have fun and enjoy the experience.
 
i started almost 2 years ago, and my advice is start simple and once you get comfortable, you can add more complexity, more processes.
But, parallel to that, do what gets your motor running. If youre excited about malting your own grains, DO IT! Its a hobby.
 
AlbertaBeer said:
Currently the selection on kijiji within a days drive from me is a chopped up cooler and a small kettle for $600. She’s slim pickings around here.

There’s a guy in Calgary selling off a bunch of gear, but the prices don’t really justify 20hours of driving!

Even finding a decent little freezer to make a keezer is tough around here. Coworker watched the classifieds for probably 4 or 5 months before he came across one to build his keezer. He usually buys a couple kegs when he goes to the city, maybe I can steal the business 😂
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Maybe contact them and see if they will come down. The flip side of few sellers is there may be few buyers in the area as well. Is there anything in Calgary worth driving to? Make a long weekend of it and do something enjoyable as well as getting brew equip ;-)
 
thiagoedwardo said:
i started almost 2 years ago, and my advice is start simple and once you get comfortable, you can add more complexity, more processes.
But, parallel to that, do what gets your motor running. If youre excited about malting your own grains, DO IT! Its a hobby.
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All grain isn’t complex, it’s just an extra mash tun really. And if you do biab you could use your boil pot
 
beren said:
All grain isn’t complex, it’s just an extra mash tun really. And if you do biab you could use your boil pot
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never said it was complex, i started all grain to (here in brazil almost no one use extract, theyre too expensive).
What i'm saying is, you need to be comfortable with the process, and then you will be adding more layers.
 
beren said:
All grain isn’t complex,
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+1

thiagoedwardo said:
you need to be comfortable with the process,
Click to expand...
and +1.


"all grain" adds a couple of steps to the process: necessary water adjustments, proper mash crush, and mash temperature control.

Starting in the mid-to-late 2010s (depending how what you were reading/watching at the time), the problems (and solutions) for those steps became well known.
 
You should be doing water adjustments for extract as well, at least the sulfate to chloride ratios make a large difference I’ve sadly discovered in my English brown. Mash crush is a minor detail mostly affecting mash efficiency, you can get pre-crushed grains everywhere and I’d bet lower efficiencies are still cheaper than extract, and that leaves you with mash temp, which I read mostly matters the first 20min.
So sure, a few extra steps but not too much different really, at least at first. I did my first few brews with no grain mill and they were still good.
 
Yes I’ve been reading into that a bit already. I think to start I’ll just go and grab a bunch of ro water from town so I have a good baseline to start with

I’m in town water out here in the country so I’ve got good clean potable water at the tap, I just can’t seem to find anything on the county website as far as a water sample/test. I’m almost certain they treat with chloramine also
 
AlbertaBeer said:
I just can’t seem to find anything on the county website as far as a water sample/test.
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Call em up. Ask for quality control, they have the mineral numbers.
Do you know which ones to ask for?
Also ask about their water sources, which may well be deep wells and very stable (low fluctuations) year round.

Chlorine or Chloramine can be removed quickly with a powdered piece of a Campden tablet or little bit of K-Meta or Na-Meta powder.
 
beren said:
You should be doing water adjustments for extract as well, at least the sulfate to chloride ratios make a large difference I’ve sadly discovered in my English brown.
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Agreed that sulfate and/or chloride additions can make a good DME/LME based beer better.

Just be sure to have a good understanding of the minerals in the source water and a broad understanding of the minerals that might be in the brand of DME.
 
Yea I got a Buddy that works in the county office, he’s going to go track down the right guy for me. They’re so disorganized there nobody knows whose looking after anything over there 🤣. But, somewhere somebody definitely has a water sample

Last I knew, they were still sourcing our water from the river so I’m sure it fluctuates
 
I got a stainless distiller from my brother and cleaned it up. It makes distilled water for about $0.50/gal. ~500w for 5h. it might be more than an ro system but it's a lot smaller and simpler.
 
Yea I’ve been looking at the turbo 500 distiller, it’s able to be fitted to the foundry but from what they claim in the manual for flow rate it would be a long process to distill enough water to make a batch of beer.

I think a small ro system might be the more cost effective route. At least I will have full control over the water quality
 
I normally makes 1 to 2 gallons a day and that’s fast enough for me. I dump it in a 5 gallon plastic water jug or glass carboy.
I normally do it at my office kitchen and the water is extremely hard. It would clogs and RO filter quick I bet
 
I have been brewing for many years but that doesn't necessarily translate to good beer. I quickly went from 5 gallon batches to 10 gallons, thinking it was "cool". Problem was, my son quit drinking beer and that left me with a LOT of beer to go through. Result: only brewed once every 4-5 months. Thus I never really developed a rhythm, and each batch was like starting over. Since getting my Anvil, I brew small batches, but my ossified brain can keep at least most of the process down from batch to batch.
 

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