Brewing Space can be limited in apartments.When I first started homebrewing two years ago, I was browsing all sorts of brewing websites doing my research before I bought any equipment. Almost every picture I saw showed three-tier stands in nice big garages, or fancy basement electric breweries. This scared me. I was twenty-one years old and wanted to brew my own beer. I lived in a very small apartment, with one bedroom and hardly any room to move. I was unable to use propane, and had a small apartment-sized electric stove. I doubted my ability to brew good beer like that produced by these larger setups. I went ahead and bought a Brewer’s Best kit anyways. It is definitely a challenge if you have a small space, but it is far from impossible!
Find a place for a wort chiller no matter what.I recently moved into a larger apartment. Space is still very tight, but I now have a gas stove and I am able to boil a full 6.5 gallons of wort. I still don’t have a fancy three-tier setup as mentioned earlier, but I am doing all-grain brews just fine in my small space. Here are the five most important things that I have learned along the way:
1. Find a place for a wort chiller.
I went through at least fifteen batches using the “no chill” method because I didn’t think my faucets would unscrew to hook up a wort chiller. Check every faucet to see if it will unscrew, and don’t assume like I did. If you have a washer in your apartment, you should have a hook up behind it, or even try taking off your shower head. If there is absolutely no place for a wort chiller, fill your bathtub up with cold water and ice.
2. Temperature control is critical to good beer.
This goes for any kind of brewing, not just in your apartment. In an apartment, you may not have room for a fridge or any sort of temperature controlled environment. I invested in the Cool Brewing Insulated Fermentation Bag, and consequently am able to ferment in my closet. Just by swapping out a frozen two-liter water bottle every day, my temperature stays right around 65°F; just where I want it!
3. Split boils are possible!
Use the Full Boil method on a gas stove, or a split boil method if your stove can't handle a full boil.Now that I have moved into an apartment with a gas stove, I can boil all of my wort in one pot if I set it across two burners. Before I did that, I was doing all grain and doing a split boil. I had 3.5 gallons of wort in one pot, and the rest of the wort in another. I brewed a pale ale using the split boil method, and it ended up scoring 41 in a local competition and brought home a medal. If you don't want to do a split boil, you can look into getting a heat stick suitable for your stove to help push your wort to a full boil.
4. Scale your recipes.
If you love to brew, it can be tricky to find space for fifty bottles of beer if you don’t have room to keg. Don’t be afraid to scale a recipe to the size that works for you. There is nothing wrong with scaling a five-gallon batch down to a one or two gallon batch. If you prefer not to scale, but still have issues with storage, go ahead and buy a cheap armoire and put it in your bedroom. I have one for storing all of my equipment and bottles, and it looks really nice and you can’t even tell what’s inside!
5. Prepare for a mess.
Every time I brew, I line my floor with towels and rags. Since a lot of the brewing process is cleaning, I make a huge mess. Prepare for this ahead of time.
A great pint of beer after a cramped day of homebrewingCheers!
Cheers!
