Brewing Efficiency

[WyoBuckeye]

I have been reading over these forums for the past hour or so and I plainly see that I have a lot to learn. It is so much fun to learn this stuff though. I am truely enamoured with this new hobbby of mine. Let me pose you all this challenge: What are the easiest and cheapest ways to improve from basic beginner homebrewing? I don't have a lot of extra income to spend on this stuff, so I want the most efficient ways to improve my brew quality without spending mad $$$$ on exotic equipment that will only have marginal effects on overall quality. To make this more fun use this guideline:


A new homebrewer has been brewing for several months and is pleased, but not fully satisfied with the results. He/She uses a typical basic homebrew kit and secondary fermentation. The budget for new equipment is $100. What do you recommend?

 

[Orfy]

Spending money will not usually increase the quality of you beer unless something is holding you back.
The answer to your question depends on several things. One of them being what method you use and what method you want to use.
With out knowing details I'd say there are a few things that can help most noobs.

Get a hydrometer and learn to wait.

Get a larger boil pot and an wort chiller. (This is what I'd spend the $100 on)

Ditch the sugar kits
Steep With Speciality Grains
Mini Mash
Go All grain.

It depends how many of the above things you have/do.

 

[david_42]

A 5 gallon cooler and a very large grain bag will set you back about $40 and allow you to do mini-mashes. With 3-5 pounds of grain, they are easy to work with and allow the use of grains that can't be steeped.

 

[olllllo]

Speaking as someone from a warmer climate two things were key for me.

1) Being able to cool wort quickly meant making a pre-chiller and an immersion chiller. Another solution may have been a CFC chiller.
2) Because most people use AC to cool in the summer and set thermostats between 75F - 82F (80F for me), I needed to control fermentation temperatures.
The solution for me was to get a refridgerator and temp controller. Others may have made an ice driven fermentation chamber. Factors involved in this decision depend on $, or space, etc.

In short, you need to identify a problem before asking for a solution.

 

[WyoBuckeye]

The answer to your question depends on several things. One of them being what method you use and what method you want to use.

I brew from extract kets and hop pellets for the time being. I am trying to become familiar enough with the process to step up to partial grain methods here in the next couple of months

Get a hydrometer and learn to wait.

This I do already. Just like Tom Petty sings: The waiting is the hardest part. I have stuck to it so far

Get a larger boil pot and an wort chiller. (This is what I'd spend the $100 on)

Right on. I have considered the purchase of a wort chiller but I wasn't sure of how much of a difference it would make. For the last batch that I did, I took the whole brew kettle and placed it in a ice water bath before opening the lid. The work cooled within an hour to a proper temperature such that when I topped off with water, the wort was a perfect 70 degrees F. Will a wort chiller improve over this method? I thought my ice bath method was clever since it cooled the wort fairly quickly and I could leave the lid on and thus maintain nearly pastuerized conditions in the kettle until it was time to transfer to the fermenter.

With respect to kettles, do you recommend brewing all 5 gallons at the same time instead of say boiling 2 gallons and adding 3 gallons of water afterwards?

Ditch the sugar kits
Steep With Speciality Grains
Mini Mash
Go All grain.

I really want to do this, but like I said above I am still familarizing myself with the process. I will move int his direction once I have finshed off the last of my extract kits that ordered when I got my first homebrew equipment starter kit.

 

[Pumbaa]

the 2 easiest ways to improve your brewing can be done for free . . .

1. Read read read read read red read read read read read, then when you eyes bleed dry them off and read more

2. If you are doing hopped extract kits move to unhopped extract kits, If you are doing unhopped extract kits move to extracts with steeping grains, If you are doing extract with steeping grains move to all grain (IMHO PM is a way to spend money unwisely since you'll be going to AG anyway), If you are doing AG see method 1

 

[Blender]

Keeping in mind your budget and current method I think a larger kettle would make a difference in your finished brew. I would shoot for at least to boil 4 gallons if not the whole 5 gallons. If you go that way then you have to have a stove or burner that will get the wort to a boil and then chill it in a decent amount of time. That may mean the purchase of a wort chiller and propane burner. The money starts to add up with these additions. I used to cool 4 gallons of wort pretty fast in an ice bath and the beer was good.

 

[cweston]

The priorities depend on the details of your situation.

If you don't have a place to ferment ales with steady and reasonably controllable temps in the range of 60-70, then that is the number one need I would spend money to address. Heating is cheaper and easier than cooling: if you have a basement that stays cool (65 or less) year round, then itls pretty easy and cheap to cobble up some sort of controlled temp area, box, chamber using a thermostat (or a timer) and a heat source (which can probably be a light bulb, depending on how much area you need to heat how much)

Or there are other solutions (acquarium heater, etc).

Or, if you want to lager, then temp control is *definitely* where you'll spend your money.

 

[Orfy]

If you buy a large kettle you can use it no matter what type of breing you do.

There's 2 ways to go

Converted kettle and propane burner (The best but most expensive)

Turkey fryer. (Cheaper but not as robust)

The turkey fryer is probably the route to go considering you are not wanting to make the move to AG right away and don't want to spend the $$$$$. Unless you can can get the machining done cheaply or do it yourself.
Doing a full 5 gallon+ boil will give you the scope to do any kind of brewing you want but you will need a wort chiller if it's not going to be a PITA.

Saying tat, getting the bigger pot is the end goal. If you don't want to spend that $$$$ just yet then go with David 42's suggestion of a cooler setup. Again this can be used for any brewing method right up to AG. It will let you make better beer.

Your next step should be to look at steeping specialty grains.

And yes the read, read, read bit will help but I guess you already know that.

 

[westerntrout]

a wort chiller and two books,Palmers How to Brew and Designing Great beers. be warned that it will instill the need for all thing grainy though