Brewing outside?

[thawk86CO]

Is it okay to get my wort going outside on a nice day?

 

[Billy-Klubb]

that's the way I roll, yo.

 

[passedpawn]

I have never brewed indoors. I hope it's OK

 

[MedicMang]

Outside is dandy. Just make sure a bird doesn't crap in your wort.

 

[dobes]

I brew outside unless it is a real rainy day then in my garage. Its nice not to have to worry about spills and things like that. When im all done I just clean up the area with a hose. I guess if you brew inside you don't have to worry about weather and bugs and such but I don't find that to be that big of a deal.

 

[MaddBaggins]

All of my brewing is done either on the patio or in the garage with the garage door open.
I only brew inside if I'm doing a small batch with extract. (once in the last handful of years)

 

[Bulls Beers]

Just finishing up a 90 min boil outside. Never a problem.

 

[Clonefan94]

I always brew outside as well. This time of year though, it gets tricky. So I either brew very near the garage in the front or the laundry room in the back. This way I have a way to close off the area, during cooling, from bugs. The wasps were pretty rough yesterday.

I remember when I first started brewing, having 5 wasps trying their darndest to get into my brew kettle while I was cooling. Thank goodness for my lid and some foil, or they would have succeeded.

I suppose that's a sign of good conversion though.

 

[Paps]

Try doing a bochet mead boil.....you'll get every bee within 2o miles of your place AT your house.

 

[passedpawn]

I'm lucky to have a covered patio inside a pool birdcage, so I can brew in any weather and no bugs. I can't imagine brewing indoors with the messes I make.

 

[Earsling]

Don't you have to worry about skunking when outside? I need to move operations out of the kitchen, but that's always been one of my biggest fears.

 

[Clonefan94]

I've actually got a great laundry room. Drain in the floor, plus a large wash tub with a garden hose attachment. I usually brew on the back patio and it's a quick 10 foot walk to be inside. So if the bugs get too bad, I just move in there and do the cooling.

 

[lhommedieu]

Don't you have to worry about skunking when outside? I need to move operations out of the kitchen, but that's always been one of my biggest fears.

No. As long as your follow the correct procedure while cooling and transferring wort to the fermenter, your chances of contaminating your beer are the same whether you brew inside or outside.

I use a semi-closed transfer system after the boil. I sterilize the chiller, tubing, and fermenter, and close off the boil kettle with a sterilized lid and the carboy with a sterilized carboy cap/tube (the wort is fed into a tube that goes down to the bottom of the carboy). I oxygenate the wort using an sterilized oxygen system and a similar sterilized carboy cap/tube device. I add yeast using a sterilized funnel, and then a sterilized carboy cap/blow-off device is put on the carboy before it goes into a fermenting chamber. Did I mention that I sterilize everything?

The only thing that I worry about when brewing outside are acorns in the fall (my patio is has several oak trees on the periphery). I brew inside my garage in the winter months, with the garage and back door open for ventilation, but it has to be pretty cold to drive me indoors.

"Skunking" beer, imho, has more to do with contaminating the beer with oxygen while it is fermenting and aging.

 

[brewbama]

I brew on my deck. In bad wx I put up a Dallas Cowboys blue EZ Up. In real bad wx I put up a cpl side curtains.


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[Earsling]

No. As long as your follow the correct procedure while cooling and transferring wort to the fermenter, your chances of contaminating your beer are the same whether you brew inside or outside.

I use a semi-closed transfer system after the boil. I sterilize the chiller, tubing, and fermenter, and close off the boil kettle with a sterilized lid and the carboy with a sterilized carboy cap/tube (the wort is fed into a tube that goes down to the bottom of the carboy). I oxygenate the wort using an sterilized oxygen system and a similar sterilized carboy cap/tube device. I add yeast using a sterilized funnel, and then a sterilized carboy cap/blow-off device is put on the carboy before it goes into a fermenting chamber. Did I mention that I sterilize everything?

The only thing that I worry about when brewing outside are acorns in the fall (my patio is has several oak trees on the periphery). I brew inside my garage in the winter months, with the garage and back door open for ventilation, but it has to be pretty cold to drive me indoors.

"Skunking" beer, imho, has more to do with contaminating the beer with oxygen while it is fermenting and aging.

I thought skunking was caused by UV light exposure. Is this incorrect?

 

[YellowRiver]

Ive always brewed outside, canopy EZ up if necessary,
Better yet, brew into the evening, sure the bugs come calling but the smell of cooking wort in the cooling evening air is a beautiful smell. Most of my cleanup gets done with the hose and finished the next day to keep the noise out of the house when Im done.

 

[JonM]

Skunking is absolutely caused by direct exposure to sunlight and other UV.

I've always brewed in the garage so I don't know the effect of brewing in the sunlight, though.

 

[Billy-Klubb]

I've brewed a lot of IPA's and light colored hoppy ales & lagers outside without any skunking.

 

[RickS]

The only way that one of my beers would be "skunked' is if one sprayed my pot while I was brewing.

 

[willy_mugobeer]

Scored a dark star burner from a neighbor's friend for $20; SWMBO is now much happier that I brew outside -- doesn't heat up the house in the summer. Might move back inside for the winter though.


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[Clonefan94]

I can't find the post now, of course, but I remember reading on here that the skunking during boiling in the sun had been debunked. I rarely brew in full sunlight, just because I prefer shade, but I have done it plenty of times with no ill effects.

 

[Earsling]

I've had beer in a clear glass skunk in minutes outside here so I've always been super paranoid about light contacting my wort and thereafter the finished brew. It is fermented and kegged while covered and lights on low. This is probably serious overkill (it is) but I'm concerned about losing my batch to off flavors. Seems to me that the same AAs that are being utilized in the boil are then present in the finished brew.
I need to eventually get brewing outside so the posts indicating no difference inside or out are reassuring.

 

[Clonefan94]

I've had beer in a clear glass skunk in minutes outside here so I've always been super paranoid about light contacting my wort and thereafter the finished brew. It is fermented and kegged while covered and lights on low. This is probably serious overkill (it is) but I'm concerned about losing my batch to off flavors. Seems to me that the same AAs that are being utilized in the boil are then present in the finished brew.
I need to eventually get brewing outside so the posts indicating no difference inside or out are reassuring.

Again, I still can't find the post. But if I remember correctly, and this may not be correctly, but the skunking was only supposed to happen after the yeast had started to work.

Again, I feel terrible posting possible off information, I'm not doing it to say I'm right, but hoping someone can link us to the post I'm speaking of.

Here is one I found, but this isn't the same one I remember reading.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/why-does-sunlight-not-skunk-beer-during-brewing-401793/

As this post is saying though, it could be a surface area thing. A glass or bottle of beer in the sun, is almost all exposed to the sun. The wort in a boiling pot only has a little bit exposed, compared the the full volume. And since the reactions of the hops in the boil aren't fully complete anyways, the sun doesn't have the same effect it would on a finished beer.

Probably talking out of my ass on this, but as I said. I have brewed in direct sunlight multiple times with no noticeable affect. And I am pretty sensitive to the "Skunk" effect. To the point that most commercial beer in a green or clear bottle, is undrinkable to me.

 

[lhommedieu]

Skunking is absolutely caused by direct exposure to sunlight and other UV.

I've always brewed in the garage so I don't know the effect of brewing in the sunlight, though.

Thanks for the correction. What I should have said is that exposure to oxygen after primary fermentation is over can cause beer to taste stale. I think that the thread to which the OP refers may be here (or at least it's close). While it's not dispositive, the consensus seems to be that unfermented wort will not get skunked if you're brewing outdoors.

 

[Earsling]

With my next batch I think I'm going to set out a cup of uninoculated wort in the sun for an hour to see what's up.