Getting back into it after +10 years

[richm20]

Last time I was brewing beer, forums weren't as popular so this will be my first go at it with a support group. Looking forward to it.
I have some long term and short term goals (long term meaning within the next year or so)
Right away, I would like to get back to where I left off years ago (no equipment left, nothing) When I last brewed I was doing glass primary and secondary, using kits as well as making semi custom beers. One custom I remembered was taking a dark clone kit and adding coffee and lactose to make a coffee beer. I would bottle everything and would usually have 2 beers going at a time, about a week apart.
If im going to buy a new setup, I'm going to also switch to kegging in place of bottling. I believe besides being easier I also have the benefit of force carbonation.
Okay, lots of words. Looking for ideas for a good home brew setup. Ill need tools, carboys, air locks, racking canes.....You know the deal. I already have pots and burners. Any ideas of places to buy this type of stuff would be great.

Im also looking to set up a kegging setup. This is a bit new to me. I have a co2 tank but that's it. I also have no experience with the smaller kegs and associated taps. So, please offer any ideas, advice and setups I could buy. Im going to start with 1 keg but will expand to 3 or 4 with a refrigerator converted to hold kegs and taps.


Moving forward and considering I already have some beer fermenting. I have my long term goals. I have a 2nd kitchen that we use for nothing. My in-laws are also getting rid of a beautiful 6 burner commercial stove. My plan is to remove the old kitchen, install this large stove (great for boiling) and build a brewery. Would love to hear your ideas as well as tips you may have for making this a nice simple yet effective brewery.


Prost!

 

[erick0619]

Second kitchen?? Drool, and well my only advice to you would be skip the kits, jump straight into all grain, and the search function on the website is amazing. You can have almost an question answered through there.


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Where do you place your probe?

 

[erick0619]

Oh two more things temp control and yeast starters.


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Where do you place your probe?

 

[Subdivisions]

As far as kegs, do a craigslist search for either ball lock or pin lock corny kegs. They're the old pepsi and coke soda kegs. Ball locks run about 50 bucks a piece and pin locks a tad lower at around 40. You'll need the appropriate connectors for each type. There's a gas and beer out connector for each keg type. Look them up on a website like northern brewer or at your local home brew store. Try to keep all your kegs the same as it will make your life easier.

As far as kegging goes. It makes life easier since you're not bottling 50 bottles per batch. You'll find that you need to let the beer age the same amount of time though. If you carbonate at serving pressure and at serving temperature it will take at least a week to carb up. If you have a beer that needs time to mature it won't do it any faster in a keg and it may take a lot longer at fridge temperatures. Get used to using kegs as secondaries in that regard

You can carbonate in a day or two by setting the pressure to 30 psi and keep the keg at 38 degrees but like I said, It wont make it age quicker. This can be fine for low gravity beers though.


EDIT: one last thing. Use about 10 feet of 3/16" beer line to your tap. It will prevent foaming at 10 psi serving pressure. Gas lines usually use 1/4" hose. Length isn't important on that side

 

[wrm]

Hey snap. I brewed kits back in '95, fell out of it until pretty much last month, started doing partials.

And they are soooo much better than kits.

Of course it helps that there's a whole lot of stuff available to me now that wasn't possible back in '95.

Kegging is definitely on the horizon too.

I think the best tip I can give you is to just get going, stop procrastinating. Once you're on the roll you can figure out what you need. My next piece of kit is a PID controlled urn, so that I have water at the right temperature when I need it.

 

[richm20]

Thanks for all the early advice.
Picked up a basic starter kit. Bucket, tools, glass carboy. Also got a ingredients kit from Northern. At leas I can get started making beer.
As far as all grain? Not a clue what you are talking about but if its more involved and offers more control......I'm sure Ill be doing it soon.
I think getting the hang of this kegging thing may take a bit of time so for this first batch I may just bottle (growlers and large bottles)

Thanks again.

 

[riderkb]

I also had a brewing slow down of about ten years. Things have changed since then. The two best changes are StarSan and Fermentis dry yeast.

If you used bleach back in the day you will find out how much better Starsan is.

 

[rekoob]

Welcome back to the hobby and to the site.

I agree star san is awesome and the kits are much better than they used to be, even if you do some extract stuff it's a huge improvement form 10 years ago.

I had a house back in Wisconsin that had a second kitchen in the basement... oh, and a basement... I miss that.

Sounds like you will have a nice setup. I assume you have all the normal kitchen stuff, maybe you can post up a few pics of the space for us to admire? That way it would be easier to come up with some input on layout and what not.

 

[unionrdr]

Here's a link to the basic starter kit at Midwest that can be added onto with several options; http://www.midwestsupplies.com/brewing-basics-equipment-kit.html

 

[richm20]

Welcome back to the hobby and to the site.

I agree star san is awesome and the kits are much better than they used to be, even if you do some extract stuff it's a huge improvement form 10 years ago.

I had a house back in Wisconsin that had a second kitchen in the basement... oh, and a basement... I miss that.

Sounds like you will have a nice setup. I assume you have all the normal kitchen stuff, maybe you can post up a few pics of the space for us to admire? That way it would be easier to come up with some input on layout and what not.

AS far as the brew and tasting room, its currently a small kitchen attached to my "pool room" (pool table) so I want to remove the kitchen aspect and dedicate it to brewing and a small bar for tasting. Due to the space limitations and the size of the stove going in, I feel most of my fermenting will be dome in another location. The brewery, if you will, will be more for 1 batch or 2 on display and actually boiling the wort. If I do all grain maybe I can set something up in this area as well. I do have a height issue so maybe ill make some sort of shelf unit that will allow me to move liquid up so gravity can bring it down. kind of like leap frog. If anyone has experience with this please feel free to chime in.

 

[unionrdr]

I have a fermenter stand & put the bottling bucket on the floor to rack into it. Then pick up the bottling bucket to set it on the fermenter stand to bottle.

 

[richm20]

Looking back at my posts, people may get the wrong idea.
I dont have some crazy home with extra kitchens floating around, I do have a decent home that has a ****ty 2nd kitchen in the basement that I currently use as a laundry room.
I've always wanted to turn it into a home bar and this home-brew hobby gave me a better option. Funds are not unlimited so it will be a slow process, I think I will rip out all the cabinets and walls and start with some PVC type walls (think commercial kitchen or gas station bathroom walls) Ill install the stove and a nice big sink, maybe a restaurant type sprayer for cleaning and a few racks for equipment. Then build up from there.

 

[unionrdr]

I'm in pretty much the same boat. Our newer house has a "parlor" room in front like the old timers used to have. I took it for a brewery/man cave. It's slow coming together, not exactly being a man of means. Not very big means getting creative with use of space. If you can put in a utility sink, get the faucet adapter that will allow you to connect bottle sprayers wort chillers, etc. That would make life a lot easier. Maybe keep some of the cabinets for equipment storage as well. Just look at it & think it through. I keep that sort of thing in the back of my head to mentally work on later. Sometimes in bed at night. Or while doing something else. You never know when the muses will be upon you.

 

[richm20]

Just a quick update. Thanks to all for the continued support.

So far, ive managed to brew 3 batches. 1 double IPA that's currently in secondary. 1 Brown ale and a peppered pale ale.
Got 1 keg so far and Im going tomorrow to pick up 2 more. Along with the 2 kegs Ill be grabbing a regulator, ball fittings, a crimper, lines and a 2 way gas valve.

Brewing in a 5 gallon pot for now but Im currently cutting the lid off a full keg to make my brew pot that I will use for BIAB and full volume boils.

I have 1 6.5 gallon glass primary, 2 5 gallon plastic secondary and 1 6.5 gallon primary/ bottling bucket. May pick up some more glass tomorrow along with a mash ton.

How am I doing?

 

[richm20]

Forgot. I also picked up a water filter and 1 micron cartridge (for filtering the beer) and I also got a commercial ozone generator to help remove brew smells and bacteria form the brewery (once it gets built)

 

[unionrdr]

Sounds pretty good so far. But I prefer buckets to glass myself. Glass can be dangerous, as glass carboys are not tempered glass. Filters are good for tap water. If you have soft water it can work well for most ales in my experience. I switched to local spring water & got a bit better beer as a result.

 

[JohnSand]

Sounds really good! My brother has a house with a basement apartment, including kitchen. My "brewery" is the back yard, all equipment and stores in the basement. In winter I can brew in the kitchen when the wife is gone all day.

 

[richm20]

FYI. The filter is for the beer....a 1 micron filer should remove even the yeast as it passes through. I think I'll set the filter up to run inline between the secondary and the keg. Beer will be filtered on the way into the keg.

 

[unionrdr]

Just be sure you don't wind up oxidizing it!

 

[richm20]

Co2 purge, purge, purge!!!!

 

[kombat]

Regarding sanitizing and flushing the filter with CO2, I'm curious what others think. I actually just bought one of these things, but I haven't used it yet. I don't plan on using it often, and sanitization and oxidization are two concerns I had. My plan to minimize these risks is to fill a keg completely with StarSan, and seal it shut. Then connect it to CO2 and push most of it out through a regular picnic tap. When there's only about a gallon or so remaining in the keg, I'll hook it up to the filter and push the last gallon or so of StarSan through the filter, until it starts blowing CO2. Then I'll switch the connections (so the beer flows in the same direction the StarSan did, but this time pushing the beer into the keg of StarSan I just emptied) and connect the keg of beer, pushing it through the filter. I'd pull the PRV on the destination keg so CO2 can escape as the keg fills with beer.

Is that sufficient to ensure that the filter is sanitized and purged with CO2, in addition to the target keg being completely purged with CO2? Am I missing anything? Is there a better way that would waste a little less CO2?

 

[richm20]

That's exactly my plan. Keg would first be filled with a mild solution of Star. Push it all out with co2. I plan on blowing it completely dry so co2 is blowing out of the filter. I will already have my brew safe in a keg..... Full keg will have the normal gas hose but the liquid out hose would be attached to the filter then back up to the liquid out of the empty keg. Once pressure is applied to the full keg the beer would flow through the filter and into the keg via the draw tube (filling from the bottom) co2 would be forced out the PRV thus preventing any oxygenation of the beer.