Greetings From Southern Ohio!!

[RevRon]

Hello everyone! I'm am not only new to this forum but am also relatively new to home brewing ( I haven't brewed a batch yet ). Any help on what I am going to need, Handy techniques, or recipes will be GREATLY appreciated. I'll tell you guys what I have already acquired. I have built a 30 gallon mashtun from copper pipe and a very large cooler, A 30' immersion style wort chiller, a seven gallon primary fermenter, a six and half gallon glass carboy, Several airlocks, Two 5 gallon Cornelius kegs ( No CO2 system yet, Info on a decent and inexpensive setup would be appreciated), and a ten gallon stainless steel kettle for boiling my wort. As far as ingredients go I've managed to gather a few things. I have 3 pounds of light and 3 pounds of dark powdered malt, 50 pounds of wheat which I have already begun transforming into wheat malt for Hefeweizen, 10 ounces of German Hallertau loose hops, One pound or Argentinian Cascade pellet hops, and 5 pound of each chocolate, dark, crystal and pale grain malt.

 

[The Pol]

You are malting your own grain?
_________________________________________
Primary- Circle City Haus Ale
Secondary- Orange Cascade APA (dry hop)
Keg1- Centennial Blonde (On tap)
Keg2- Oktoberfest (On tap)
Keg3- Christmas Spice
Keg4- Fire In The Hole
Keg5- AIR
Keg6- AIR
Keg7- AIR
Keg8- AIR

 

[RevRon]

Indeed sir I am. Hopefully all turns out well.

 

[The Pol]

Wow, that is pretty intense for never brewing a batch of beer before! Welcome to the club!

_________________________________________
Primary- Circle City Haus Ale
Secondary- Orange Cascade APA (dry hop)
Keg1- Centennial Blonde (On tap)
Keg2- Oktoberfest (On tap)
Keg3- Christmas Spice
Keg4- Fire In The Hole
Keg5- AIR
Keg6- AIR
Keg7- AIR
Keg8- AIR

 

[RevRon]

Thank you. For me the detail I plan to put into my beer will be just as important as drinking it.

 

[ohiobrewtus]

Welcome to HBT!

Go here if you're interested in joining the Ohio Brewers Group.

As for kegging equipment, I recommend kegconnection.com

 

[The Pol]

I saw in your profile that you plan to grow your own grains and hops... that is intense. Keep in mind that most beers are made of a wide variety of specialty kilned malts which will be nearly impossible to duplicate. Also, home grown hops are great, but almost bever used for bittering because individuals wihthout the control of major hop farms will have wildly varying AA values. Not a problem if you can quantify the AA value of your hops, but most of us dont have labs in order to accomplish that.

While all of this can be done, the consistency needed to produce good beers will probably be impossible to achieve.

_________________________________________
Primary- Circle City Haus Ale
Secondary- Orange Cascade APA (dry hop)
Keg1- Centennial Blonde (On tap)
Keg2- Oktoberfest (On tap)
Keg3- Christmas Spice
Keg4- Fire In The Hole
Keg5- AIR
Keg6- AIR
Keg7- AIR
Keg8- AIR

 

[The Pol]

I for one agree, detail in beer brewing is just as satisfying as drinking it. I am just not certain that you can control the details when there are so many variables that you cannot quantify when you are growing and processing all of your ingredients yourself. Without being able to precisely control the kilning of the malts and with no way of determining the AA value of your hops, you wont know if your beer will be malty and sweet, or crisp and bitter.
_________________________________________
Primary- Circle City Haus Ale
Secondary- Orange Cascade APA (dry hop)
Keg1- Centennial Blonde (On tap)
Keg2- Oktoberfest (On tap)
Keg3- Christmas Spice
Keg4- Fire In The Hole
Keg5- AIR
Keg6- AIR
Keg7- AIR
Keg8- AIR

 

[RevRon]

Thanks for the links. I'm not sure about the alpha acid stuff but I may be able to get some help from a few of the professors at my college. My goal is to make a distinct beer that I can be proud to put my family crest on.

 

[ohiobrewtus]

I saw in your profile that you plan to grow your own grains and hops... that is intense. Keep in mind that most beers are made of a wide variety of specialty kilned malts which will be nearly impossible to duplicate. Also, home grown hops are great, but almost bever used for bittering because individuals wihthout the control of major hop farms will have wildly varying AA values. Not a problem if you can quantify the AA value of your hops, but most of us dont have labs in order to accomplish that.

While all of this can be done, the consistency needed to produce good beers will probably be impossible to achieve.

I don't grow my own hops (yet) so I'll be the first to admit that I may very well be talking out of my wazoo... but I would think that it would be pretty easy to gauge a rough IBU range of a beer after brewing up 2-3 batches of the same beer with varying bittering quantities of home grown hops.

I'm a hophead though, so I think that I would be able to differentiate between beers that are say 20, 40 and 60 IBU. From that you could extrapolate a very rough AA% using Beersmith. Certainly not an exact science, but it would be close enough for me if I had homegrown hops to work with.

So who's going to be the first sucker..... uh, I mean contestant to send me some home grown hops so I can get on with this already?

 

[The Pol]

Your goal is commendable, but seeing as though you have not yet brewed beer, you may want to start off a little slower. There are thousands of members here who brew all-grain, and all of the ingredients aside, spend years perfecting thier process in order to make great beers with ingredients which have been processed with superior quality control.

_________________________________________
Primary- Circle City Haus Ale
Secondary- Orange Cascade APA (dry hop)
Keg1- Centennial Blonde (On tap)
Keg2- Oktoberfest (On tap)
Keg3- Christmas Spice
Keg4- Fire In The Hole
Keg5- AIR
Keg6- AIR
Keg7- AIR
Keg8- AIR

 

[The Pol]

The AA values that you see listed for hops are assuming ideal growing conditions on hop farms. You could very easily have a Cascade in your garden at 3AA when you can buy them at 7.4AA. In my mind, wasting several batches of beer in order to figure this out, would cost A LOT more than buying hops for $2 an ounce from Freshops. $2 an ounce for hops, or $20 for your grain and yeast... not to mention your time.

_________________________________________
Primary- Circle City Haus Ale
Secondary- Orange Cascade APA (dry hop)
Keg1- Centennial Blonde (On tap)
Keg2- Oktoberfest (On tap)
Keg3- Christmas Spice
Keg4- Fire In The Hole
Keg5- AIR
Keg6- AIR
Keg7- AIR
Keg8- AIR

 

[RevRon]

I guess I'll just see how things come along. Oh, I just finished drying my first 25 pounds of wheat malt and have started the malting process on the next 25. I've been taking pictures throughout the different stages of the process and might put together something to help other people make their own malt too.

 

[Saccharomyces]

Starting out with wheat sounds like a good idea, since undermodification will not be a problem, anything from raw wheat to malted wheat will make a decent hefeweizen. You will have plenty of enzymes from the barley malt to convert them if they aren't perfect. I'll bet it comes out good!

I am with The Pol on the hops. Use commercial hops for bittering and flavor additions, reserve your homegrown hops for aroma additions or dry hopping. That way you will get full use of them without relying on an unknown quantity of alpha acids to properly balance the brew.

Welcome to the obsession.

Where in southern Ohio? I was born and raised near Dayton and am a graduate of Wright State University.

 

[RevRon]

I'm from Portsmouth. It's a little river town in scioto county. I have a cousin from aroud Dayton in Fairborn. He's currently attending Wright State. Sounds like a good idea with the hops. The malt is coming out very well. I just poured off the excess water from by latest batch of wheat this morning and it has already germinated quite nicely. It's got that sweet malty smell and taste two. Should make some good Hefeweizen. Thanks for the welcome.

 

[Saccharomyces]

Be sure to let us know how the hefe comes out. You are setting a new bar for n00b's around here.