How & why did you start brewing?

[JJinTX]

I was bought a “Mr.Beer” kit for Christmas. It was really neat. I was a Chemical plant operator (still am, but run power generation and gas compression facility now) and I found a hobby that could incorporate a little “process”. So, I started buying some equipment. I brew/cook in my garage and do the rest in the cabin beside my garage. I’m blessed to have the room to be able to spread things out a bit. Anyway, it’s extremely enjoyable for me.
JJ

 

[rlmiller10]

I was bought a “Mr.Beer” kit for Christmas. It was really neat. I was a Chemical plant operator (still am, but run power generation and gas compression facility now) and I found a hobby that could incorporate a little “process”. So, I started buying some equipment. I brew/cook in my garage and do the rest in the cabin beside my garage. I’m blessed to have the room to be able to spread things out a bit. Anyway, it’s extremely enjoyable for me.
JJ

Brewing is the perfect engineers hobby. Lets you design stuff, make stuff, pay attention to detail and enjoy the final result.

I see the Lake Jackson location, you must work at either one of the refineries or the nuke plant down there? In that area you will also get to design a fermentation temp control system. I worked at the nuke facility for a bit and it was nasty hot.

 

[JJinTX]

Brewing is the perfect engineers hobby. Lets you design stuff, make stuff, pay attention to detail and enjoy the final result.

I see the Lake Jackson location, you must work at either one of the refineries or the nuke plant down there? In that area you will also get to design a fermentation temp control system. I worked at the nuke facility for a bit and it was nasty hot.

Afternoon,
I actually work for a Gas plant down here as a control operator in the Utilities section (power generation, gas compression, heating, electrical, air, water..... you know the drill) on the coast. I’ll agree, the humidity is brutal at times for sure. And the temperature can swing wildly during late fall, winter, and early spring. July and august are the worst. But, I’d for sure prefer this over a dry region. That said, I whole heartedly agree it’s a perfect hobby for engineers and process people. You get to use some physics, chemistry, thermal dynamics, etc.

 

[robames1]

My wife got me a Mr Beer kit for Christmas. Then I just expanded from there. Got out of it for about 6 years and back at it again. Making a Golden Ale for my Father in Laws 90th birthday!

 

[karamonde]

I started brewing because I like any sort of homemade stuff. In the past when I had more time and space I made cheese, yoghurt, jams, pickles, cured bacon, dried meat, smoked meat and soap. Some of the soaps in particular were so good that friends I gifted them to asked "where did I buy it".

I started brewing mead because I liked the idea, and after having one glance at a beer recipe I thought "yeah, no, this is too complicated for me". After 30 odd fermentations I had exactly 2 bad ones: my very first one where I put much less honey than needed and ended up with a weak, watery, super dry...honey wine? and one bochet where I took it too far cooking and had an awful bitter burnt taste that wouldn't ever go away. I've also distilled a bochet and ended up with a spirit so good that again friends asked me where they could buy it.

 

[YaleH]

At the beginning of the pandemic and alcohol of any type was scarce, I figured I would try making my own!!! Well after doing research I found out that it's a Felony to even own the equipment related to distilling here in FL let alone make any. So seeing that I didn't want to go to jail, I saw that I could make beer and stay legal..... So I bought a brew kit and the rest is history!!!!

 

[Sky Pilot]

Howdy all,

I wanted to invite everyone to share a little of their background on why they started home brewing and what got you interested.

So, what's your story? How did you get started? What keeps you going?

-TexasForever

Howdy

I bought a starter kit from More Beer and, with it, an all-grain kit. I decided that I wanted to try a DME first, so I bought one and an LME. I have now made the DME and have just bottled the LME, and the All-grain is in the fermenter. The DME "Kents Hollow Leg Wheat" is good. And now I want to start crushing my grain, so I have been looking at mills for a few weeks.

I built a mash tun from a cooler I had and some CPVC 1/2" pipe, and a wort chiller from some old 3/8" copper tube I had in the garage. I bought a ten-gallon Tamale pot for $20.

I just used the mash tun I made last week and got 1.060 OG. I don't know what I am doing, but a wise man once said,
"In the worst-case scenario, you will have beer. In the best case, you will have great beer."

Anyway I am having fun.

 

[bracconiere]

Anyway I am having fun.

 

[Ramalheiro]

Like a lot of people my love for beer is what brought me to homebrew, but also I really like brew my own stuff. Been doing vinegars, wine, liquors and the like for some time and have been looking to beer for quite some time but living in the middle of the Atlantic doesn't help in that regard. There is no place here to buy the stuff needed for homebrew beer and given that it's all heavy stuff the transport fee were outrageous.

But that recently changed when a local super market started selling coopers cans, equipment kits and the like. My wife decided to gift me one of those kits and here I am. Would like to jump to BIAB one day but like mentioned before the logistic of getting the material here will be prohibitive, so let's see where this new venture will take me.

 

[GravesYardHB]

Like the majority of people out there (although not necessarily in here), I started out drinking nothing but Bud Light and Miller Light. College life, ya know. Anything beyond light lagers and that was straight up motor oil.
Fast forward a few years, and I still had the same “taste” in beer. It was then that one of my former college roommates came back home from Iraq and crashed on my couch for a few days. Of course we went out drinking and everywhere we went his drinks were on the house and apparently so we’re mine. He was drinking Black and Tans, which meant so was I. That first one caught me by surprise. It was alright. So I had another. Even better. Maybe there was life outside of what I had been calling beer for so long.
Fast forward a bit more and I had moved to a new town and had a new job. This was the fall of 2004, and the town I moved to had a brewery. When a new colleague found out I enjoyed trying new beers, he met me at the brewery for a tour on a Saturday morning. We toured and sampled and had a good time. The following weekend he called me up and asked what I was doing that afternoon. When I said I didn’t have any plans, he invited me(more like told me I was coming) over to brew beer. And so it began. We brewed an extract Irish stout on an old stove in his basement. We bottled it 2 weeks later and were enjoying it a few weeks after that. It wasn’t great, but it was good enough to make me want to try again. And again. And to try new styles and techniques. And to read and learn how to do it better.
Which brings me to today, closing in 18 years later. I’ve moved many times since then and my brewery has gotten bigger with more equipment. My beer has gotten a lot better. Had gotten, I should say. When the pandemic shut everything down, it shut down my brewing as well. Not physically, I was still able to get materials. It was a mental and emotional shutdown. But I’m beyond that now and am getting it fired back up. I came here for a bit of inspiration and tips to help jog my memory as I pick the mash paddle back up again.
Anyways, it is great to be here! Prost!

 

[bracconiere]

as I pick the mash paddle back up again.

the river!

Welcome!

 

[Taket_al_Tauro]

I played with the idea of homebrewing for a long time, but never really became serious about it. Once I searched for beer recipes on the internet...I was expecting a cookbook-style recipe, with detailed instructions on the process. All I had in front of me was a table with a lot of weird technical terms and obscure figures I did not understand. I was immediately scared off and considered it couldn't possibly be done in your kitchen with cheap and simple equipment.

Then, about ten years ago I met a food engineering student who had just started a company with a few buddies. They were selling the simplest brew kit you could think of: a 5L party keg, malt extract, hop extract, dry yeast. All you needed to do was mixing all the ingredients directly into the party keg with the right amount of water (no boiling involved), and let it ferment. I think they came up with some sort of cheap spunding valve for the party keg that was able to release excess pressure while giving you carbonated beer at the end. After a few days of fermentation and a few more of cold conditioning in the fridge, you could tap the fruits of your hard labor, your self-made beer from there, WOAH!
So I told him: hey great idea you had, I'll definitely order one.
When I was about to pull the trigger, I asked myself: wait a minute, what's the fun of it? I might just as well buy the finished beer instead.
So I started searching the web for infos about making your own beer, this time more seriously. I was living in Germany at the time so I found a German homebrewer's forum first... and from there, there was no going back. I sometimes think it may have been better for me if I pulled the trigger on that 5L party keg...maybe, just maybe I'd have avoided falling into this homebrewing trap