I'm Screwed. :)

[Mountain_Bum]

Greetings everyone!

Brewing my own beer has been on my mind for years and after a very long year of changes in my life I finally find myself in the siutation where I can try it. :rockin:

I'm in up in southwest Montana. I hate to use the term beer snob but I can't stand most commercial beers. Locally we have a lot of craft breweries or at least some in neighboring cities that I have found quite a few favorites. So far nothing has compared to getting a fresh growler as a treat every once in a while. We'll see how this turns out.

I just recently bought everything to do my first brew which will be on Saturday. Going to try and replicate one of my favorites, it's a Scotish Ale called Cold Smoke from a brewery at a nearby city. Been reading How To Brew as well and it has provided a lot of knowledge, hope I can learn more over time here on the forums.

I have a feeling I'm going to be going broke for a while on this hobby but then again I don't drink as much as I used to.

Cheers.

 

[finsfan]

You are right, you will be financially broke, but beer rich! Congrats on jumping into the hobby, there is much fun to be had ahead of you. Are you going straight to all grain or starting with extract? Also, welcome to the forum

 

[sablesurfer]

YAY brewing!

If you are really not wanting to go broke....just avoid all the DIY and brew rig discussions. Then you should just go get a Mr Beer and be happy in your ignorance of all things stainless and temperature controlled.

 

[Mountain_Bum]

You are right, you will be financially broke, but beer rich! Congrats on jumping into the hobby, there is much fun to be had ahead of you. Are you going straight to all grain or starting with extract? Also, welcome to the forum

Right now since I can only do it indoors I am mainly going to stay with extracts (and steeping specialty grains like this first batch.) Trying to keep it somewhat simple to begin with.

I do sometime plan to switch to doing all grain (then again maybe not entirely) but I will wait until I can get off of the electric coil stove in my Apt and do it outside. I would have prefered that but indoors saves me a little bit of money at the begining but I can still learn the basics which doesn't bother me. The ONLY thing that I am somewhat unhappy with is I can't just do the full 5 gallon boil, can't get that much water to boil and a pot big enough wouldn't fit anyway.

YAY brewing!

If you are really not wanting to go broke....just avoid all the DIY and brew rig discussions. Then you should just go get a Mr Beer and be happy in your ignorance of all things stainless and temperature controlled.

Yeah but that just takes the fun out of it all!?

 

[finsfan]

Right now since I can only do it indoors I am mainly going to stay with extracts (and steeping specialty grains like this first batch.) Trying to keep it somewhat simple to begin with.

I do sometime plan to switch to doing all grain (then again maybe not entirely) but I will wait until I can get off of the electric coil stove in my Apt and do it outside. I would have prefered that but indoors saves me a little bit of money at the begining but I can still learn the basics which doesn't bother me. The ONLY thing that I am somewhat unhappy with is I can't just do the full 5 gallon boil, can't get that much water to boil and a pot big enough wouldn't fit anyway.

I would advise that you only use sealed gallon jugs of spring water to top off with. I did not do this the first couple of times and came out with not so great beer. I also did the same thing you are though. I started with extract and moved to All grain after about 7-8 batches. Do not be afraid to make the jump, just do your homework and it will be easy. The best way to learn is trial and error.

 

[Mountain_Bum]

Thank you both as well for the welcome too!

Also I have to share because I thought this was hilarious and I lost it inside the LHBS. I've been researching to find what I needed or wanted to start with for a while and reading about the process. Trying to really get a good idea of everything.

I had my list last Sunday when I went to buy all of the equipment but I completely stood there speechless when I was asked "What kind of beer do you want to make?". I had thought about everything else except for what to make for my first batch! :smack:

 

[insanim8er]

YAY brewing!

If you are really not wanting to go broke....just avoid all the DIY and brew rig discussions. Then you should just go get a Mr Beer and be happy in your ignorance of all things stainless and temperature controlled.

Oh man, but I love my single tier 20gal (x2) and 15gal blichmann setup with two march pumps, morebeer stainless steel quick disconnects and ultimate sparge arm.

Not to mention my temperature controlled fermenting chamber, 5 gal (x15) corny kegs, (7) 1/6 sanke kegs, 3 gal (x5) corny kegs, kegerator, portable kegerator, thermapen, refractometer and stir plate. Not to mention my regulators, and all my co2 cylinders...

I just wish I knew where all my money has gone

Welcome... And yes you're screwed now.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Welcome to the forum, and to the hobby.

Some folks say homebrewing is cheaper than buying beer. If you normally drink craft beer, you brew the same beers regularly, in larger batch sizes, buy ingredients in bulk, and repitch yeast, you can actually save quite a bit of money. But you'll never reach the cost of the cheaper macro beers.

However, that doesn't end up being reality for most of us. So yeah, going broke is just about right.

Also, I have a small apartment and a crappy electric stove, and I do all grain full boils. You can also do a "split boil" where you divide the wort between multiple kettles on multiple burners. You can also do all-grain with a partial boil and topping off, just like an extract batch. But if you want to do it the traditional way in one kettle, then mosey on over the "electric brewing" section of the forum and you can easily do it without propane. Some folks do some amazing builds in there. I've been keeping it simple (and cheap) for now, and just use heat sticks (electric water heater elements connected to sealed pipe, just stick em in the wort and boil, I don't even need my stove unless I'm doing a larger batch).

 

[jhoneycutt]

You're already addicted and you don't even know it yet.

 

[insanim8er]

You're already addicted and you don't even know it yet.

I give him a month before he's growing and malting his own grain, slanting his yeast, growing his own hops... Mark my words

 

[tommyguner03]

i made the jump to all grain after just six months of brewing. dont get me wrong extract makes good beer and cuts time in half. there is just something about milling your grain and collecting your own wort. its a fun hobby and its also can be stressful at times. start small and when you are ready make the jump and thats when its spend spend spend. and then you get into group buys and buy 300lbs of grain and then start yeast washing. have fun and go make some beer..

 

[MindenMan]

Welcome to hell, uh, I meant, um, being a new brewer. I am j/k of course, and I agree, you can boil in multiple pots, mash in those same pots, and buy two 5 gallon buckets to make your own lauter/sparge tun, commonly referred to as a Zapap, and you are good to go on the cheap.
JM $0.02

 

[Mountain_Bum]

Thank you guys for the welcome, I'm already looking forward to being a member here.

I appreciate all of the suggestions but honestly from a money/space and experience level perspective I think what I have will get me going for a fair amount of batches. The only thing I need to get is a few things so I can brew more often than 1 batch at a time to be honest. Can't really learn much or gain experience if your are not doing anything.

Then again I would have even more shiny new stuff......

 

[SeeMont]

Greetings: Welcome to brewing and good beer. You will have a blast, Losts of help here and in Western Montana. Most of the pro brewers will help. Im in Florence and have been all grain for about 6 months. Pm me if you need a hand.

 

[Homercidal]

Welcome! You *really* need to think about brewing All Grain now. You say you want to save money, but brewing AG is much less expensive than brewing with extract and it's not expensive if you start with a BIAB setup. It's REAL AG brewing without the added cost. And it's very well suited to small batches, same as your extract, but with more accurate SRM values and flexibility in fermentability.

Do a few Extract kits and then consider making the very small jump into BIAB. You will love it, I promise!

 

[unionrdr]

I've been doing partial boil/partial mash brew in a bag for about a year now. I'm using the same 5 gallon (20qt) ss kettle I started with. I mash up to 5-6lbs of grains in 2 gallons of local spring water (25c per gallon) & sparge with 1.5 gallons of it @170F. This gives me 3.5 gallons boil folume...all on my electric stove. But I have aftermarket heating elements from amazon that go from mash temp to boiling in about 18 minutes. I strain the chilled wort-@75F or so-into the fermenter,topping off with spring water chilled in the fridge a day or two before brew day. This gets the wort down to 65F or so,also giving a nice little cold break. So it can be done indoors.

 

[Mountain_Bum]

Thank you all for the suggestions. I finally did my first batch this weekend and everything is fermenting away in the closet. Everything has been really easy going so far. The 2 hour boil that was listed for this recipe did stretch things out a little longer than I would have liked but oh well.


After doing this 5 gallon batch though I am REALLY going to look into doing about half size batches. Can pick up 3 gallon better bottles at the LHBS for $20 which I think is great. Figure I will end up with about 1 case each which will be perfect. I can brew more often (who can argue with that) and I can have more rotation on which brews I have ready to drink. I wouldn't complain about drinking the same tasty wonderful beer for a while but variety is the spice of life!


I think I may look into doing mini AG batches now too. The LHBS has a decent selection of malts and such. Even though it may cost a little bit more rather than ordering online, the extra cost of shipping will quickly even it out unless I order huge amounts and get free shipping. Can't really afford that and don't have the space. Having a hard time trying to figure out the best way to store what I have now.


Now I just need to get my tax return filled so I can have some more play money!

 

[NickTheGreat]

Having a good LHBS makes things easier. I don't mind paying a little bit extra if it comes with good advice

 

[sablesurfer]

5 gallon batches are my rare occasional brews. Mostly if I want bottles to enter in competition for feedback. For around the house I make 3gal brews. I have 2.5gal kegs and that leaves about a six pack or so in bottles for seeing how they age after the keg is gone.