Is your BEER taking over your home?

[Bartman]

I currently have 218 12oz and 37 22oz bottles flled with beer. In addition to the beer, all the equipment like a mash tun, boiling pots, cases of empty bottles, 3 fermenters, bottling equipment and various other ****, my SWMBO constantly reminds me I take up half the house.
Just thinking out loud!

 

[Xaphoeous]

I found a new hero...

 

[Zamial]

You still call it a home? interesting....I gave up, it is just easier to say you live in a brewery...

 

[mlg5039]

You still call it a home? interesting....I gave up, it is just easier to say you live in a brewery...

QFT

 

[upperNY01brewer]

Oh yea know what you mean....................I just returned over 300 bottles to the recycling center and am still left with enough for bottling my next 5-6 batches...My kitchen is becoming over run with equipment. The wifey loves the beer I brew so not to much complaining yet.

 

[greenfrog5]

(Assuming you don't have kids) You should point out that SHE is also taking up half the house.

 

[Bartman]

(Assuming you don't have kids) You should point out that SHE is also taking up half the house.

Yeah but her stuff is important.

 

[InfernoBrews]

I'm the same way my basement consists of 80% Beer and brewing equipment, and 432 bottles of home made wine..

 

[McMalty]

i have brew nestled away in nooks all over the house like a squirrel hiding acorns. Open the linen closet, BOOM, there's beer. Medicine cabinet, BOOM, there's my medicine. Toilet won't flush, BOOM, beer stuck in the pipe. Can't get my shoe on, BOOM, beer in my shoe.

 

[edmanster]

yes, and life... no but seriously, i have my area wich is the size of my fermention chamber and the keggerator.. every thing is stored on top and inside of the fermenter. it a 2 rack insulated ss shelf that soon will have a little window mount ac unit or a small fridge on top with a deflector to force the cold air down. only time stuff comes out is on brew and kegging days... i live in a 1800 SqFt house with 4 bed, 2 bath and single car garage.. it would not be fair to the kids... we try to run a tight ship but thats a whole other story just on kids...lol


EDIT: forgot to mention... 9 full kegs, 2 in primary and 3 in secondary + the skeeter pee for her

 

[smagee]

My apartment has limited storage options, so I have bottles and kegs sequestered all over the place. I've effectively lined my walls with about 15 cases of 22oz bottles of homebrew and 7-8 cases of wine.

Thankfully, I have an extremely understanding SWMBO who appreciates the consumption of both .

 

[Patrick604]

Sounds like it might be time to start kegging. In the interest of freeing up space form all those beer bottles.

 

[o4_srt]

It would be, but half my detached garage is my brewery. If I keep everything in the garage, brewing included, swmbo is happy because it doesn't clutter the house.

The other half of the garage is, unfortunately, filled with normal garage stuff. Wish in had a 2 story garage like the neighbors...

 

[beerloaf]

Nah just a couple of rooms.....basement where I keep most unused equipment, kegs etc, and age at cellar temps. Dining room where I currently have 1 secondary with Red Headed Step Child (Amber Ale) chugging along. 2 empty primaries in the garage where I have bottling stuff setup. Computer room/office full of beers bottle conditioning, around 6 cases of Boondock Stout and Absolution Tripel. Should be good in a few weeks....I'm getting ready for a Saison and a Strawberry Blond. I also forgot about the 1/2 keg of Warsteiner on tap in the basement. I don't think it's taking over just yet....

beerloaf

 

[cravej]

Yes.

 

[KYB]

My unfinished basement is filled with fermenters, random equipment, and big tubs to store mass quantities of grain. My roomhas 3-6 fermenters usually. I have a 6-tap keggerator filled with 6 kegs and yeast, and the freezer is filled with pounds of hops. Kitchen also has a few fermenters and equipment. I'd say so, and I have no problem with it.

 

[GuldTuborg]

The place I moved to in November has a pretty big, unfinished basement. As the fiancee is scared stiff of spiders, she stays clear of it if at all possible. Maybe 25% is taken up for random storage and laundry stuff, the other 3/4 is beer and weights. It may be dirty, dank, and nearing 100 years old, but it's my haven, damnit!

 

[Gunfighter04]

I expanded operations:

To be perfectly honest I've got to build out a room in the loft so right now my brewing junk is all over the house.

 

[DieterVonBrauhaus]

I'm the same way my basement consists of 80% Beer and brewing equipment, and 432 bottles of home made wine..

Ya mine too! Using spare bedroom downstairs as sanitize room. Other room is where the bar is. Other room is where the keg fridge is. Brewing is not a hobby it's a way of life. :fro:

 

[petep1980]

Mine was getting pretty bad, I had to scale things back. I removed my bottling line, the microbiology lab, and cut the footprint of research in development by half.

 

[Komodo]

Mine totally took over and i went cold turkey. Sold it all. 15 years later im back, to do it in the smallest footprint possible.

First post! Howdy!!!

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I have a closet, half a bathroom, a small part of an adjoining bedroom and a corner of the dining room full of beer equipment and fermenting beer. Then there is bottled beer in the closet with the equipment, the other half of that bathroom, part of that adjoining bedroom, half the storage space in the kitchen island and obviously the fridge.

As it stands I have about 16-18 gallons of bottled beer stashed around the house.

 

[Nightbiker]

You still call it a home? interesting....I gave up, it is just easier to say you live in a brewery...

:rockin:

SWMBO finally got sick and tired of my primary and secondary fermenters, the lagering temperature control unit (aka chest freezer), the kegerator, and all the bottles and kegs (tucked away in closets and previously unclaimed cabinet spaces in the kitchen) taking up so much room that she told me that I could convert half the carport into an enclosed brewery if I promised to kick out everything but the kegerator (which even though she does not drink alcohol, she gave me one year as a Christmas gift).
Personally, I think I got a pretty sweet deal out of it (grin) since the kettles were outside anyway. Once construction starts, I'll share pix.

 

[geneb]

Pretty much taken over, yeah.

I live in a 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath townhouse (~1000 square feet over two floors). I store all of my equipment in the living room corner since all of the closets are full to exploding and my wife and I spend all of our time in the office (second bedroom) anyway. I'm hoping to find the time to build a set of shelves and bins that doesn't look half bad and just keep my stuff in there. It'd still be in the living room, but at least it wouldn't be taking up half of it. I recently commandeered the downstairs half-bathroom for keeping my bottled beers in. Soon I will also start fermenting in there since it's getting way too hot to ferment in the office.

What I wouldn't give for a basement or a garage.

 

[petep1980]

Mine totally took over and i went cold turkey. Sold it all. 15 years later im back, to do it in the smallest footprint possible.

First post! Howdy!!!

I was this close to scratching my whole operation it became so over-whelming.

The idea of selling my mash tun and keggle kept me from doing so. They are just too kick ass.

So, I reduced everything to one primary fermenter, and want to only brew within reason.

 

[unionrdr]

I've been keeping saved bottles in a big box in the dinette,2 more boxes of bottles in the dining room,along with my BK & big bag of brushes,spoons,etc. Bottling tree with bottles drying on the kitchen island. Getting a second fermenter for the old printer stand next to the computer. commandeered a round end table next to that for bottling. Three boxes of bottled beer dwindling at the moment in the same spot. I hang hop socks to dry from my clip on desk lamp.Labels & brew notebook on top of the printer. The chair against the wall will have to go if this keeps up. Or maybe put it in the far right corner with a hassock to prop one's feet on. I swear I'll stop after this gets set up...

 

[carnevoodoo]

The only stuff I have in the house is my 4 tap kegerator and an erlenmeyer flask from time to time. Everything else lives in the garage. I don't want crap all over the place in here, and I'm sure my fiancée doesn't either.

 

[Komodo]

I was this close to scratching my whole operation it became so over-whelming.

The idea of selling my mash tun and keggle kept me from doing so. They are just too kick ass.

So, I reduced everything to one primary fermenter, and want to only brew within reason.

I feel your pain. I sold off my keggle, and converted keg MLT, as well as 4 more thst were in proces of becoming fermentors. tons of other stuff too, but i kept my books, notes, articles.

To be fair, i also had a dark room, a two-car woodshop, etc. My wife says i conquor hobbies. So, i made a tough choice and get rid of the most space, time consuming. But, now im doing it as small and spartan as i can. I actually considered brewing bottle at a time, with existing pots...

I,ve settled on 2.5 to 3 gallon batches, probably BIAB, or variation.

 

[GiraffeBrew]

Yes. Yes it is/has. I wonder if anyone has noticed???........

 

[Nightbiker]

I see a number of you are considering (or have already done so) going smaller.
I think thats noble enough -its really beyond my abilities at this time, for sure.
For my part, once the carport brewery is completed (or at least enclosed and air conditioned) I'm going to add a small lab to assist in maintaining my yeast bank and colonies...

 

[rico567]

I can't imagine brewing as I do right now without my garage and basement. It's not so much a question of having space for a particular activity; temporary space can always be cleared out. It's the STORAGE.

Three primary buckets (which cannot be stacked) and four carboys, bottling bucket, boil pot & HL pot, chiller, all the minor paraphernalia, bins with stocks of malt and adjuncts and (normally) five batches of bottles in inventory takes up quite a bit of room in the basement.

In the garage, MLT, malt grinder setup, burner, & empty bottles take up more space than I'd like.

If we had to seriously downsize our residence, brewing would be on the block, I think....this is just not an activity that lends itself to a small volume of equipment. Although I am always interested to read how apartment brewers or etc. go about dealing with the smaller space.