Lazy Guy (me) wants an easy brew...please help him (me).

[Johntodd]

Hi! Newbie here. I've got years of winemaking experience and the equipment for it, but lately I've had the itch to try beer.

So I'd like to ask for help, maybe a "general plan" to accommodate some specific things:

1. I'm lazy. So I'd rather get a couple of good recipes and stick with them.

2. I'm lazy, so I tend to do things "by the numbers" and accept different outcomes in the end.

3. Most of my winemaking experience comes from fruit grown here on my own farm, so I'm used to dealing with fruit hazes, pectins, bentonite, and so on.

4. I have huge soybean fields and my farmer rounds his corners, so there's lots of standing soybeans for me to use in beer. I make a lot of soy sauce this way, too.

5. I'm lazy, so I'm thinking of the Beer Machine as my friend. I can take the time to tweak recipes for it, so my only concern with that device is long-term quality. I don't mind disassembly and cleaning. I do mind buying junk that breaks.

6. I have huge gardens, and am willing to grow hops and maybe barley or grains.


Brewmasters, is there a way for me to make a decent beer within these guidelines?

Thanks so much!
-Johntodd

 

[kaconga]

Welcome from one lazy person to another. I think growing your own hops/barley would essentially make you not lazy. So to stick with laziness I recommend kegging and using buckets as fermenters with biab for mashing. Biab isn't really lazy but it is less clean up since it is only one vessel.

 

[BrotherBock]

If you're lazy....word on the street is that you are......malting barley takes a bit of effort, I'd skip that aspiration.

Easy 5 Gallon Belgian Golden Strong (assuming you boil 1 gallon off an hour, adjust as necessary)
mix 8lbs Light DME and 1.5 lbs cane sugar in 6 gallons of water
Once boil starts add 2oz of tettnanger hops
Boil for an hour down to 5 gallons. Then cool the wort to mid 60's
pitch belgian yeast of your choice (Wyeast Belgian Ardennes is nice).
Leave in fermenter for a month then bottle.

In the end you'll get about a 9% abv beer

 

[jekeane]

Pretty much all that you said you have access to is the opposite of lazy beer making.

If you wanted to make simple good beer the laziest/easiest way possible I would suggest extract brewing using well liked kits.

For good basic extract beer you need:

A pot
A heat source sufficient for your boil size
Fermentation Temperature Control
Proper amount of yeast.
decent water (RO, Distilled, Spring, non chlorinated tap)
about 2-2.5hours

All Grain is a jump in equipment and time. Its not harder per se but it's less lazy and at least double the time commitment.

Extract is brownies from the box (lazy generally good, rarely bad, but can be delicious)

All Grain is brownies from scratch (more pots and work potentially perfect or potentially a mess)

 

[flars]

This beer is on Northern Brewers easy page.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/american-wheat-beer-extract-kit.html
There is also an all grain version. NB posts their recipes to look at before you buy.

 

[sumbrewindude]

No offense dude, but if you're as lazy as you let on, just buy the beer - you'll be happier.

If you're not that lazy, any Extract kit would fit the bill - pick a style you enjoy drinking and follow the instructions. Use dry yeast as much as possible. Spend a lot of money on a keg system immediately.

 

[Johntodd]

I guess I'm not all that lazy. Tending those huge gardens, making soy sauce and wine, tending to other farm matters,and so on.

I was thinking the Beer Machine would give me a "nice or better" beer with a bit of convenience thrown in. Can the Beer Machine handle DIY recipes, or must I use their packages? Can other peoples' extracts be used in that?

Thanks!

 

[TasunkaWitko]

www.brooklynbrewshop.com -

This might be an option for getting your feet wet - quite a few different all-grain recipes with very interesting profiles; very easy and "low-maintenence...."

 

[jekeane]

I don't know why I didn't catch the Beer Machine reference. Look into the "1 gallon brewers unite" threads and youll see a lot of options there.

 

[Johntodd]

Cool, thanks!

I've done more research, and have concluded that I'm not as lazy as I thought I was. I have no problem boiling up a wort and pitching yeast, etc. Similar things are done when I make country wine from the estate's leftover fruit. I have a wonderful watermelon wine aging right now. It's already good, just wait until February!

 

[dkevinb]

I started with the original Beer Machine. I will concede that it did make a yellowish fermented beverage of a sort. Mr. Beer was a step up. A small one.

That said, I'd recommend a basic starter kit, something along the lines of this, but everyone sells them: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/essential-brewing-starter-kit.html

Then a basic extract recipe kit, like: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/caribou-slobber-extract-kit.html. Again, everyone sells them.

You'll also need a pot, preferably something that can hold at least 5 gallons to start with. You can brew on your stove top if you do what's known as partial boils, but a little outdoor propane burner (a la turkey fryer) makes life a lot easier.

 

[Johntodd]

That's the awesome part, I have all the gear already from my winemaking.

My only concern is carbonation. My winemaking doesn't "do" carbonation.

Am I correct that I can add sugar to a bottle then add new beer, seal, and it will carbonate without exploding?

Can I use those reusable bottle like this:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005CIFIDO/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[rodwha]

There are carbonation drops that work well, but are a bit pricey.

You can add a small amount of sugar to each bottle, but this would be hard to get accurate as well as even between them all. A little mistake could become a bottle bomb.

 

[number40fan]

Most of the extract kits will come with 5 oz. of priming sugar. You heat that sugar in a cup of water just before transferring your wort from the fermentation bucket to your bottling bucket. Mixed together it will give each bottle the same amount of sugar and allow each to carb properly.

 

[z-bob]

You want to ferment the beer all the way dry, then add a measured amount of malt or dextrose at bottling time to provide the sugar for carbonation.

The glass swing-top bottles you linked will work just fine.

(I've not tried this yet, but I'm about to) You can also use plastic 1-liter and 2-liter pop bottles with twist caps to bottle beer that you're going to drink fairly quickly. I wouldn't trust them for long storage just because the plastic is slightly permeable to oxygen. And you'll need to store them in a dark place to keep the beer from getting "skunked" by UV light. But you can fill them a lot faster than glass bottles with crown caps, and they take up less space. And they don't break if you drop them.

 

[dkevinb]

That's the awesome part, I have all the gear already from my winemaking.

My only concern is carbonation. My winemaking doesn't "do" carbonation.

Am I correct that I can add sugar to a bottle then add new beer, seal, and it will carbonate without exploding?

Can I use those reusable bottle like this:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005CIFIDO/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Carbonation is easy. The starter kit I linked to will come with a bottling bucket, which is just a plastic bucket with a spigot. You'll also want a bottling wand and a short (2-3") length of vinyl tubing to attach the wand to the spigot. As stated earlier, ferment dry, boil sugar in water (corn sugar is the standard, table sugar, honey, dry malt extract, etc. all work), pour it into the bucket, siphon the beer into the bucket, and bottle away. It takes 1-2 weeks to carbonate. Waiting a little longer for the beer to age in the bottle (1-2 weeks or more, depending on the style) will make the beer taste better. Much faster than wine.

Those swing top bottles work great, though they're a bit pricey. I use amber PET 1/2 liter beer bottles I got on sale. PET soda bottles work (NOT water bottles), but you have to keep them out of the light to prevent skunking the beer. Most people reuse regular pry-off beer bottles and cap them. Most starter kits come with a bottle capper.

 

[Johntodd]

OK, I think I'm getting a handle on this.

I have all my winemaking gear, so all I need is a pressure vessel for carbonation.

We can put a man on the moon ... but can we make a stainless steel double-walled "keg" (or whatever it's called) that I can carb in and then set in the fridge, in the 1-1.5 gallon size?

 

[z-bob]

Look up Fass Frisch mini-kegs. 5L. They are single-wall and lined rather than stainless. I have some, but haven't used them much and when I did that was 15 years ago. (Someone should make stainless ones...)

I think 1L and 2L pop bottles are more promising. I have a cap that I made to recarbonate beverages that have gone flat -- and kids used to love carbonated apple juice and grape juice. I had a CO2 tank and a spare regulator from other hobbies. The "presentation" when you want to impress your friends kind of sucks tho', pouring beer from a twistoff pop bottle. (at least until they taste it) Using mostly 1L bottles with a few 2L's for parties, you wouldn't need any equipment.

 

[Johntodd]

This is looking promising: Allows bottle conditioning, small size, can sit in fridge, stainless steel. Your thoughts?

http://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Steel-Keg-Style-Growler/dp/B00HR4KQBU/ref=sr_1_2?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1412346985&sr=1-2&keywords=growler