What is the easiest/cheapest entry into brewing?

[Graham H]

What Yeast did you use?

Interesting. Does more yeast speed up the process. How much do you use?

That looks nice, maybe I can find something like this in germany.Amazon.com: FastRack One gallon Wide Mouth Jar with Drilled Lid & Twin Bubble Airlock-Set of 2, multicolor (B01AKB4G9E) : Home & Kitchen

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Got it.

I’ve used SafAle SA-04, EC-1118, and SafCider. EC-1118 has been my best so far, but I’ve changed too many things each batch to definitely say it was due to the yeast.

I’m used to using an entire packet of yeast for a 5 gal/39L batch of ale. I’ve been using half a packet for the 1 gal batches of cider and haven’t had any issues. I’ve saved the unused half for the next batch a few weeks later and it was still good.

From one newbie to another, I’m happy to be of any help I can!

 

[MarthaSprung]

When I switched from propane to electric, this is the first all-in-one electric brewer that I bought. Obviously not top of the line but served me well and let me know that this was the direction I wanted to go. I use a bag in it and have made some good beers. Based on the name, it sounds like it could be a German company.

Could be german or jewish.

KLARSTEIN Mundschenk Beer Brewer - Complete Home Brewing System, Mash Tun, Home Fermentation of Beer and Wine, LCD and Touch Panel, 304 Stainless Steel, 8 Gallons (30 Litre) Capacity, Light Silver Amazon.com: KLARSTEIN Mundschenk Beer Brewer - Complete Home Brewing System, Mash Tun, Home Fermentation of Beer and Wine, LCD and Touch Panel, 304 Stainless Steel, 8 Gallons (30 Litre) Capacity, Light Silver: Home & Kitchen

It looks really nice. I like that it is stainless steel.

@MarthaSprung ... Aren't you overloaded yet?

I'll take it slow. Going to order the yeast, buy some apple juice and see how it goes. haha

My suggestion would be to head into your local homebrew shop and see if there's a local club. I would be surprised if there isn't someone in your area who can have you sit in on a brew-day to learn the process, give you lots of tips and answer questions first-hand. The club might even be able to help you cobble together a decent beginner's used equipment kit for cheap.

I will take it into consideration.

 

[RM-MN]

I like how this thread has morphed from "What is the easiest/cheapest entry into brewing" to how much can I spend to make beer.

 

[z-bob]

Sounds awesome! Please, keep us updated on your progress.

I poured in the apple juice and and shook it up yesterday afternoon. It was a plastic bottle, so I squeezed most of the air out and put the lid on tight so I could tell for sure when it was fermenting. A few hours later it looked fizzy and the bottle was mostly inflated. I loosened the cap just a little. Today I opened it up and it was somewhat pressurized even though the cap was not sealing all that tight. It smelled yeasty. I poured it into a gallon jug with about 3 quarts of apple juice and a half-pint jar of old homemade mayhaw jelly that still tastes good but is separating and turning dark. (Mayhaws are basically crabapples.) It's bubbling away now. And I used up a jar of jelly that has been in my fridge way too long. (I heated the jelly up to boiling in the microwave before I added it to the juice, to kill any germs it might have picked up in my refrigerator, if it was an unopened jar I would not have bothered with this)

The fermentation took off so fast and so strong, I'll probably step this up to 3 or 4 gallons right away instead of doing just one gallon and saving the lees. This yeast is so aggressive it's almost scary. It might even be able to ferment the pectin in the jelly.

 

[MarthaSprung]

Nice! So if I understand the process correctly, I can put the yeast in the juice and have that as starter culture to further ferment other things like a jelly and juice mix for example? I have a lot of jelly here I made a month ago.

 

[z-bob]

Nice! So if I understand the process correctly, I can put the yeast in the juice and have that as starter culture to further ferment other things like a jelly and juice mix for example? I have a lot of jelly here I made a month ago.

Yes. I very seldom use jelly in my cider; I'd rather use sugar (and not much of it) But I have some 10 year old jars of jelly, I like making it but I don't eat that much, and this way I can use them instead of throwing them out.

I have harvested yeast from a bottle or can of beer before and used it for brewing, but I have never had it take off this fast before. Usually I have to step it up a few times.

 

[MarthaSprung]

I see. I might use my jelly as well, since I have so much of it. What is the end game here. Can I just store the end product in bottles or will I have to consume it to avoid overfermentation?

BTW, I got this yeast:

They advertise it as '2 yeast strains with the "killer effect" and natural low temperature pectolase.' so if I suddenly stop posting you know why.

 

[z-bob]

The cider will ferment totally dry. I like it that way, but I want it bubbly. So I bottle it in beer bottles or flip-top sparkling lemonade bottles, or screw top pop bottles. I add sugar to it to carbonate it; 1/2 tsp (I don't know what that in is grams, about 4 or 5) per 12 ounce bottle, 3/4 tsp per 500ml bottle, a heaping teaspoon per 750ml bottle. It usually takes a week to carbonate, and it is greatly improved by letting it age another couple of weeks or longer. You end up with something resembling inexpensive brut champagne with half the alcohol.

Don't go overboard with the jelly. When you ferment pectin you get methanol. That's a normal trace ingredient of wine but you do not want too much of it. Here's an article about what "too much" might mean: Methanol in wine | BIO Web of Conferences I suspect pectin->methanol is not really a concern as long as you're not distilling the wine to make brandy or freeze-concentrating it to make applejack, but it's something to be aware of.

 

[RM-MN]

I see. I might use my jelly as well, since I have so much of it. What is the end game here. Can I just store the end product in bottles or will I have to consume it to avoid overfermentation?

BTW, I got this yeast:

They advertise it as '2 yeast strains with the "killer effect" and natural low temperature pectolase.' so if I suddenly stop posting you know why.

There is no overfermentation. Yeast eat sugars until it is gone or when the alcohol that they produce stops them. You decide what level of alcohol you want to achieve and make sure that there is the correct amount of sugars in the juice to get there by adding sugar. If you don't want the juice to be so completely fermented (dry) you can add a sugar that the yeast can't eat. I make a beer that has an addition of lactose just for that purpose.

 

[Old Medic]

I like how this thread has morphed from "What is the easiest/cheapest entry into brewing" to how much can I spend to make beer.

But isn't that the way it ends up anyway???

 

[MarthaSprung]

Okay. Can't wait to try out the yeast. I'm going to post my progress here.

 

[RM-MN]

Okay. Can't wait to try out the yeast. I'm going to post my progress here.

Which yeast? The bread yeast I suggested you dump into some apple juice? Even if you do decide a different yeast, this bread yeast into apple juice makes a pleasant drink. Just be sure your apple juice has no preservatives.

 

[MarthaSprung]

Which yeast? The bread yeast I suggested you dump into some apple juice? Even if you do decide a different yeast, this bread yeast into apple juice makes a pleasant drink. Just be sure your apple juice has no preservatives.

This yeast:

I have sourdough starter, can I use that? I also have a water kefir culture.

 

[z-bob]

Which yeast? The bread yeast I suggested you dump into some apple juice? Even if you do decide a different yeast, this bread yeast into apple juice makes a pleasant drink. Just be sure your apple juice has no preservatives.

That's a very good point. She can gain some experience with very little cash, will have something drinkable to show for it, and will have a baseline to compare with using better yeasts.

I have sourdough starter, can I use that? I also have a water kefir culture.

I have no idea if those will work. It sounds interesting. Try it out (on a small scale) and see what you get

 

[MarthaSprung]

The yeast I've ordered was really cheap, it actually contains of two yeast strains and has the killer effect.

 

[NSMikeD]

circling back to the original question; 1 gal starter kits (extract with specialty grains) are available for about $50. all you need is top source file top bottles (or a capper and caps if you use not twist bottles) and a pot. I came across these today, they aren't the only source but the instructions are clear and provides just enough education to understand the basics of brewing to get started. so this is an example of an inexpensive way to get started in home brewing: 1 Gallon Beer Kits | Craft a Brew.

moving up to all grain BIAB 1gal is not a bing step once you get the hang of exact. Then, if1 gallon isn't enough beer for you and you want to invest in equipment to make larger batches, you have a good understanding so you can compare what method and corresponding equipment you will want within you budget.

 

[z-bob]

There's no trace left of the jelly that I put in the cider. All the little clumps are completely dissolved, the red color is gone, the browning because it was old is gone. I don't know if the diastatic yeast ate everything, or if it just ate all the sugar and the pectin had nothing left to make it gel (that doesn't explain the loss of color.) There are still lots of tiny bubbles but it's starting to clear. I'm about to step it up to 3 or 4 gallons. I will dump the lees in too because that's where most of the yeast might be.

 

[Squirrels]

Cheapest? In college I made hard cider by drilling a hole in the cap of a gallon of cider, pitched dregs of a bottle of beer and made an air stop out of a straw and plastic cup held together with super glue. I think the whole thing cost me under 5 bucks...

 

[z-bob]

The cider I started a month ago using Jovaru yeast harvested from a yeasty bottle of beer is still fermenting *very* slowly. It was almost finished in less than 2 weeks, and it looks finished now but the airlock still goes "bloop" every 30 seconds or so. I think maybe I have it in too cold of a room (about 68 to 70°) so I might put a blanket, heating pad, and Inkbird controller on it to get it to the upper-mid-70s for a week, then bottle it.

 

[RM-MN]

The cider I started a month ago using Jovaru yeast harvested from a yeasty bottle of beer is still fermenting *very* slowly. It was almost finished in less than 2 weeks, and it looks finished now but the airlock still goes "bloop" every 30 seconds or so. I think maybe I have it in too cold of a room (about 68 to 70°) so I might put a blanket, heating pad, and Inkbird controller on it to get it to the upper-mid-70s for a week, then bottle it.

You probably are at final gravity and have been for quite a while. Your cider will have a fair amount of CO2 dissolved in it, more that it can hold long term. That CO2 will come out of solution and make the airlock bubble from time to time. Only the use of a hydrometer will tell for sure if it is done.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Hello,

I am contemplating getting into brewing and want to ask you what the simplest, easiest and cheapest way to brew is?

Yeah, this is called "denial." How well I know it.

Just kidding. But sort of not kidding.

You can start off relatively cheaply, but you will succeed with your first beer, and then you will probably want to upgrade. I can tell you what you will probably end up spending more money on.

You are going to want some way to keep fermentation temperatures down, so you may want to scrounge up a used fridge and buy a temperature control. But there are things that ferment at room temperature, so you don't have to rush.

If you try bottling beer, you will hate it, and then you will want kegs. If you have even one keg, you have to get a CO2 tank, regulator and some tubing and fittings. Unless you're in love with bottles, it's best to skip the bottle stage of homebrewing.

Then you will need a place for your keg. So put it in your fermenting fridge! But wait...how do you ferment your next beer with the first one in the fridge?

This is where you abandon sanity and build a keezer or buy a kegerator. A keezer is something you build from $1500 worth of parts in order avoid the expense of a $900 kegerator.

It helps if you tell yourself homebrewed beer is a lot cheaper than factory beer. You just have to make sure you only count the cost of ingredients and pretend the equipment was free. That's what I do.

 

[redrocker652002]

I probably cannot add much more than what has been said. My brother is thinking of getting into beer making as he has been using my stuff (the cheapest possible form, LOL) and I recommend that he look on craigslist for those who have lost interest and looking to get rid of their stuff. I bought a starter setup from Northern Brew for about 125 bucks I think. It came with two buckets with spigots, bottle filling thingamabob (yes, that is the official name of it lol), bottle dohicckie (sorry if I am getting to technical here lol) and some bottle caps. In looking back, I think I probably could have gone the craigslist way and gotten it for cheaper, but what the heck, It was an impulse buy. Either way, good luck, there is a ton of info here and some great folks to help you. RR

 

[madscientist451]

Easiest is not going to be the cheapest.
Cheapest per pint is not going to be the easiest and will require spending money to buy equipment.
Best solution is to keep an eye out for used stuff and slowly build your equipment up while at the same time seek out the best and cheapest ingredient suppliers. There's never been a better time to look for used stuff, its all over FB marketplace and other sites.
So initially your easy brews will be more pricey, but eventually you'll bring your costs down, getting some used kegs and a CO2 tank/regulator and a spare refrigerator costs money, (you can do it on the cheap with picnic taps) but its way easier than bottling and somewhat satisfying when your pour your own pint (or half a glass, like me that's trying to cut back)......