Who out there home brews? My dad got me hooked for the home brew taste, and I have decided that in the fall when I return to DC that I will start on my own.

I find it so rewarding at the end of the brewing process and fermentation. All the effort and patience come together when that first taste of your own creation is bliss. As much as I hate President Carter, his legalization of home brewing is something that I applaud him for.

Currently I am brewing an alt beer.

Currently I'm on break until my hops are in, but in winter/fall I do a lot of brewing. I started out doing a lot of stouts and porters (they have a lot of depth and flavors that cover up early mistakes), and now do more IPA and Pale Ales. I'm considering doing some pilsners this winter, but stable temp is hard to do around my current place.

bah what patience with beer youre always done in less than a month (few exceptions) you gotta do mead Im coming up on 1 year marks on a couple of mine.

quote:

Originally posted by JacktheRabbit:
Currently I'm on break until my hops are in, but in winter/fall I do a lot of brewing. I started out doing a lot of stouts and porters (they have a lot of depth and flavors that cover up early mistakes), and now do more IPA and Pale Ales. I'm considering doing some pilsners this winter, but stable temp is hard to do around my current place.

Are you growing your own hops or waiting for an order? I read the article in Brew Your Own Magazine about growing hops in containers and was thrilled at the idea. I have no real yard to speak of so I thought this was a fun idea. I gave it a whirl and have had great results. My cascade hops are flowering already.

I am growing my own, I built a massive trellis this spring out of telephone poles, rigged up some old wire and away they went. I have heard the containers do quite well...

I've brewed a few batches. My crowning achievement being an Austin Style Wheat Beer with orange peel and coriander. I just haven't had the time last couple of months to brew anymore.

If you're brand new to the hobby, the 4 things I can strongly suggest you do are as follows
1.sanitize
2.sanitize
3.sanitize
4.Get a good bottle capper - my first one broke one me mid bottling and I had a soda bottle/pliers fiasco.

Just made a Harvest Wheat beer using some cascade hops that Grew this year..just kegged an Imperial IPA 11.5%..and a Imperial Stout aged on whiskey soaked oak chips 10%.. If you get into homebrewing the mian thing is sanitization( as walks with 2 horses said)..and to relax and have fun

Any homebrewers from the St.louis area on this board????

I have a scottish red in bottles now, turned out pretty good, this morning I'm brewing a raspberry cream ale.
I am thinking of making a pumpkin ale, does anyone have good instructions for that?

If anyone is into making cordials, I have a killer "apple pie". It is supper easy and very good. I think that I might make up some more of that with fall coming on.

I made a Pumpkin Ale last year. It was actually pretty good. I got this recipe from Beer Recipe.org. I hope it helps.

Charlie Brown Pumpkin Ale


Beer Style: fruit beer, pumpkin
Recipe Type: extract
Description:


Ingredients:

7 pounds light dried malt extract
1 pound 40 L Crystal malt
2 pounds pale ale malt
1 whole pumpkin (10 - 15 lbs)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
2 ounces fuggles (90 min)
1 ounces hallertauer (90 min)
1/2 ounce fuggles (5 min)
1/2 cup brown sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spece (for priming)
Wyeast liquid ale yeast, in starter

Procedure:

Clean and quarter the pumpkin, bake for 30 minutes at 350 F. Puree the pulp in food processor or blender. The grains and pumpkin were mashed for 90 minutes at 154 F. This thick mess was then strained into the brewpot (a long process!), and then a standard 90 minute boil took place. When done, cooled with a chiller, and WYEAST starter was pitched. Sorry about the WYEAST number, I forgot to record it. I know it was an ale yeast, and most probably a German ale yeast to be specific, but I am not certain. Standard fermentation and bottling, except the spices were added at priming time wiht the priming sugar.

This was submitted by a brewer named Brian Walter so that him.

Do you guys have any recommendations on where to purchase quality brewing equipment and supplies?

I buy all my stuff from morebeer and have had really great luck with them.

http://www.morebeer.com

Full disclosure, I also admin their forums (I'm not an employee nor do I receive any sort of compensation).

Another good site is northern brewer. I've bought from them in the past and they give very good service as well.

I generally buy ingredients in bulk. I buy 150 lbs of grain (mainly floor-malted maris otter) at a time and I buy 5-10 lbs of hops at a time (I get the hops from hopsdirect). I also have about 50 lbs of specialty grains on hand (crystal malts, high-kilned malts, aromatic malts, etc). I brew pretty much every 2-3 weeks and I brew all grain, mainly British styles (milds, browns, porters, stouts, etc) although I have an incredibly good california common (sort of like Anchor Steam) recipe that I brew fairly regularly and I occasionally brew saisons, cream ales, etc. I pretty much *always* have my house brown on tap at home and then alternate on the second tap.

If you are interested in all grain recipes, I generally keep most of mine posted on my brewing site at http://www.writerferret.com/brewing (most are all my original recipes, the ones that aren't I've noted in the descriptions).

-- Gary F

Thanks Gary.

Another quick question, do you think I should start with extract or jump right into all-grain? I'm a total newb, but I don't want to spend money on extract equipment when I know in the future I will most likely gravitate towards all-grain.

Well, it really depends. Most of the equip you will use for extract you will also use for all grain, so not much gets "wasted" so to speak. Also, brewing extract is like the second half of an all grain brewing session... so the skills you learn will transfer.

Brewing extract is much quicker. All grain is a superior product (although extract beers can be *very* good). If you're going to stick with the hobby, move to all grain but if you're just going to brew occasionally and want to bust out a quick 2-3 hour brew session, stick with extract until you really have everything down.

That's my advice...

-- Gary F.

for supplies check www.austinhomebrew.com

austin homebrew is good too... I got my beergun from them (it's a bottle filler, not what you think heh)

-- Gary F.

I use northernbrewer.com

Currently I have an Imperial Stout in the primary and an Old Ale in the secondary. The Old Ale should be ready to bottle next week