Any homebrewers here?

[Dead Rabbit]

I just drank my first beer since going all grain. Bitter/Mild type ale. Wow....i'm never going back to extract. It's great.

That being said, I've had my share of brewed monstrosities in the last 3 years of brewing.

[surfing_64]

Yeh, i brew my own, Been doing it for about a year, going to buy a still soon so i can make spirits too.

I love my homebrews, had some great beers (and only one shit one)
My best was an ale, made from a kit, but i boiled some pineapple (to kill of bacteria) and put that in the fermenter with the beer, and it was just beautiful! Best beer of my life!

You had any good batches??

[Grim]

IVE BEEN BREWING FOR ABOUT 2 YEARS NOW.

I started with homemade wine then went to beer.

Ive had a few bad batches, one which was an IPA and one when i tried to lager a beer

I really dont have the room to do all grain, which i would love to do, but i use kits and add a few things here and there.

Had one which was a Scotish Ale and also made a barley wine with a friend of mine,

Dam nfun hobby, just was a lil expensive to get started, but the batches pay for themselves and theres no beer like homemade.

[holnrew]

I'd love to do it, but don't really have the room.

[jamesstew]

I used to brew my own beer but never really have the time anymore. I really don't like brewing from extract so I haven't gone that route.

[toekuttr]

Agreed, once you get the all-grain process down nothing else compares. The fresh taste absolutely blows everything else away, like bread from scratch. It's a little more time consuming than extract but once your systems down it's not so bad and actually pretty relaxing.

[squeezyjohn]

AH - I LOVE THIS PLACE!



Yes - I haven't had the time recently to get it together and start again, but I love brewing. In the UK it's mainly country wine we make from all the free hedgerow stuff in the autumn (elderberries, blackberries, sloes etc.) - but I had my hand at the beer in the past.

The grain only way is the only way to make a real beer in my opinion - if you add extract it's like adding sugar to a wine must, you get some horrible chemicals produced in the end product. Unfortunately the homebrew suppliers that we used to have round here have gone out of business - but I should really look for a good online supplier and get my act together!

There are some great UK recipes that use flavouring other than hops if you want to try them (or if you can get hold of the ingredients) - heather, burdock, bog myrtle and any number of household kitchen herbs were commonly used to flavour ale before the bloody Romans came over here and made everyone use foreign hops :wink: It may not be to everyone's tastes but it's nice to know that beer used to be a far more diverse drink than it is now with the odd suprisingly good result.

[holnrew]

I've had nettle beer before, it tasted very green.

[Xobeloot]

I had the opportunity to taste a few bottles of beer from Wholesome. He makes one hell of a brew!

[Shrewd]

I've been homebrewing about 3 years or so. I tend to do both all grain and extract brews - it just depends on how much time I have available. The all grain brews are better, but I'm not sure I'd say a ton better... You can get a pretty good beer out of extract brewing (it just removes all the science I love out of the process ). I've got 15 gal currently in fermenters right now, a porter and a red ale.

Personally I think there are 2 major transformations that really improve things: Kegging and Nitrogen. Once I started kegging, not only did the beer seem to taste better, but it was so much easier. Nitrogen is a no brainer if you like stouts . There's a bunch of cost involved, I spent more on my kegs and nitro then I did on my all grain setup, but it's worth it.

I've never had a brew I couldn't finish, only 1 that was marginal and took some doing to drink. I'm kinda anal though and generally am exacting in the process - especially the sanatizing.

It's a great hobby, you get to drink Guiness at the price of Bud .

[Dead Rabbit]

I've been homebrewing about 3 years or so. I tend to do both all grain and extract brews - it just depends on how much time I have available. The all grain brews are better, but I'm not sure I'd say a ton better... You can get a pretty good beer out of extract brewing (it just removes all the science I love out of the process ). I've got 15 gal currently in fermenters right now, a porter and a red ale.

Personally I think there are 2 major transformations that really improve things: Kegging and Nitrogen. Once I started kegging, not only did the beer seem to taste better, but it was so much easier. Nitrogen is a no brainer if you like stouts . There's a bunch of cost involved, I spent more on my kegs and nitro then I did on my all grain setup, but it's worth it.

I've never had a brew I couldn't finish, only 1 that was marginal and took some doing to drink. I'm kinda anal though and generally am exacting in the process - especially the sanatizing.

It's a great hobby, you get to drink Guiness at the price of Bud .

I made nasty beer at first. My first beer tasted like bleach infused sherry. At first, I didn’t use wort chiller and I had no idea what a yeast starter was. After using those two things, my beer became for the most part good and sometimes great. I’m a very harsh critic of myself though. I’ve since started using a pure O2 system before pitching and have found an immense difference.

I have a kegging system, although not nitro. Nitro would be really cool. Surprisingly, I’ve gone back to bottles. 1 liter and 2 liter flip tops are almost easier then kegging for me. I’ve also learned to go easy on the corn sugar for carbonation as I like a smoother, less carbonated finish.

[toekuttr]

I found a great overall practice to improve each batch was through using "Cornelius" kegs, which are the typical soda-fountain kegs. Makes for an easy sterilization and quick overall process. Another great help is using premium, dated liquid yeast cultures. I also use the wort chiller and yeast starters. There's a lot of little tricks to make excellent beer almost every time with sterilization being the key to consistency. I can't remember the last "bad batch"....knock wood.

[Slydel]

I used to brew about 13 years ago. I turned to cherry and blueberry wine. I made about 40 gallons one years (free fruit since my dad has an orchard). All turned out very well except the wine made from the dark sweet cherries. Maybe not enough acid? All the wines were made with champagne yeast so all of them were quite strong. My friend is an award winning brewmaster in the Kalamazoo area. I leave the brewing up to him when I want a good one. I could never hope to be as good as him, since he has been brewing over 20 years. He used to work at Kalamazoo Brewing Company (Bell's Beer) back in the day. His brew, albeit I am a little subjective, has far surpassed Bell's quality. Well, the awards speak for themselves.