Teaching my neighbor how to brew beer this weekend!

[azasadny]

I'm going to break out the brewing gear and teach my neighbor how to brew this weekend. I've got a natural gas line in the back (pool heater) and I'll hook up the 150,000 BTU King Cooker, 10 gal stainless steel kettles, etc... and we'll brew a 6 gal batch of Porter for my neighbor's 1st experience with brewing. I used to brew a lot (100 batches in 2 years) and I was into all-grain brewing, but I had to stop drinking beer (liver disorder), so I stopped brewing. My neighbor really needs a hobby and he loves to cook and drink beer, so I think he'll really anjoy this. I have all of the gear he could possibly ever need, so all he has to pay for are the consumables and 6 gals of beer will cost him about $35.

[Tim Walsh]

Originally Posted by azasadny

I have all of the gear he could possibly ever need, so all he has to pay for are the consumables and 6 gals of beer will cost him about $35.

Good deal! I'm still in the Kitchen stages, but I have moved up(or sideways depending on who you talk to) to 3 gallon All Grain batches, which cost me between $15 and $25 depending on hops and strength.

There's definitely something different about fermentation(beer/wine) vs. straight cooking, but they're similar. It's definitely a bunch of fun, and you get to drink your results!

[Jeff Higgins]

I've taught several neighbors how to drink beer.

[legion]

When are you coming down, neighbor?

[myamoto1]

Two of my buddies are growing their own hops. I have a rather large back yard, and they're hoping to expand their crop I've been thinking about giving it a try too, but I already have too many projects and not enough time. Then again, it would cut down on the grocery bill

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Brewing beer is pretty darn simple. Just keep your gear sterile and take your time. Have fun, best of luck!

(BTW I have a batch of Brown Ale fermenting right now... Should turn out well I think...)

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by azasadny

I'm going to break out the brewing gear and teach my neighbor how to brew this weekend. I've got a natural gas line in the back (pool heater) and I'll hook up the 150,000 BTU King Cooker, 10 gal stainless steel kettles, etc... and we'll brew a 6 gal batch of Porter for my neighbor's 1st experience with brewing. I used to brew a lot (100 batches in 2 years) and I was into all-grain brewing, but I had to stop drinking beer (liver disorder), so I stopped brewing. My neighbor really needs a hobby and he loves to cook and drink beer, so I think he'll really anjoy this. I have all of the gear he could possibly ever need, so all he has to pay for are the consumables and 6 gals of beer will cost him about $35.

I guess you're not doing all grain! I was making 5-6 gallons a week, every saturday morning.

Which mill do you use? I have a Smidling Mill and used a rectangular cooler with a Smidling "easy mash". Funny, I could always get a little better conversion with the Corona, but hand milling 8 lbs with the Smidling took like 3 minutes. I was a triple infusion, boiling water, kind of brewer. 6 hours, start to finish, 2 of those were sleeping.

My "standard" was an nice pale ale using Wyeast 1098. One of my guest favorites was the "Clean out the Closet" IPA. There was way too much crystal in there. It looked like a porter until you put a flashlilght up to the glass. Deep ruby red and crystal clear. And a microbrewery in the area wanted my recipe for my "Maple Imperial Stout".

[cgarr]

This sounds like fun, both making and drinking! So how do you get started, where do you go! anything good online, something I can understand?

[azasadny]

We brewed an extract batch today to get my neighbor started. About 10 years ago, I brewed 100 batches of all-grain in 2 years. I bought everything at a local store (now gone) and online. I have a Phil's grain mill in the basement somewhere and a Gott cooler mash/lauter tun. I have 2 10gal stainless steel PolarWare kettles with thermometer and welded in ball valve spigots, 50foot coiled copper wort chiller, really nice jockey box and over 50 stainless steel Cornelius kegs. Lots of good resources online and I have bought a lot of gear through online retailers and supplies from Williams Brewing. I took a long time off from that hobby, but I'm glad to have introduced my neighbor to it. I also reloaded 400 .223 rifle cartridges while waiting for the batch to boil. I have a natural gas line hooked to a King Cooker 150,000BTU burner, which really helps!

[red-beard]

I had a picnic cooler with the easy mash for mashtun/lauter tun, a series of glass carboys for fermenmentation. I would move my previous weeks beer to a 5 gal settling ("2nd fermentation) and then pitch my wort right into the previous weeks fermenter, right on top of the yeast and everything.

I used 5 gal soda kegs and a virtually dedicated refrigerator for the beer. I never got around to drilling the door for the taps. I usually kept 4 kegs full.

The Water in West Stockbridge was from a deep well, and was very hard. It was great for brewing.

I made up a set of instructions for one of my friends on how to make 1 gallon of beer on the stove top, with minimal purchases from the brew shop.

You buy a 1 gallon bottle of water from the store. This way you know you have good water and the bottle is your fermenter. I had him buy light DME, 1 oz of compressed hops, an airlock and stopper, yeast etc. He used a pan on the stove to boil the wort, then add hops at intervals. I had him cool the wort by putting the pan in a sink full of cold water. Sterilzed funnel for transfer. Once the beer fermented, I had him use the remaining bit of DME, boiled lightly for 15 minutes and cooled, for priming. For bottles, I had him use 2, 2 liter soda bottles.

It worked great. If some one needs the full recipe and directions and list, I think I can find the thing around here someplace.

[azasadny]

I'm a "full boil" kind of guy, so the 10gal stainless steel kettle with ball valve and thermometer work well, along with the King Cooker and natural gas line. Brewing in the backyard was great because we didn't have to worry about boil-overs, but the wind initially kept us from reaching 200 degrees. Once I moved the setup out of the wind, we reached the desired temps and hot break occurred right on schedule. This was my neighbor's 1st experience and I'll check on the fermentation status this AM. We used to have a homebrew supply shop around the corner, which was convenient, but now we have to order almost everything over the Internet, which complicates things a bit. I used to throw my wort over the leftover yeast (trub) from the previous batch in the fermenter, but I never did that more than twice. I was told the yeast develop off-flavors once they get overused...

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by azasadny

I'm a "full boil" kind of guy, so the 10gal stainless steel kettle with ball valve and thermometer work well, along with the King Cooker and natural gas line. Brewing in the backyard was great because we didn't have to worry about boil-overs, but the wind initially kept us from reaching 200 degrees. Once I moved the setup out of the wind, we reached the desired temps and hot break occurred right on schedule. This was my neighbor's 1st experience and I'll check on the fermentation status this AM. We used to have a homebrew supply shop around the corner, which was convenient, but now we have to order almost everything over the Internet, which complicates things a bit. I used to throw my wort over the leftover yeast (trub) from the previous batch in the fermenter, but I never did that more than twice. I was told the yeast develop off-flavors once they get overused...

It doesn't. The problem is the brew shop doesn't get to sell you yeast! For a while, I was making and pitching my own yeast starters. I would make a mini-batch without hops of about 1.5 qts, and put it in a 2 liter bottle with a smack-pack. This was let to ferment out. I would then swirl and pitch most of it, and keep some in the 2l bottle and put another 1.5 qts of wort in to make another large pitching volume.

Since I was re-using the same yeast, I then hit on the idea of over-pitching. Some of the breweries do this. It worked fine and no problems.

I was a big believer in George Fix. His Principles of Brewing Science followed by An Analysis of Brewing Techniques were my bibles.

[azasadny]

Thanks for the info! I've been out of brewing for about 10 years, but I'll take your advice and repitch our next batch (Pilsner) over the left-over yeast from this batch. It's bubbling happily in the fermenter right now.