Homebrewing

[red321]

Went back and had a second bottle of the heady topper clone. It was absolutely brilliant. Loads of hops, great piney finish...very dry with little sweetness. I'm scratching the head a little trying to figure out how their could have been such a difference after one additional week of bottle conditioning. The first go was after two weeks of bottle conditioning, the second go was after the third week - and usually two weeks is sufficient for conditioning/carbonation. Oh well, guess I'll have to try another this weekend to see if it was conditioning or maybe too much priming sugar ended up in the first bottle?

[Eric]

Sorry, I'm late into this thread. I've done a bit of homebrewing myself and have a few tips for those getting involved in the process.

 

1. Keeping the bottles sanitized sounds difficult until you learn a few really basic rules. Alway keep the bottles filled with water until you are ready to sanitize. This keeps the bottles free of crusty things that take a brush and a ton of elbow grease to remove. When you are ready to sanitize, dump the water from the bottles and put them into a dishwasher that's already gone through an empty cycle with a couple cap-fulls of bleach. Then run the dishwasher a full cycle with no detergent and leave alone until you are ready to bottle.

 

2. Purchase an electronic thermometer and use it. Some recipe's call for exact temperatures of the wort during certain phases of the brewing process and being able to ride the gas to maintain that temp is a breeze when you know exactly how hot the wort is at all times.

 

3. When you use iodine to sanitize your plastic fermenter, do not throw it away if you have a second fermenter. Instead, run the sanitizing liquid from the first fermenter into the other and let it sit there until it's time to extract the wort from the first into the second. It will save you an entire sanitizing session. Once the sanitizer has been used on the second fermenter, however, dump it.

 

4. Find out what you like and save the bottles. It is so much easier to walk into your local HomeBrew store with a box of bottles of what you like than to try to, on the fly, describe the beers you like vs the beers you don't. If your local homebrew store guy is worth his weight, he will be able to decipher your pallet from your preferences and steer you towards the recipe's that you will end up preferring to drink, as well as modifying existing recipe's to your taste. For example, I currently have a modified version of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale fermenting here where we've toned down the total amount of hops in the beer because I prefer a less hoppy beverage. Knowing your own tastes will help tremendously in you brewing something you will look forward to drinking.

 

Hope these notes help.

[Eric]

Latest batch:

 

It's a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone with a couple adjustments including a lowering of the hop content.

 

[mrwicked]

So my kit was delivered (link here) and...

What do I do now? 

Ha - anyone have a good book to suggest on what steps to take next?

[Eric]

First book that you should pick the Yellow Pages, find a local brewmaster and head down to the store to talk to him.

 

Before you go down there, though, put together a list of ales that you enjoy drinking so that he can help you to develop a brew that you will enjoy. The more detailed you are with why you like the ales on the list, the better job he can do in narrowing down what recipe to brew first.

 

Again, I cannot stress enough the need for an electronic thermometer, especially given that many recipe's that call for sparging do so at a specific temperature for a specific amount of time.

 

Oh, and one thing that they NEVER seem to tell you that you should know about when the fermentation is finished and ready to be transfered over to the carboy is to take a taste-test of the wort after the bubbling has subsided to more than a minute between bubbles.  If it tastes sweet, then let it go another 24 hours. It should taste like flat beer before transfering to the carboy for clarification.

[red321]

Yellow pages?

[red321]

So my kit was delivered (link here) and...

What do I do now? 

Ha - anyone have a good book to suggest on what steps to take next?

 

John Palmer's How to Brew

 

Northern Brewer website has some good videos as well

[GuliblGuy]

Oh man it's been a few years since I brewed some beer...still have all the equipment.  I need to get on that ish!

[AngelsLongBall]

Charlie Papazian's "The Complete Joy of Homebrewing" was a good primer for me

 

http://www.ebookmall.com/ebook/the-complete-joy-of-homebrewing-third-edition/charlie-papazian/9780060531058?gclid=CJmFr82Q_L0CFdKGfgodzkYA-A

[Eric]

Transfering the wort from the carboy back into the bucket to be able to bottle after a 3 week rest in the carboy. Got a taste.  OMG! This is going to be some epic stuff!