Does anyone homebrew?

[cooty]

I have been brewing my own beer for two years. Next month with be the first time I have entered it in to a contest.
I was hoping to gather some insite to homebrew contest.
Thanks Cooty

[Botnst]

Yo-ho, Cooty. jjl and I both homebrew. He's really hardcore, while I am an extract man. If I ever go to Scotland, I'm going to mooch off him and also a friend who works at a distillery.

Oregon, huh. Grow your own hops?

[cooty]

Botnst
Not yet with the hops. I dont have time to invest in. There is a small hop farm north of Eugene. The two beer stores intown buy from them. I also enjoy making hard cider and mead.
I would like to try wine someday when I get more of a taste for it.
There is a microbrew fest next month that I am gonna enter. They have a homebrew contest.
I have two enters a pumpkin ale and a cider. I try to use the freshest ingredents I can. The cider I press myself its really easy as far a brewing goes no heating or boiling wort. The hardest part for me is trying to make it sweeter.
The pumpkin ale turned out really well but I dont like pumpkin so I didnt like it.
I had some honest friends try it and they all liked it. Amazing since there is usually someone that doesnt like what I brewed. Must be the brewmasters disapproval with it. I used a fresh pumpkin 12lbs half roasted half freshly cubed.
I love brewing. It is a great hobby.
So do you bottle or have a draft system. I still bottle. I am slowly parting together a corny keg system. I am waiting for a fridge.
Anyway I need to get back to the 106 bottles I need to fill and crown.
Thanks
Cooty

[TwitchKitty]

I was a home brewer and also made some wine. Wine making made me hyper critical of commercial wines. I rarely drink anymore and lost interest in making my own. I still have crates of Grolsh flip tops and will probably resume the craft at some time in the future.

Never entered a brewing contest but entered a few other contests. They are mostly social gatherings, don't get too hung-up on the judging.

[Botnst]

Originally Posted by cooty

...So do you bottle or have a draft system. I still bottle. I am slowly parting together a corny keg system. I am waiting for a fridge.
Anyway I need to get back to the 106 bottles I need to fill and crown.
Thanks
Cooty

I used to bottle but I had a chance to by six soda kegs for $20 so now I have kegs. I sold three of the kegs for, you guessed it, $20. My goal is to have a stout or porter and two ales because that's about the ratio I drink them. Right now I have a scotch ale that is the second best beer I've brewed according to my critic (Mrs Botnst). The best was a German Alt that really was delicious.

I haven't been to Oregon in thirty years but my freinds tell me the microbreweries turn-out the best beer in North America--except for my sister-in-law, who's Canadian and cliams that title for some beers from her region: Edmonton. When I'm around her, you can bet that I agree with her. I may not be too bright when it comes to women, but I know how to suck-up to a sister-in-law.

[mzsmbs]

Originally Posted by TwitchKitty

I was a home brewer and also made some wine. Wine making made me hyper critical of commercial wines. I rarely drink anymore and lost interest in making my own. I still have crates of Grolsh flip tops and will probably resume the craft at some time in the future.

me too.

[TN-W124 Diesel]

I started back my homebrew. I use the John Bull beer. I really don't care too much for the ale.

[Southern]

I started brewing beer 18 years ago, although I havn't brewed any for the last couple of years. I would like to step up to all grain brewing but first I need to acquire more equipment. I have been brewing a pepper beer for my buddies wife who grows her own hot peppers. The store bought pepper beer was not hot enough for her. I sliced open the peppers to expose the seeds and the first sip numbed your mouth. My buddies wife told me the hotter the better, but I have to aggree with my buddie who said "I prefer to drink a beer to cool me off not heat things up".

I would appreciate anyone who whould like to share their plans for an all grain set-up.

[Botnst]

Originally Posted by rjnonnie

I started brewing beer 18 years ago, although I havn't brewed any for the last couple of years. I would like to step up to all grain brewing but first I need to acquire more equipment. I have been brewing a pepper beer for my buddies wife who grows her own hot peppers. The store bought pepper beer was not hot enough for her. I sliced open the peppers to expose the seeds and the first sip numbed your mouth. My buddies wife told me the hotter the better, but I have to aggree with my buddie who said "I prefer to drink a beer to cool me off not heat things up".

I would appreciate anyone who whould like to share their plans for an all grain set-up.

JJL is the man. Hopefully he'll spot this. He mashes his own. Hell, he probably sows his own barley, too.

[jjl]

hail fellow brewers


Yes, I'm a self confessed masher, and sparger of my own wort - call the police!

I use Maris Otter pale malt for the bulk sugars - a low nitrogen premium barley. I also use a wide variety of hops, including some American varieties - Cascade is nice, very fruity. My favourite recipe is for a medium stout, not a dry one like Guinness, but with more body (mashed at a lower temperature makes more polysaccharides). I'm just moving onto lagering using a spare refrigerator.

Main equipment is two stainless steel 30 litre boilers, a home made wort chiller (coil of copper pipe connected to cold tapwater), and the usual plastic fermation bins. I barrel rather than bottle, except for some very strong ale batches which are best bottled. I have a couple of corny kegs for transporting beer; I allow the beer to drop clear, rack off into the kegs and force carbonate, but most of my beer gets barreled for domestic consumption.

If you haven't mashed, try it - the improvement in quality is dramatic, and you'll not go back to extract brewing. The extra hassle is not that much - it's actually fun, and I've seen all kinds of clever semi-automated backyard breweries invovling liquid pumps, filters and gas burners if you're technically minded.

[Southern]

Thanks for your input JJL.

What do you use as your heat source natural gas, propane?

Do you gravity feed or use a pump?

How are your 30 litre boilers setup? one for boiling your wort and the other one for sparging?

I assume your wort chiller has the cold water running inside the copper tube rather than through a jacket around the outside.

I've read up on various types of setups. The gravity feed seems to be the least expensive and I would prefer to use my natural gas stove as the heat source so I can brew inside.

Some of the equipment I collected over the years consist of a stainless 1/2 barrel and a stainless 5 Gal. vessle elevated on a stand with a built in thermometer.

[jjl]

Originally Posted by rjnonnie

Thanks for your input JJL.

What do you use as your heat source natural gas, propane?

Do you gravity feed or use a pump?

How are your 30 litre boilers setup? one for boiling your wort and the other one for sparging?

I assume your wort chiller has the cold water running inside the copper tube rather than through a jacket around the outside.

I've read up on various types of setups. The gravity feed seems to be the least expensive and I would prefer to use my natural gas stove as the heat source so I can brew inside.

Some of the equipment I collected over the years consist of a stainless 1/2 barrel and a stainless 5 Gal. vessle elevated on a stand with a built in thermometer.

The boilers are 3 kW electric Burco (an English make). I use gravity feed, one for the sparge liquor above one used as the mash tun, which drains into a collection pan. I then manually transfer the collected wort into the now empty sparge liquor boiler for the boil. Ideally I would have a system where the wort was boiled in the collecting vessel - I may get around to this when time and funds allow. The wort chiller is just a large coil of ordinary domestic copper water pipe - it works really well, no need to buy those expensive counter-current gadgets. This is another thing worth making if you don't have one - it cools the wort down quickly, reducing the time 'at risk' to bacterial contamination, and it also precipitates out all the proteins and other muck you don't want in the wort before fermentation.

I have an old stone outbuilding about the size of a single garage (used for coal just now) I'm thinking of converting into my own micro-micro-brewery - wouldn't that just be great!


Botnst teased me about growing my own barley. I live in a rural area and my neighbour grows tons of the stuff for cattle feed. It might be interesting to take a few sacks and see if I can actually malt it myself - if this made good beer the cost of brewing would be next to nothing.

rjnonnie, why do you need to brew indoors - could you not use a propane burner outside, or is it just too cold where you are (it is here).

[Southern]

Originally Posted by jjl

rjnonnie, why do you need to brew indoors - could you not use a propane burner outside, or is it just too cold where you are (it is here).

It's -13 Deg. C outside now, my deck would make a good wort chiller right now.

I was thinking of using my Viking gas range, which puts out 15K BTU, for a heat source. Another option would be to use my old water heater burner. This would require a ventilated room since the water heater burner would put out too much CO.

I like your idea of your stone building for a micro-micro brewery. You could even use your coal for a heat source.

I have built a cedar shed (14' x 10'), which looks like a minature cabin, that could be used as a micro-micro brewery in the summer. This would require me to move out all my lawn equipment and kids toys.

Thanks for your further input.

[Botnst]

A fellow brewer here made a really cool contra-flow chiller. Inner pipe has wort, outter pipe has water. It cuts down on water wastage, he says.

Whatever, it looks cool and is a fine piece of oxyacetylene brazing and tube bending. I guess it's 1" ID outter and 1/2" OD inner, both copper. The total length looks like maybe a couple of yards or so and coiled about 1/2 ft radius. He runs tap water through the jacket using rubber tube nipples on both ends and gravity feeds the wort. I don't know how he keeps the tubes symmetrical and not touching. Too thick-headed to ask.

[Botnst]

Here's to jjl.

THE JUICE OF THE BARLEY

In the sweet country Lim'rick, one cold winter's night
All the turf fires were burning when I first saw the light;
And a drunken old midwife went tipsy with joy
As she danced round the floor with her slip of a boy,

cho: Singing ban-ya-na mo if an-ga-na
And the juice of the barley for me.

Well when I was a gossoon of eight years old or so
With me turf and me primer to school I did go.
To a dusty old school house without any door,
Where lay the school master blind drunk on the floor,

At the learning I wasn't such a genius I'm thinking,
But I soon bet the master entirely at drinking,
Not a wake or a wedding for five miles around,
But meself in the corner was sure to be found.
One Sunday the priest thread me out from the altar
Saying you'll end up your days with your neck in a halter;
And you'll dance a fine jig between heaven and hell
And his words they did frighten me the truth for to tell,

So the very next morning as the dawn it did break
I went down to the vestry the pledge for to take,
And there in that room sat the priests in a bunch
Round a big roaring fire drinking tumblers of punch,

Well from that day to this I have wandered alone
I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none,
With the sky for me roof and the earth for me floor,
And I'll dance out my days drinking whiskey galore,

Recorded by Clancys