Where do I start

[irishpride42]

Ok so about five years ago we tried making beer with a recipe we found on the internet without doing much research, etc. Needless to say it didn't turn out very good. So the last few weeks have really looked into brewing again and I have read, read, and read. I went to my local brew store bought a brew bucket and some wine yeast and started a batch of peach brandy, however, I want to give beer a shot. Is it going to be the same basic process? What is a very simple recipe to start with? Is a brew kit the best thing to start with and can I do it all in a brew bucket? Will it stay in the brew bucket until time to bottle? I have seen several different variations of ways to do it and obviously there will be but I figured it was just flat out time to ask you guys!

Thanks
Zach

 

[Evan!]

It's not the same as making wine, no. You need to boil the malt and hops in water for 60 minutes minimum. EdWort's Haus Pale Ale is a nice recipe to start with, you'd probably want to go for the extract version though. Do a search here and you'll find the recipe.

You can absolutely leave it in the primary fermenter until bottling for many beers. let it ferment out, then let it sit for a couple more weeks, rack to the bottling bucket, add the priming sugar solution and bottle.

It's not worth it to rehash the entire process for you, though---John Palmer has a great resource here with all you could ever need to know. Cheers, and good luck!

 

[FatMonsters]

The simplest recipe is start with a kit. I did a Munton's kit that required boiling of two cans of pre-hopped liquid malt extract. Then cool it, add it to fermenter, add top off water to 5 gallons, stir really well, pitch yeast and let ferment away for about 14 days. Went straight to bottling bucket and then into sanitized bottles.

Many online brew retailers (Midwest, Northern Brewer, AustinHomeBrew, etc), as well as you local Home Brew Store if you have one, carry beer kits that are a step up from the no-boil or boil kits that are very good and come with coomplete sintructions! They quite a diverse selection of beers to brew as well. You should definitely give them a look!

Remember to sanitize everything that comes into contact with your brew...

 

[Yooper]

You can use the same basic "gear" to make beer as you do wine. I started with wine first, too!

The way I started was to buy a Brewer's Best kit. They have good and simple directions, and the kit as all the ingredients you need (except beer bottles). This is what they have in them: http://www.homebrewit.com/aisle/2025 I'm not necessarily recommending that website- it's just a good one with the pictures of the Brewer's Best kits. I bought the Brewer's Best kit from a local homebrew store.

Another good resource is austinhomebrew.com for beer ingredient kits, and nothernbrewer.com.

 

[irishpride42]

It's not worth it to rehash the entire process for you, though---John Palmer has a great resource here with all you could ever need to know. Cheers, and good luck!

Yea I printed that entire document just haven't had a chance to read it all.

Thanks guys, any more help would be great!

 

[irishpride42]

Let me ask you one other thing, you say go from fermenter to bottling bucket can you not use the same one?

 

[Evan!]

Let me ask you one other thing, you say go from fermenter to bottling bucket can you not use the same one?

Once the fermentation is finished, you end up with what is called "trub" or "yeast cake". Essentially, once the yeast is done fermenting, the cells clump together and fall to the bottom, or "flocculate". There are also particles called break material, as well as any other solids that made it into the fermenter, that fall to the bottom, and you end up with a sludge that is 1-3" thick. You definitely don't want to bottle from this bucket, because in order to mix in your priming sugar, you have to stir, which would rouse the trub---leaving you with sludgy bottles. In other words, no.

 

[Liquidicem]

For the price of a second bucket you will end up with a much cleaner beer in your bottles. Besides rousing the trub you also risk introducing oxygen to your beer when mixing. This is bad as well.

 

[cubbies]

IMO, everyone who is seriously trying to make a good beer, should start with How too Brew. That should be everyone's first step. Evan! provided a link in his first post.

Brewing is not a very complicated process, but there is some stuff to know. Reading How to Brew cover to cover, even though you wont need most of the info right away, is where you should start.

 

[Rhoobarb]

+1 for How To Brew. Also, keep poking around here, search for topics - just reqd all yuou can. The Wiki might help, too.

 

[Evan!]

For the price of a second bucket you will end up with a much cleaner beer in your bottles. Besides rousing the trub you also risk introducing oxygen to your beer when mixing. This is bad as well.

Not sure what you're getting at here. Whether you bottle from the primary (a bad idea regardless) or bottle from the secondary, I don't see how this would affect how much oxygen is introduced. In fact, since you're racking it to another vessel, it would stand to make sense that using a bottling bucket has the potential to introduce more oxygen, not less. That having been said, either way, it's negligible unless you're sloshing the crap around like a retard.