Home Brew Report Numero Uno

[UTmtnbiker]

I've been defrocked. Received a homebrew kit for my birthday and last night, after about 2 1/2 weeks of fermentation, we have :beer:

Rather than do homework (homework's for SUCKERS!) I went dumpster diving with the wife, came home and bottled beer. Gonna let it sit for about 2 weeks (at least) before cracking open the first bottle. Ended up with about 40 bottles of beer.

We made a German Weiss with 2 stage fermentation using White Labs yeast. Initial specific grav was 1.041. Ended up around 1.011.

Don't know what it'll taste like, but the house smells like beer.

Pics of my kingdom of beer!
Beer1
Beer2
Beer3
Beer4

 

[MrChad]

Uh, what do you mean by "dumpster diving" exactly? You used bottles you found in the trash?

 

[UTmtnbiker]

Damn straight. It's glass for pete's sake. Rinse them out, put them in a sanitizer solution...as good as new!

 

[Adul]

that is a lot of beer

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: UTmtnbiker
Damn straight. It's glass for pete's sake. Rinse them out, put them in a sanitizer solution...as good as new!

Cool. Let us know how it tastes in two weeks.

 

[funboy6942]

Dude you are in for a treat. I made some of my own home brew and it tasted great. BUT I have bad news for you. You need to get the beer out of them old glass twistoffs right away and stick it in plastic pop bottles. You cant get the glass ones to seal back very well and hate to say but if you dont switch half your beer is going to bad and you wont want to do it again. I made the german one and onother one that Iused hops and barley in with brown sugar. After you get the hang on it need to buy more kits so you will have endless supply of beer
I cant do it anymore though after finding out I have diabeties

Good luck and again change them bottles right away

BTW what kit did you use? I used MR Beer for mine and if you go to their website they have alot of different ones to choose from/

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: UTmtnbiker
Damn straight. It's glass for pete's sake. Rinse them out, put them in a sanitizer solution...as good as new!

while you are right. Its still nasty! :disgust:


Heh my wife wants to get me a homebrew kit. She wants to have a superbowl party and have the beer for that.

 

[UTmtnbiker]

We made sure when we dumpster dived we didn't get bottles with twist off tops. Everything (or at least I think everything) we got was non-twisties. Corona bottles are for sure not twisties, and I'm pretty sure Becks and Heinikens aren't also.

Originally posted by: moochadime
Dude you are in for a treat. I made some of my own home brew and it tasted great. BUT I have bad news for you. You need to get the beer out of them old glass twistoffs right away and stick it in plastic pop bottles. You cant get the glass ones to seal back very well and hate to say but if you dont swithch half your beer is going to bad and you wont want to do it again. I made the german one and onother one that i used hops in with brown sugar. After you get the hang on it need to buy more kits so you will have endless supply of beer
I cant do it anymore though after finding out I have diabeties

Good luck and again change them bottles right away

 

[Grey]

let us know how it tasted. How much did this all cost? And what is the cost per bottle?

 

[funboy6942]

How did you get them to seal right??? If it is not a tight seal it wont ferment and you will end up with flat beer.

 

[UTmtnbiker]

The kit came with bottle caps and a bottle capping tool. Santized the caps, filled up the bottles, put the capping/crimping tool on, and a little scrinch later, caps sealed on to the bottles!

I just made the sure the crimping tool was level with the bottles and seated well on to the caps/bottles and put in a lot of arm strength when crimping down the caps.

Originally posted by: moochadime
How did you get them to seal right??? If it is not a tight seal it wont ferment and you will end up with flat beer.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

For those unfortunately enough to live in a state with bottle deposits, the bet method of obtaining empties is package stores instead of dumpsters. People return theirs to collect the deposits and it's easy to pick up bar bottles. Bar bottles come in nice strong wire-reinforced cases that don't fall apart when they get wet, they're perfect for storing and moving homebrew. And you can get some brands with painted-on labels, so there's no need to scrape off the old ones.

 

[funboy6942]

GOOD!!! Then you are going to love wht you made. It has a taste like no other beer and I want to whip out my kit so bad now! Damn diabetes :|

 

[UTmtnbiker]

My wife got me the "deluxe" kit which came with 2 6 gal plastic buckets, a 5 gal glass carboy, and all the ancillery eqiupment. I think she said it was around $150. The ingredients kit was around $30. After the initial investment, $30 for 40 bottles of beer isn't that bad of a deal.

Originally posted by: Grey
let us know how it tasted. How much did this all cost? And what is the cost per bottle?

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

Nice job and welcome to the sport! You will be pleased I am sure. Homebrew is hard to screw up!

Clear bottles are nice because you can evaluate the clarity of your beer better, but you should probably store them in a dark place to avoid light-struck hops. That skunky smell flavor in corona and some other beers is the result of light interacting with the hop compounds in the beer.

Anyways, report back after you have tasted it!

 

[UTmtnbiker]

Any recommendations on how long the bottles SHOULD sit? The kit and most of the books I've read say at least 1 month for them to REALLY taste good, but I don't know if I can wait that long. I'd like to have one right about NOW but I'll wait at least 2 weeks.

 

[UTmtnbiker]

moochadime -

On the beer kit, we have a local homebrew store called The Beer Nut (www.beernut.com). Their prices are comparable with morebeer.com and since they're local, I just run down there during my lunch hour or after work and pick up what I need.

 

[Cable God]

Originally posted by: moochadime
GOOD!!! Then you are going to love wht you made. It has a taste like no other beer and I want to whip out my kit so bad now! Damn diabetes :|

I've had it for 20 years. You CAN drink beer, just not 10 bottles at a time. I drink 3 or so every few days. Anything's ok, in moderation, and as long as you count it into your diet.

 

[funboy6942]

Originally posted by: UTmtnbiker
My wife got me the "deluxe" kit which came with 2 6 gal plastic buckets, a 5 gal glass carboy, and all the ancillery eqiupment. I think she said it was around $150. The ingredients kit was around $30. After the initial investment, $30 for 40 bottles of beer isn't that bad of a deal.

Originally posted by: Grey
let us know how it tasted. How much did this all cost? And what is the cost per bottle?

OUCH! I got my kit at the grocery store for $20 with 2 beer kits and screw caps for the plastic bottles.

As for letting them sit out for 2 weeks then move them to the refer and try not to stir them up. Wait another 1-2 weeks. It will be well worth it trust me

 

[PTCvette]

FYI on the bottle thing.... I just go out and buy a bunch of the Grolsch with the ceramic swingtop lids... They have a ceramic lid with a rubber gasket thing around them and they hinge with a metal contraption. I was making mine with the 2liter bottles at first too, and that worked well, but I find the Grolsch bottles to work much better, plus you don't have to worry about capping all the bottles and crap.... AND you get to drink lots of tasty Grolsch to get a good stockpile of bottles ;-)

Most of the ones I have done have been drinkable after about 2 weeks. The longer you can hold off, the better, so save a few!

Jeff

 

[Ausm]

How do you control the alcohol content? My Favorite beer is Chimay Ale or Erdinger pinkantis Bak both are around 9% by volume.


AUsm

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Originally posted by: Ausm
How do you control the alcohol content? My Favorite beer is Chimay Ale or Erdinger pinkantis Bak both are around 9% by volume.


AUsm

Fermented sugars = alcohol. The more fermentables that go into the recipe the more alcohol that comes out the back end. Big difference in a beer that starts with 5 pounds of malt and one that starts with 10 pounds of malt.

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

Originally posted by: UTmtnbiker
Any recommendations on how long the bottles SHOULD sit? The kit and most of the books I've read say at least 1 month for them to REALLY taste good, but I don't know if I can wait that long. I'd like to have one right about NOW but I'll wait at least 2 weeks.

I would suggest 2 weeks in the bottle before drinking it, though you can try it at anytime.

depending on the ambient temperature, you beer MAY carbonate sooner, like in 5-7 days, but young beer can really taste quite different than beer that is properly conditioned.

From start to finish, you should expect 4-6 weeks for a weiss beer, SO if you fermented for a total of 2 weeks, then you should give it 2 more weeks in bottles, though if you beer sat in secondary for longer and your total fermentation time was 3-4 weeks then you can probably drink as soon as you get carbonation.


Thats not really an answer you were looking for, but in reality, it all depends. I would recommend you taste one every few days to see how the flavor changes, but don't expect to have a finished beer for at least 7 days, and probably 10-14 days is more likely.

BTW, its finished when it tastes good.

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

Originally posted by: Grey
let us know how it tasted. How much did this all cost? And what is the cost per bottle?

homebrew can be very economical and the results will almost certainly rival anything you can buy.

i can brew up 10 gallons (about 4 cases) for around 30 dollars. and get a very good beer with moderate hops and about 4.5% abv

on average, you are looking at 20-30dollars in ingrediants per 5 gallon batch (2 cases) and about $70-150 in start up equipement.

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

Originally posted by: moochadime
Dude you are in for a treat. I made some of my own home brew and it tasted great. BUT I have bad news for you. You need to get the beer out of them old glass twistoffs right away and stick it in plastic pop bottles. You cant get the glass ones to seal back very well and hate to say but if you dont switch half your beer is going to bad and you wont want to do it again. I made the german one and onother one that Iused hops and barley in with brown sugar. After you get the hang on it need to buy more kits so you will have endless supply of beer
I cant do it anymore though after finding out I have diabeties

Good luck and again change them bottles right away

BTW what kit did you use? I used MR Beer for mine and if you go to their website they have alot of different ones to choose from/

this is not my experience with threaded bottles. in general, I have gotten a good seal on threaded bottles about 95% of the time. so about 1 in 20 bottles MAY not seal properly.

Furthermore, plastic bottles should NOT be used because the plastic is permeable to oxygen. Given enough time your beer will oxidize which produces a cardboard flavor in your beer. NOT good.

the suggestion to transfer is also not a good idea either because the process of pouring from bottle to bottle will only introduce oxygen and increase the risk of an infection.


Does your diabetes allow you to drink a low carb beer? There are homebrew methods that will produce low-carb results. I haven't tried them personally, but they are simple to do.