Home Brewing
- Thread starter avoxo
- Start date
I used to make beer all the time. Haven't done it in a few years though. I got burned out on bottling and all the washing and prep work involved. If I get back into it, I'm going to go with kegs and get a small fridge to put them in. I have great propane setup now for outdoor cooking. I usually use it for my turkey fryer but it would work nicely for a 5 gallon pot full of malted goodness 
I have made some really cheap homemade wine from fruit juice but stopped because it began to give me headaches. I am looking into to buying brew kits for beer. I got my stuff for the wine making at http://www.winebarrel.com, and this is where I am looking at buying a beer kit. It is local store by me and they are knowledgeable and have a large selection.
FL Knifemaker said:
That's the truth. The brewing is easy. The sterilization of bottles is a pain. It's really my husband's 'hobby' but I help with the sterilization and bottling. And the day where you have to stir it vigorously several times a day (and he's at work).
We used to make both beer and wine. The beer soon stopped because of all the little bottles, and my husband was never totally happy with the results. The wine turns out great. We've made red a couple times, but 99.9% of the time it's white, Piesporter. We haven't tried too many varieties, tried Liebraumilch a couple times but went back to the Piesporter.
Kveeti,
The first time my brew boiled over on the stove, my wife gave up helping me.
Check out the link below. If I ever get back into brewing, I'm going with a system like this. A stainless fermenter and 3-4 soda kegs would really make things a whole lot easier than bottling and working with carboys. Creating one mess for a quadruple batch would make a whole lot more sense to me than all the work for one 5 gal batch!!!
http://www.northernbrewer.com/conical.html
The first time my brew boiled over on the stove, my wife gave up helping me.
Check out the link below. If I ever get back into brewing, I'm going with a system like this. A stainless fermenter and 3-4 soda kegs would really make things a whole lot easier than bottling and working with carboys. Creating one mess for a quadruple batch would make a whole lot more sense to me than all the work for one 5 gal batch!!!
http://www.northernbrewer.com/conical.html
It gets to the point where the wine is ready for bottling and you put it off, and off, and off... Aging is good to a point, but still. LOL, I remember one batch where we just siphoned off into a juice container, into the fridge. By the time we bottled, there wasn't as much sterilizing to do.
One of my co-workers home brews. He competes in local events, and has won several times. He's qualified to be a judge as well--not sure what all that involves, though I recall him taking some tests through the local brew club. He mostly does beer, but has also made some wine, and my favorite, mead. Delicious, heady stuff.