Newbie Home Brewing

im a newbie, actually i haven't even got my kit yet... should be here today. so i was wondering if any one knew some easy newbie recipes, or a forum thats friendly to newbies? any other good advice for a newbie would help out as well... i think ill like it.
cant wait to make some seasonal brews

If you use a mac, try this app. BeerAlchemy. It's in the app store, or easily available online other ways. PC, there are plenty of apps. BeerSmith is one I know of.

A few sites...
http://byo.com/resources/brewing
http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/recipe.html
http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/calculator

There are tons of sites though...

byo.com or Brew Your Own magazine isn't a bad place to start

if I can find my dads old recipe, i'll post it up here for you. stuff tasted (and acted) more like wine. shitfaced in a hurry...

Turbo?

I love to brew when I can. I make an awesome apple ale. I like to make a nice hooch wine and beer brewing is my favorite! As far as brewing beer goes; for a newbie I would recommend a good extract kit. They are far better than they used to be and many now include steeping grains in the kit for enhanced texture and flavor. Of course nothing beats all grain if you have the time and resources.

I swear there is/was a homebrew thread around here somewhere......

this is my first homebrew! 1 gallon kit, honey pale ale with dried orange peels. way better than expected lol

How did this thread end up on page 1 ? It doesn't look like anyone posted since May ...

Anyway, glad it did.

Got some Hops plants growing, and now (after 4 years) - my first Hops !

The labels got separated from the plants, don't know what kind right this minute.

I just started brewing my first beer (IPA) from a home brewing kit maybe 3 months ago. It turned out to be great. I didn't invent anything; I just followed instructions from a kit with good ingredients.

Since then I've started 3 batches of cider along with several other things brewed specifically to make distilled spirits. My first try at cider didn't work out that well. It's now aging as apple brandy at 114 proof with toasted oak chips. My second batch of apple cider is awesome as apple cider. The third one is halfway done. I've been a beer drinker my whole life, but I've been fascinated with cider for some reason since I started brewing my own stuff.

www.homebrewtalk.com/forum.php

homedistiller.org/forum/

reddit.com/r/homebrewing

reddit.com/r/firewater

I don't know if this is legal here, but I'm high and I've been drinking a little.

I know it's not beer brewing, but I hope you don't mind if I share my brew-story.

I've made Merlot, which came off rather well but smelled awful to my GF at the time..

I've also made a product with white sugar and a product called Artisan Extreme 20 turbo yeast, which was actually a mix of high alcohol tolerance yeast and various yeast nutrients. The directions called for the use of so much sugar, I found it difficult to dissolve it all, heating it was the trick. It was like a syrup at the end. It fermented so fast it didn't need a carboy and airlock, it covered itself with a blanket of CO2. Following online advice, I simply used a foodsafe plastic storage tub and lid to brew it in.

even though it looked as if it was boiling, it had very little smell while fermenting. As I had read, I didn't need to take too much pains with sterility, as the yeast outgrew any competition and soon made the brew so alcoholic, so fast, it kept well.

It also fined very well, I used a liquid fining agent from the brewstore, after racking the "hi test" was clear as glass and almost water white. The package claimed up to 20 percent It gravitied at about 18 percent Which is fair, considering I diluted it down a bit so I made more, but slightly less strong. It tasted pretty stiff, but it got you right hammered on only a couple of glasses.

It tasted best near frozen. I eventually found mixing it with mango nectar which is kinda thick to begin with, made it tolerable to my female guests. Aside from it's staggering potency, I think the price was noteworthy. I found that buying sugar in a 25 lb sack at the wholesale club to be the economical way to do it.

In the end I paid about 2 dollars a gallon to make it.

It took a long long time to get rid of it all, and I gave most of it away to my little brother, who used it to lubricate the panties off quite a few young girls. He's still quite young, and would go to house parties, wait until the expensive booze ran out, and people started to sober up. Then he'd mention, "You know, I have some homebrewed wine in my car that my brother made, if you aren't picky" He'd be the hero of the hour, for the price of a litre or two of mango nectar and some ice.

If I were to do it again, I'd probably try my hand at making clean spirit and add some commercially available rum essence to it to make over-proof rum. The Hi-Test was way too strong for wine, and not quite strong enough to use as mix in soda-pop. We fractionally distilled gasoline in Org. Chem. So... I'm not worried safety wise. We have the training, so to speak.

Also, 18% alcohol at 2 dollars CAN a gallon makes an efficient and economical feedstock.

I'm not sure I want to try beer, it seems labor intensive, wine-making is easy by comparison, and beer keeps for so short a time. Which is why I think making a very large batch of spirits might be nice. I looked into charred oak barrels and they aren't too expensive. Might be nice to have a large supply of 25 year old whisky one day.

Wow. That post was long. Thanks for reading.

Bob.

BobbyIronsights said:

If I were to do it again, I'd probably try my hand at making clean spirit and add some commercially available rum essence to it to make over-proof rum.

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If you want to make good rum, it's worth learning how to do it right. Right now I'm loosely following Buccaneer Bob's recipe:

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=51286

I finished my first batch of rum last weekend. 2 8 gallon fermenting buckets, each with 9 pounds white sugar, 3 pounds brown sugar, 1/2 gallon blackstrap molasses, and baker's yeast. I ran each bucket through my pot still (discarding the foreshots), then redistilled the combined results. I saved the dunder (the rum wash leftover in the boiler after distillation) to start the next generation fermenting, along with a little for adding directly to the finished rum.

I got about 1 1/2 gallons of 120 proof finished rum, or a little over 2 gallons if I dilute it to 80 proof. This is one of the best rums I've ever had. I've only been brewing and distilling for a few months now. This is the best thing I've made so far in terms of alcohol.

If you want to make a quality neutral for vodka or flavored liqueurs, look up "Birdwatcher's sugar wash" or "Deathwish wheat germ". You'll need a reflux still for best results.

wathc out for the caps popping off.....yeehaw

m314 said:

If you want to make good rum, it's worth learning how to do it right. Right now I'm loosely following Buccaneer Bob's recipe:

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=51286
.

Click to expand...

I'm on HD, been a lurker since '13 what's your handle there?

Whoohoo I just ran a wash for some good old shine, came out about 180 proof. Can't wait to make some more thru this new pot still.

BobbyIronsights said:

I'm on HD, been a lurker since '13 what's your handle there?

Click to expand...

Same as here, m314. I haven't posted much there. I started lurking last summer. I didn't actually start distilling until maybe October last year.

I learned how to grow my own weed back in 2000 from sites like Overgrow. I knew at the time that I'd be doing it for the rest of my life. I get the same feeling now with brewing and distilling. I don't know why I waited so long to get started.

I brew 4 gallons of kombucha every 15 days with refermentation...not as hard as you guys but still fun and healthy. I'm bottling right now with honey frozen blueberries and grated ginger...need to actually step it up to 6 gallons with my consumption.

This might be the most full bodied rum I've ever tasted. I saved the best 3 gallons of hearts from the new batch at 156 proof. I'm doing some experiments to see how it tastes after aging with / without oak chips and dunder. I guess I missed the step where you're supposed to clarify the dunder before adding it back to the rum.

Now that I've cut back to drinking one night a week, 3 gallons of 156 proof seems like an impossible wealth of booze. Plus the 10 gallons of vodka and whiskey. I should take a break at some point.

RSO takes a couple gallons for a couple ounces. I want to get a still for this reason.

You can make a decent still for a small amount of money, if you're good with metalworking and follow a proven design. I have zero experience or space for metalworking. I spent probably $1000 on premade equipment for this hobby since I got into it last year. It has been fun. It will pay off economically at some point, since the ingredients are so cheap. A liter of 186 proof vodka costs something like $2 in ingredients.

All you'd need for RSO is a boiler with a reflux column, plus fermenting buckets with air locks. The reflux column will get you > 180 proof in a single run. You'd only need a pot still if you're interested in making liquor with flavor like rum or whiskey.

Ive been homebrewing for a couple years and have finally developed a pretty good ale. Just added a couple kegs and kagerator to make life a little easier. I'm on my first weed grow though it seems to be going pretty well. I should be harvesting in a week or two!