Homebrew

Lol latex. Keep it outta my beer!

Just bottled s couple mixed fermentation beers. Anybody else got interesting stuff?

Got a case of year + Brett pale ale that's getting good.

This years Cider batches are almost ready.

This guy had an interesting beer!

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/nova-scotia/alexander-keiths-old-beer-really-beer-1.3391114

Im cracking my home grown second year Centennial blonde ale this weekend.

Im cracking my home grown second year Centennial blonde ale this weekend.

Sooo homebrew Budweiser..

You bet! Easy drinking with more flavour than bud. KISS is my philosophy. Too much German Reinheitsgebot blood in me.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BAyo9UwG7RS/

Daaaaaaymm.

i did a raspberry sour recently as well. my first attempt at a sour - turned out really good. made a yogurt starter then dumped into into a 5gal carboy (filled to the neck to keep out o2) and kept the temp up around 100f with an electric heating pad for 3 days. quick boil (perhaps not necessary) then regular ferment followed by raspberries. no bad bugs (have been previously hesitant about souring because of all the horror stories). yummy stuff; can't wait to try more.

Fresh hop time! Harvested just over 5gal of mixed (Magnum, Chinook, and Simcoe) hops from my yard to brew a wet-hopped version of Steve Sheldon's CDA. No way I could use them all in one beer so drying the rest in my basement on a window screen with a fan underneath.

I tried the screen and fan method in my carport last year. There was moisture left in the bags after a few days "drying" in a rainy carport.

I just borrowed a friends dehydrator and dried my chinook and it worked brilliantly. 8 hours, low temp, the whole plant in one go.

For the last 4 years I've done a wet hopped beer, this is the first year I haven't. I'm not sure I'm missing anything. The magic has lost it's appeal for me, I can buy hops that are far better quality with repeatable success for peanuts as opposed to the labour of picking sorting. only to be underwhelmed with the outcome.

Maybe I'm just old and lazy, but I'm kinda done with it… I like quality more now than in the past, and it's pushing my interests away from the fluffy style of winging it that I used do while brewing.

For the last 4 years I've done a wet hopped beer, this is the first year I haven't. I'm not sure I'm missing anything. The magic has lost it's appeal for me, I can buy hops that are far better quality with repeatable success for peanuts as opposed to the labour of picking sorting. only to be underwhelmed with the outcome.

Maybe I'm just old and lazy, but I'm kinda done with it… I like quality more now than in the past, and it's pushing my interests away from the fluffy style of winging it that I used do while brewing.

I hear ya. I still enjoy it (plus I get my son to help with the picking/sorting) and although I agree the final results can be inconsistent I've not been unhappy with the beer.

I hear ya. I still enjoy it (plus I get my son to help with the picking/sorting) and although I agree the final results can be inconsistent I've not been unhappy with the beer.

Well if you're keeping your kids involved. Great! more of that needs to happen. I had to stop growing hops in my backyard as there wasn't enough sun for the cones to properly mature and they always tasted grassy, and never dried out enough to mature properly.
I was always happy to tell people that it was made from homegrown hops, It just wasn't stellar beer.

Posted by: Ddean
My wife is a great gift giver and (usually) gets me things that she knows she will regret but she knows Ill love.

She got me a basic intro home brew kit for for XMAS. Stoked on it, I brewed it up.

It was amazing. It was a simple extract kit with all the ingredients, but it was super fun brewing up a gallon of what turned out to be decent beer, and right in my kitchen.
Along with the kit she got me a forced CO2 growler kit from GrowlerWorks. Super cool. Fits in the fridge and it pours like a keg and looks neat too.

Things have since gotten pretty out of control. I now have a full all grain electric kettle (Brewzilla), three different vessels for fermenting (a fourth is coming soon), bottles, etc....
I brewed 5 gallons of a New England IPA. I LOVED everything about it and found stirring so satisfying and boiling was fun and the hops additions each made noticeable differences. It didnt turn out perfect, but it did turn out well. That type of beer is very sensitive to oxidation (lots of hops!) so we will see how long it lasts. I put 1Gal into my lil'keg and the rest into 40 bottles. I made a bottle mistake so we will see how those turn out but the two that Ive had are goodish. Once the beer was fully carbonated in the uKeg it was good, but it took about 6 days to get there.

Bottling wasnt my favorite so Im about to order a decent kegerator and a plastic pressurized fermentor so that I end up with carbonated beer before it hits the kegs, and all the peripherals (including CO2) needed to make it all work.
Anyone else fall addicted to this hobby?

My plan is a two tap kegerator and to brew a new 5ish Gallon batch every three or four weeks, partially dependent upon how long it keeps in the keg (it might go off in a couple weeks or might last awhile, Ill probably have an average of 1.5/day so i might be putting spoiled beer down the drain if it doesnt last). My wife says the kegerator needs to go outside of her view so into my home office, a few feet from my work desk, is where itll go.

What can go wrong?

Careful. Some of us grow our own hops and others started up breweries. Slippery slope.  

Although I’ve slowed consumption a lot, and kept equipment growth to a minimum (unless you count the buckets and carboys), I’ve brewed 129 batches, almost 2,500 litres since starting this thread.   Also make wine, cider and limoncello.

Good idea slamming my post into this epic thread!

I can see how it happens: how one goes from an intro home kit to growing their own hops. I doubt I’ll get there but the amount of equipment and the space it requires, that’s in my basement right now - so fast - is crazy. Some of it is already redundant!!!

129 batches!! That’s a lot of brewing! I’m learning about closed transfers and minimizing o2 - do you find it’s a real thing for hoppy beers?

I’ve been to Centennial on Rupert a few times. Haven’t been to Dans yet but I’ll go. I’ll be looking to pick up ingredients for two new batches soon

I think that Ill do another hoppy NEIPA and maybe a Belgian Saison