Tonight, I bottled eight 15oz bottles of apple wine!  It's a bit tart & dry, slightly carbonated and very very smooth.



Gonna let it sit another month before trying it.  There is absolute ZERO yeasty flavor.  I suppose I should use real brewing yeast from now on!

JM

I just bottled my 3rd batch. They've all been drinkable, and friends love them but I've been disapointed.

1st batch was a pale ale "kit." Came out too sweet and uncarbonated. I expected worse, as this was my first run and I was trying to keep the costs down, so I used an aluminum pot (whoops) covered with boiling cause the borrowed burner wasnt getting hot enough (Whoops) had no idea I had to chill the wort and reactivate the yeast before pitching (Whoops, thankfully a friend came by and saved me from pitching dehydrated yeast into 200 degree wort   ) And it fermented at like 80 degrees. I honestly was happy it was still drinkable.

2nd batch was a Red ale. Some bottles tastes nice and bitter others tasted really sweet. Still not sure where I went wrong there.

Third batch is an IPA i'm excited about. Just bottled it.

I'm pretty much done with bottling lol. I already find a old mini fridge, got a 20# co2 tank from a friend, will be picking up a keg or 2 once the Stout and Drakes IPA I brewed up on Saturday is ready for kegging.


Any ideas why each bottle tasted different when I drank the red ale? I let it sit for 3 weeks as told to age and carbonate.

^^ I had a somewhat similar problem with the last batch of hefeweizen, it was sweet going into the bottles and didn't carbonate.  Could the sweetness be because the yeast aren't digesting as much sugar as they should be?

The carbonation issue turned out to be temperature related, Mr. AJ's apartment was too cold for the yeast & they fell out of solution & into hibernation.  Mr. AJ solved that by shaking up the crates, putting them in a small room with a heater set to 80, and periodically shaking them more. 

But the bottles were still sweet.
Anyone know why?

Just modified my mini frige to accept to corny kegs last night. Got a free 20 bottle of co2 . Just need some lines and some beer yo fill them with now!

Friggin neighbors killed my recently kegged amber.......  Good time was had by all!

Next to brew, IPA, and a Double IPA.

Heading back to the bayfrom denver. Got an incredible ipa and an espresso stouy eeaiting for me when I gey back. Espresso stout is my first keg attempt. Hope itsgood!

Just put my first batch in the fermenter. Pics shortly.

Bottled a pale ale, turned out well, which is nice given the issues we had with the last bottled batch.  It was surprisingly red in color, but tasted good.

BTW, the too-sweet hefeweizen ended up shockingly delicious, even to Mr. AJ, who scoffed at it throughout brewing

Enjoying the last of a batch of rye IPA right now that my brewing bud and I made a while back. 

Malt and Yeast by gibby939, on Flickr

Used these to make...


Chilling Wort by gibby939, on Flickr

this.

Which is now resting comfortably in a corner of my kitchen. Even if the beer ends up tasting like piss, it was a learning experience and I'll know better for next time.  

Totally forgot about this thread... and how badly I want to try doing this.  Quick question... when you brew to one of the 5 gal pony/soda kegs, is that something that you can easily remove from the fridge and transport to a party or something?  Or, do you have to bring the CO2 bottle and everything else to make it work right?  Can you tap it like a normal keg?

I bought a co2 dispenser that attaches to a ball lock keg.  Works great for dispensing......don't think it would work for forced carbonation. 

Looks like part of a bike repair kit, uses the 16g co2 canisters.

Help me with the basics on beer ingredients please:

1.  Hops
2.  Malts
3.  Grains
4.  Yeast
5.  Water

Now, is that pretty complete for a basic brew?  How does one go about picking out different malts, hops, and grains?

Basic method for combining would be helpful too.  Seems like you boil the hops, then add malts & grains?

JM

Your ingredient list is solid, but your brew process is backwards.

For my batch, the process was:

1) Sanitize the hell out of everything.
2) Boil water.
3) Once the water was boiling, I killed the heat and added one can of malt extract. I turned the heat back on and boiled it, watching for boil over, until it had it's "hot break," where the foam started to subside. Once that happened I...
4) Added 1 oz of hop pellets and started a timer at 60 minutes. When it was down to 15 minutes I added another 1/2 oz of hop pellets, and then again when it hit 5 minutes. At the end of the hour, I added the other can of malt extract.
5) Chilled the wort in a sink full of ice and water to get it < 80 ^o F.
6) Put the wort in the fermenter and added water until it was at 5 gallons.
7) Pitched the yeast, which was in a little vial with clearly-written instructions.
8 ) Put the lid and the airlock on the fermenter and put it in the corner.

6 hours or so later the airlock was bubbling like crazy as the yeast go after all those delicious sugars.

Total time from start to finish was probably 3 1/2 hours, including the run to the local grocery store for a bag of ice.

Next time I may try adding some specialty grains. For that, all you do is put whatever grains you want to use in a strainer bag and steep them in the water you're going to boil your extract/hops in. Pull out the bag of grains before you start boiling and then just brew like normal.

Eventually I'd like to get into all-grain brewing, but that process is a little more involved and requires a bit more specialized equipment. The up side is that it gives you even more control over the taste of your beer.

As for choosing ingredients, there are tons of recipes out there that should at least give you a starting point. Additionally, the people at both of the homebrew stores near me have been immensely helpful getting me set up with tools, tips, and supplies. Both of them have pre-assembled ingredient kits, which you can then customize based on what you want to achieve in a brew.

Hope that helps, but I'm sure some of the more experienced brewers here will step in with more solid advice. 

Thanks Buckethead!

JM