Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Home brewing beer

ya equipment and technique affect efficiency in all grain. consistency is key. i do a modified brew in a bag. i use a 73 quart coleman cooler with a homemade copper sparge baffle at the bottom and then use the biab mesh bag to hold the grains. this way you can do a fine grind to get better extraction and not have to worry about a stuck sparge. i do a 1 step batch sparge. after mash, vorlauft the entire volume once and then run it dry. then add in all the sparge water at 180, stir and let sit for 15 min and run it dry again and then squeeze the bag. i get in the high 60's - mid-70's for brewhouse efficiency, depending on grain. not great but good enough. so far, this guinness clone i'm doing right now will be in low-mid 70's with golden promise malt. with this technique i can get a good small beer off the 2nd runnings of a big mash like barley wine or imperial stout. 2nd runnings will net about 3.5-4 gallons into the boiler. nice to do a 2'fer that can give you 2 totally different beers.

good idea to get an idea of your mash ph too. i use RO water usually and modify it per style. problem is a lab grade ph meter runs 150 bucks and the probes cost 50-75 bucks and last about a year or so. but if you do repeat recipes, you can get an idea of what your ph will be with a given grain bill.

or you could buy the extract kits from morebeer and as long as you pay real close attention to sanitation you can make just about as good of beer. i think brewing is like golf. starts out just whacking the ball and pretty soon you are dropping big money on stuff and driving yourself nuts. btdt.

We bought a variety pack of yeast from eBay exported from the UK a few years ago.

We have been disappointed with various Safele yeast and the liquid yeast were just too expensive.

It was a dry yeast and came 10 grams to a package. I seem to recall 10 or 12 packages was under $10 delivered. Decided to give it a shot. turned out to be a remarkable yeast. Very dynamic and reliable fermentation. Even though it was only 10 grams.

I'll try to find a lake later and post it up.

I am no expert at beer making, probably made less than a hundred batches in my life.

Good tasteful Beer and Ale at a reasonable price has always been my number one goal.

I think the kits that my wife ordered several American Amber Ales, several Chinook, several Caribou slobber and maybe a wheat beer or two. We keep a variety pack of hops in the refrigerator and will modify a kit recipe often.

We cloned hopsecutioner pretty successfully a few years back. I tried a freelance variation but I named death by Hop's. A bit strong for most.

It is just a hobby for us, something a husband and wife can do together when the weather is not Cooperative outside

safale works good for me. i've used S04 and S05 and 34/70. i think the key is to rehydrate it properly first. i know they say you can sprinkle it but i have read that sprinkling it dry will kill half the yeast cells because they can't take the shock of all that malt sugar all at once why they are rehydrating. that stuff is pricey too. i am trying one called cali within the next few batches. supposed to be just like s05 but cheaper. liquids are good if you want to go the stir plate and starter route. years ago when i was driving myself nuts with this stuff, i used to freeze the liquid cultures in a glycerin solution and then use those to make a starter. this way one pack of liquid yeast would last all brewing season.

theres a lot to this stuff. really fun and if you are a scientific kind of guy you can really go nuts. i am more of a KISS guy anymore.

CashisKing,
I like Wyeast liquid packs. If you find one you like you can harvest all the yeast off the bottom of your secondary and bottle that in a sterile bottle, putting that in the fridge until your next brew date. It will hold true to character for a few brew sessions when leap frogging, saves ya some Cash.

Home brewing since 1985. I use Cooper's kits from Australia, only. I bottle in swingtops, ranging from 500 to 1500 ml or 18 to 54 ozs. Every couple of years I'll do a couple of batches up in stubbies because they feel good in the hand and it reminds me what a PITA capping is. Hunting trips I'll use 2l. pop bottles.

We grow hops which is basically a weed. Added 1/2 pound fresh to a 5 gal batch of IPA this fall. Way better than the dried I've used and less trouble.

Never been a hobby, just a pure cost saving measure. Too many other hobbies. Five gallons costs $18 or .27 cents CAD a bottle. Burp. The good wife says that's how we could afford to retire early.

Great to see all the home brewers jump in! We have a bunch.

did you add those fresh hops to the boil? i grew cascades at my old house and am thinking of putting in some this spring. hard the tell the AAU on them so its kind of a crap shoot. from my brew notes in those days it seemed like they were pretty good.

I did my part in getting rid of some of Jeff's Pale Octoberfest a couple weeks ago and can vouch for it being a solid brew.

I brewed a lot 25-30 years ago but like many hobbies, there is just not enough time to do them all so it fell by the wayside. Certainly something I intend to take up again once retired, which is approaching quickly.

Making my own beer is a hobby that I need to investigate. My brother in law makes some good beer and he has some friends that brew also. I really enjoy craft beers and have been in the business for years. Everyone asks why I haven’t tried brewing and my excuse was I was too busy. I have the time now. Sounds fun.

the mead I made was pretty stout, give you a good buzz.

In my 20 to 30s I made a lot of home brew . mostly stuff I could get from the grocery store to brew.. always had a weekend. crowd that would show up to share my brew with.. alcohol ran about 14% never had any complaints... then a lot of stuff I used was dropped at most grocery stores and I had to order it.. shipping costs run up the prices to where it wasen't worth it so I stopped making it..things have changed back now and ordering the needed ingredients is available now, but I am too old to startup again... my memory is failing me, and my strength is going away..so I buy BUD 16 oz 5% . it is my favorite beer now.good luck all.

I have had some really good homebrew and a LOT of really horrible home brew.

Was involved for 15 or so years with the GABF Pro Am. Tasting, selection, brewing. Was a lot of fun.

I made about 5 gallons of peach wine once.

Started out with about 7 gallons. Blew the airlocks off of a one of my carboys. Fuggin nasty geyser of frothy crap on my ceiling in the laundry room.

Smelled like baby puke back there for a month


Then what I did have that settled out tasted like I imagine some cheap Dollar General douche would be like.

Kept it for a few more months, it evolved into something even more vile than that nasty Braggs apple cider vinegar garbage with the dissolved mouse skeletons in it.



Can’t imagine how disgusting my attempts at beer would be.

You can turn in your Hillbilly card RIGHT NOW!

All this is making me think of trying it. I enjoy making wine. This would be interesting.

I was at a swamp party in west tn a while back. Drinking tequila at some baller’s hunting cabin. 30-40 redneck hi rollers.

Already had about 18, or 31 shots in me. Everybody wanted to slam tequila with the slumlord.

Then this one ole girl went out to her Beamer and hauled out this fat gallon bottle of some unknown semi opaque ‘liquid’.

Here everyone try my homemade wine she says....i took a pull offa that jug and within 1.5 seconds that garbage was spraying outta my nose. *****gag*****

When I was in college at Bellingham WA in 1971, there was a beer strike. Some guys I knew, three college students all named John, made beer in plastic garbage cans.
That beer was good, if the sediment at the bottom was avoided.

When the strike was over, bottled beer in the stores had no alcohol.
That is when I found out that most college students thought 3% alcohol meant an ingredient, not a ratio.

Fire some silver bullets into your old lady and then she gets on WIC, you get the Juicy Juice and make homemade wine with that. It’s 100% juice.

Anyone hardcore enough to germinate your own barley and go with green malt? or even finish the malt? Just askin.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Home-Brew-...do-Lager-Kolsch-Wheat-Beer-/263182583441

Might have been wrong on the price or it may have gone up a little bit. I think it's $13 for 10 packs of yeast. Anyway, I have found it to be a very nice yeast.

I had done beer decades ago and when I finished up I sold my gear. Did this twice.

About 12 years ago sitting around with my wife we played the husband wife badminton game of "what do you want to do tonight, I don't know what do you want to do tonight, I don't know what do you want to do tonight, I don't know what do you want to do tonight."

My wife is a smartass... and on volley number five she answered answered let's make beer.

Bought two or three of a Groupon kits with all the parts and pieces. Threw away some of the crap like the hydrometer and added other parts and pieces I needed.

Pick up a half a dozen corny kegs and a friend of mine out of Pennsylvania picked up 10 or so cases of this satan awful nasty beer called Straub's. 16oz Boomers.

Tried making a wort cooler out of some PEX... didn't work. Tried copper but it was too much of a hassle. Now we keep up milk crate of Frozen water bottles in the freezer. One side of the sink and sanitizer and the other side is running water to chill the wort. Sanitize the Frozen water bottles and put about 18 or 20 in the hot wort (2-3 gallon worth). The temperature will drop in a few minutes. Add 2 or 3 gallons tepid tap water... to volumn. Sometimes I will steep My grain bag extra-long and freelance with extra hops. Maybe some extra sugar or DME. And these cases I will stretch a batch to 6 + gallons. Then we aerate alot. Maybe 10 and maybe 15 times. Prior to the last aeration I'll pitch half of my dry yeast. Once we're finished with the aeration and Pitch the other half of the yeast on top of the Wort.

I used to buy once fired brass and Lead at a scrap metal yard. One day when I was in there they had a busted up beer keg. Only the top part was busted. Bought the keg and cut a hole in the top. Exactly 8 in in diameter which was the rim diameter of one of my wife's stock pot lids... drill the hole in the lid for an airlock. Welded some Outriggers on the side of a turkey cooker to hold the keg steady. Did An All Grain Brew straighten the keg. Brought the water temperature afterwards with a bunch of sanitized Frozen water bottles. Brought to final temperature with tepid tap water. Pitched two packs of yeast added a sanitize gasket and put on the stock pot lid with the airlock hole. A couple of C clamps held everything snug and sealed. Airlock worked perfectly.

Yielded about 15 gallons. Filled up three corny kegs via a siphon transfer. Beer came out good. A little too dark for some folks but we like it.