Saturday, January 30, 2010

Cleaning and Sanitzing

Ok, so you have your equipment, and you are ready to make some beer! Put on the brakes for a second, because a very important topic needs to be discussed - cleaning and sanitization. Without proper cleaning and sanitizing you can ruin a good batch of beer before you even finish your first boil.

Cleaning: All equipment used needs to be cleaned. This means grime and dirt free. There are plenty of cleaners that you can pick up from your local homebrewing equipment store that are appropriate for your supplies. We looked to other homebrewers for recommendations on their favorite products. The first recommendation that I received was to use PBW (Powdered Brewery Wash), and the second was given was B-Brite.

Sanitizing: There is only one living thing you want in your beer, and that is your yeast. Therefore, this is a very important step in order to kill all living microbes that could grow in your beer. Anything that will touch your wort in a non boiling state needs to be sanitized. Your brew kettle and spoon can skip this step because they will be submersed in the boiling water. There are plenty of commercial products available at your local homebrewing store. We took the recommendation of the owner and purchased Star-San. I give the Star-San two thumbs up on ease of use. The no-rinse solution makes the sanitization process super quick and easy, which allows you to get brewing faster!

We fully recommend following the manufacturers instructions on the products you use. No other helpful tips from us, other than to make sure NEVER to skip these steps. Happy brewing.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Equipment

This post is dedicated to the equipment we will use to brew our beer.


The brew pot: We have a 6+ gallon brew pot. Our pot has some upgraded features. It has a built in thermometer as well as a draining spout. This is where all of the 'brewing' will occur. We chose to get the larger pot if D wants to do all grain brewing in the future, so we don't need to buy another pot. A smaller pot will work perfectly too.
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The fermentation bucket: This is also a 6+ gallon bucket. The larger size bucket will allow space for vigorous fermentation of a 5 gallon batch of high gravity beer. The bucket also has a spout to allow a double use as a bottling bucket. The bucket has a lid with an opening that is pictured being plugged up with a rubber stopper and an airlock.
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The carboy: We have chosen to use the "better bottle" plastic carboy. The advantage to plastic is that it is much lighter than glass and there is no worry about breaking the bottle
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The Hydrometer: We will also use a hydrometer to test the gravity of the beer.
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We have decided to keg our beer instead of bottling. There is a greater expense with kegging, but there is also the advantage of not having to sanitize all of the bottles as well as the time to fill and cap all of the bottles.


Corney Keg and CO2: We have a standard corney keg which will hold a 5 gallon batch as well as the CO2/regulartor system to carbonate and pressurize the beer.
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Tap Tower: We plan on "making" our own keggerator. We are going to modify a smaller refrigerator with the Tap Tower to create a keggerator. This will give us what we want at half the cost (another blog will detail the creation of our keggerator).
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Minor equipment: Some other minor equipment will be featured in our blogs. They are not necessary to feature, but will be needed during the brewing process. They include: stirring spoon, strainer, grain bags, cleaning brushes, cleaner, sanitizer, tubing, and siphon tube. Just follow along with our pictures and instructions and the additional equipment will make sense.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Welcome to the brewing world

This blog is dedicated to the adventures of homebrewing. What could be more fun then making your own beer? My husband has been collecting the necessary equipment and together we have been doing the research and dare I say, we are ready to brew!

During our planning, I realized that documentation was going to be key. We need to keep track of recipes and procedures in order to property evaluate our beer and design our next batch of brew. I guess it is just the chemist in me, but I need to write it down. I thought a 'lab notebook' would be too boring and old school, so this blog was born.

My goal is to give enough pictures and information to eventually guide other home brewers on their quest for great beer. Feel free to comment and leave questions. Both D and I will try to do our best to keep up with any response we receive.