I am surprised this has not come up here before, as coffee and home brewing seem like parallel hobbies that would attract a similar sort of crowd.

Personally, my coffee and beer journeys have a lot of similarities. I got into both over 30 years ago, but did both on a very amateurish level for a long time without evolving much. In the past few years I got more interested in both. I upped my game a level or two – still very basic but significantly improved, and very happy with the results I am getting. I currently have ~120 bottles (6 crates) of 6 or 7 different brews in the garage, so there is always something to drink.

For a long time I only made the simplest pre-hopped liquid malt kits. I then moved to non-hopped dry extract recipes, adding my own hops. This is a more hands-on approach (though hardly more difficult) that gives better understanding of the contribution of the different ingredients to the final beer. I then discovered I was a hop-head and aroma freak, so added dry hopping and found that I love what it does to the beer – I will not dream of doing a batch without it now. I am still a very low-level amateur. I have not made the move to the all-grain Brew-In-A-Bag method, but who is to say I won’t do it at some point in the future?

Currently I am mostly after hoppy pale ales, light in colour, big on hop flavour and aromas, not heavy on the alcohol (4-5%). Citra, mosaic, cascade, Galaxy, Nelson Sauvin, Amarillo (and a few others) are some of the hops I used recently.

Comparing espresso to home brewing, I find that:

  • It is easier and faster to get good results with beer than it is with espresso (contrary to what it may seem if you hadn’t tried either 😊)
  • Much cheaper to get into beer than into espresso. A basic beer brewing kit (which is what I use) can be had for around £100, maybe slightly more including ingredients for the first batch of ~40 pints (don’t quote me on that – I haven’t checked recently, but the point is that there is no need for a lot of kit to get started, and it isn’t expensive compared to espresso).
  • It is easier to find good beer outside than it is to find good espresso (but one can quite easily make ace beer at home, much easier than getting to great espresso at home IMO).

If you are already home-brewing – What do you do? What do you like? How have you evolved? What have I said that is completely wrong? If you have never tried home-brewing – what are you waiting for?

@Doram, I definitely fit the camp of enjoying some home brewing.

I did it first as a student, with a plastic bucket and malt extract kits. A few years later I upgraded to a Cornelius keg system (washing bottles is a pain). Later on I decided to go whole grain and set myself up for BIAB (brew in a bag) with a large pot and gas burner. This was my setup for many years until the first lock down. As some of you who’ve read any of my other posts might have gathered I like building things. I therefore decided to upgrade my system from gas to electricity, so that I can brew indoors.

I built a controller based on the https://shop.theelectricbrewery.com/, but for BIAB. I then modded my pot by fitting an element, temperature control and recirculation. I also built a counter flow chiller. I still do BIAB, but it’s much easier as I can set everything up in the utility room, and the PID controller and alarm means I can automate a fair bit.

This is what my setup looks like now:

Plus I added taps to the spare fridge in the utility room so I have a kegerator:

I need to brew again, but am waiting for raspberries to come into season as I want to try a raspberry sour.

    hornbyben

    hornbyben I built a controller based on the https://shop.theelectricbrewery.com/, but for BIAB. I then modded my pot by fitting an element, temperature control and recirculation. I also built a counter flow chiller. I still do BIAB, but it’s much easier as I can set everything up in the utility room, and the PID controller and alarm means I can automate a fair bit.

    This is what my setup looks like now:

    Looks fantastic, way out of my league! Makes me feel very humble with my plastic bucket setup, lol:

          Doram there’s nothing wrong with a plastic bucket. These days you can make some great beers that way. One of my friends does mini mash, where you use malt extract for the bulk of your fermentables but do a small steep for the specialty grains and boil for the hops in a pan on the stove. This gives the recipe freedom of all grain but is a bit quicker and easier.

          If my explanation isn’t very clear. Here’s the equipment you’d need: https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/product/mini-mash-starter-kit/ and here’s an overview of the steps:

          I’m envious of your bottle collection. I always like the idea of a good stock of bottles, but was always too lazy to do that much cleaning. Kegs are quicker and easier, but you drink until it’s gone. I do like having CO2 though, as I’ve also set up one tap for sparkling water, which my wife and I enjoy. We try to reduce our waste, and carbonating tap water saves on a lot of plastic bottles vs buying it.

              Really awesome to see your setups! It’s a journey I embarked on briefly and have been meaning to get into.

              I got a all-grain recipe kit that involved two big saucepans on the hob, a large sieve and a demijohn which was dry-hopped and then siphoned into 12 bottles. The end product was actually better than I’d expected but it was such a faff with all the equipment that I’ve not tried again.

              I’m keen to get into it, and I’ve seen some great YouTube videos but I still find the list of kit I need and the start-to-finish process a bit of a mystery.

              I’d love to buy a good quality kit of everything I need to make hoppy, hazy beers, but I don’t know what that is!

                Ernie1 the brew in a bag method is probably the easiest. This works as follows:

                • get a big pot (for a 40 pint batch you probably need 50L pot), fill with water and heat to mash temperature (usually about 60-70⁰C).
                  • There are calculators on line to help you work out how much water you need to add, but I’m this method you’re saying everything, including what you lose to boil off.
                • add a bag (you can buy or make from a net curtain), pour your milled grain in and stir
                • wait for the mash time (typically 30-60 minutes)
                  • you might want to sit occasionally and heat a bit to keep the temperature in the right place.
                • pull out the bag to remove the grain
                  • typically you don’t rinse the grain. This wastes a bit of sugar, but you can just compensate by adding more to start. Grain is cheap.
                • bring to boil and boil for 30-60 mins depending on the recipe
                  • you add your hops during this stage
                • cool
                  • this can be with a chiller, or you can seal in a 25L Jerry can and let it cool overnight
                • put in fermenter, add yeast and wait
                • transfer to bottles or keg

                Everything before the boil needs to be clean and everything after the boil needs to be sterilised.

                If your decide to get started I would go for something like a porter first as they hide a lot of mistakes. Very hazy West coast IPA type styles are more susceptible to oxidation and probably best saved for when you’re a bit more experienced.

                  hornbyben Doram there’s nothing wrong with a plastic bucket.

                  I posted the picture, so obviously I am not ashamed enough. ;-

                  hornbyben One of my friends does mini mash, where you use malt extract for the bulk of your fermentables but do a small steep for the specialty grains and boil for the hops in a pan on the stove. This gives the recipe freedom of all grain but is a bit quicker and easier.

                  This (mini-mash in a cloth bag) is exactly what I do! My method is very similar to what is seen in your video, only I used dried malt extract and boil it with the hops. It saved having to do a full boil (bigger pot) and the time it takes to do a full mash, so brew day can be completed faster - it probably takes me 2-3 hours from start to finish, including sanitising before and putting things away after. Full grain obviously gives more options and control, and the ingredients are cheaper, but also more opportunity to get things wrong. There is some debate if it gives better results or not. I suppose it depends on how well you do it.

                  hornbyben I’m envious of your bottle collection. I always like the idea of a good stock of bottles, but was always too lazy to do that much cleaning. Kegs are quicker and easier, but you drink until it’s gone.

                  As with everything, there are advantages and disadvantages. My method with bottles is simple and easy for me, because I am used to it. As soon as I drink a bottle, I rinse it with water and store it up-side-down in a crate, so it stays relatively clean and doesn’t pick up nasties from the air. On bottling day, I sanitise the equipment in a second bucket, so end up having half a bucket full of no-rinse sanitiser. All I do is dip the bottles in the sanitiser to fill them up, then shake out the sanitiser and put back, up-side-down again, in the crate ready for bottling. This gives me clean and sanitised bottles, and I never had a problem with contamination.

                  Many of my bottles I collected from beer I bought, but at one point I wanted some more so emailed a local small brewery and asked if I could buy some bottles. Beer people tend to be very nice, so they said yes. Had a really nice chat and walked out with some very nice beer and a few dozens of new un-labelled bottles. Beer keeps really well - I have some bottles I probably made 3 years ago, maybe more, and they are alive and well - improving like fine wine.

                        Ernie1 I’m keen to get into it, and I’ve seen some great YouTube videos but I still find the list of kit I need and the start-to-finish process a bit of a mystery.

                        I’d love to buy a good quality kit of everything I need to make hoppy, hazy beers, but I don’t know what that is!

                        Like coffee, home brewing can be as simple or as complicated as you choose. People used to do it 5,000 years ago, and I think the internet wasn’t that big back then.

                        If you found it too much faff and want to keep things simple - maybe take a shortcut and use malt extract? All you are missing is that you let professionals (with professional equipment) extract the sugar from the grain. In return you get to need less equipment, do a partial boil (smaller pot) and the process is shorter (maybe we can liken extract brewing to buying roasted coffee, and all grain to roasting yourself?). You keep most of the fun bits and can get really nice results with very little kit.

                          Thanks everyone that’s a huge help. I’m definitely keen to try all grain again, and I’m happy to invest a bit in some equipment that will serve me well! I have no intentions of scaling past 12 or 24 bottles so just things like stable heating/cooling/bottling are factors in what equipment I’d like to buy.

                          I think the faff before was mainly that I was trying to make do with household items (the kit said large pasta pans…) and a sieve and it was just a big mess. Also the siphoning into bottles wasn’t much fun compared to some kind of tapped container.

                          Have you guys played with water treatments? I sometimes read about how the hazier New England style beers have something added to the water.

                            Water treatment is very important from what my brewing friends have said. Styles like a London porter are suited to brewing with harder water than a Scottish ale. Breweries are quite secretive about how they treat their water for each brew, one of the few things that brewers can be cagey over.

                            The water treatment is similar to water for coffee but with more of a range for hardness and alkalinity

                            Coffee Roaster. Home: Sage Dual Boiler, Niche Zero, Ode v2 (SSP), 1zpresso ZP6 Work: Eagle One Prima EXP, mahlkonig e80s, Mazzer Philos and lots more

                              Ernie1 I have no intentions of scaling past 12 or 24 bottles so just things like stable heating/cooling/bottling are factors in what equipment I’d like to buy.

                              When you say “bottles”, do you mean pint/~500ml bottles? If so, personally I think you have the faff built in to that small quantity, especially if you are making 6 litre batches. Beer takes time. You start a batch, and you will only get to drink it in a few weeks (minimum). Cleaning, sanitising, brewing will take the same time for a 6 litre or a 5 gallon (20-23 litre) batch. For me, it makes more sense to use the small pot you already have to make a 5 gallon extract batch than to make a 6 litre all-grain batch.

                              Personally I usually do 2 X 5 gallon batches back to back. This gives me ~80 bottles (40 litres) of beer which lasts me for a long time. If I was limited to 6 litre batches I would need to brew all the time and it would hardly be worth the effort in my opinion.

                              My method has no syphoning and no faff (I think). I use an 8-10 litre pot to boil ~6 litres of water. If I do a mini-mash, I steep grains in at about 65C for 30-60 mins. I then do hop additions to the pot as the recipe calls. When done - the pot goes into the sink with cold water and maybe some ice to cool (it’s a small quantity, so I don’t need any cooling device). I strain that wort to a plastic bucket fermenter, top up with water, add the yeast and let it ferment. I don’t have any temp control for fermenting (maybe in the future). Instead I just do it in moderate seasons when the temp in the house is about right (18-20C). Once fermentation is done, I put in some hop pellets in a hop bag for dry hopping.

                              To bottle, I put the fermenter on the kitchen counter, connect a hose to the tap, put a second bucket (which also has a tap) on the floor and move the beer from the fermenter to the second bucket, leaving the sediment behind in the fermenter. I add carbonating sugar, put the second bucket on the counter and use a bottling stick to bottle (a simple pin at the bottom of the stick opens when pushed against with the bottom of the bottle, which is very convenient). Crown caps and a simple capper to finish off and that’s it.

                              Ernie1 Have you guys played with water treatments?

                              Not really. I use tap water. I add a campden tablet because I have it, but I don’t know if it’s necessary. It is meant to get rid of chlorine, but I don’t smell/taste chlorine in my tap water. I sometimes use 5 litres of Ashbeck to reduce minerals a little, but to be honest - I don’t know if it’s improving anything. This is another something that I may be looking at in the future, but have neglected for a long time.

                                    @Ernie1, while I know water chemistry can be important I’ve always been happy enough my results that I haven’t bothered.

                                    Chlorine isn’t really an issue as I tend to load the water into my equipment the night before and then it all gets boiled, so that drives any residual chlorine off. I’m in the Thames valley, so the water is pretty hard, but I generally brew darker beers, so that suits that water profile anyway. I have done hoppier beers, and while I’m sure a softer profile would have given a better beer the hassle to source RO water hasn’t been with it for me.

                                      InfamousTuba Water treatment is very important from what my brewing friends have said. Styles like a London porter are suited to brewing with harder water than a Scottish ale. Breweries are quite secretive about how they treat their water for each brew, one of the few things that brewers can be cagey over.

                                      I’m with hornbyben on this: I am sure water is important (at least for some beers, if not all), but I have been pleased with the results I am getting so never bothered to look for better water.

                                      Unlike coffee, where hard water will harm the machine, with beer it’s all about the taste and no delicate equipment to protect, so that’s another easier point for beer.

                                          Good to hear water hasn’t impacted the quality of the beer. I was trying to Google it earlier and find the stuff I was talking about.

                                          People talk about adding gypsum (?!?!), which doesn’t sound at all safe to me but I also wonder if something along those lines contributes to that cloudy, thick mouthfeel on those very hazy NEIPA styles.

                                          You can get food grade gypsum (calcium sulphate). From a software point of view I’m a big fan of Brewfather (https://brewfather.app/), this is free to use with some limitations. If you want to play around it has pretty good water profiles.

                                          This is their recommendation for a NEIPA:

                                          17 days later

                                          We’re stuck at home with Covid, so it seemed like a good time to put a home brew on and I thought I’d share. It’s a raspberry sour beer. Should be perfect for the summer.

                                          I’ve finished the mash (all grain brew in a bag) and am bringing the wort up to a boil. The fan by the window is stripped out of an old kitchen extractor fan. It helped, but you still get a lot of steam brewing indoors.

                                          Boiling nicely

                                          It’s being transferred to the fermenter via a homemade counter flow chiller. This is the roll of what looks like hosepipe in the sink. It’s actually 10m of 10mm copper pipe inside a hose pipe. The wort goes through the copper, and cooling water goes through the hose pipe. They’re pretty efficient. By pumping everything it significantly reduces the amount of manual handling.

                                          Lots of nice splashing to aerate the wort. This is important as yeast need oxygen to multiply and get their numbers up, before they start fermenting the sugar into alcohol.

                                          This is the final fermenter. It’s wrapped in an old camp mat to insulate. Inside is a heating belt and controller to keep it at 24°C. The CO2 from the fermentation is routed via knockout pot (in case it gets too active) and through a sanitised keg that I will use to store it in when it’s finished. This helps purge all the oxygen out of the keg without wasting bottled CO2. When the fermentation is complete I connect the tap on the fermenter to the keg and transfer the beer in without any splashing or oxygenation. This helps with shelf life as it can take me a while to drink 40 pints.

                                          Next steps are to wait a few days and then add the 1.3kg of raspberries. Wait a bit longer and transfer to the keg. Carbonate, let it condition for a bit and then enjoy.

                                            hornbyben well done, you’ve basically described the whole brewing process with pictures for anyone who wants to learn! I like your set up, interested the hear the results

                                              @JahLaza and @Ernie1, I’m glad you found it interesting. I’ll post some pics of adding the raspberries and the final result.

                                              I’m really pleased with my setup now. It’s been many years in the making. The control panel is totally over built, and is basically industrial quality. It was a fun project though, and it should last for ever as I can easily replace any parts if they fail. Electric brewing is definitely easier to fit in with the family than running out to a gas burner in the garden.

                                                hornbyben

                                                The control panel is fantastic, if you don’t mind me asking do you have a background or hobbyist experience in electronics at all? It looks incredibly well finished.

                                                Just trying to weigh up if it’s the kind of thing Joe average could do.