Ryan is going to be 22 at the end of the month. For those of you who have been here since I wrote the 13 on 31 post, you now know how I feel every single day. The rest of you can get off my lawn before I call your parents.
So the other day, he and I were having a beer together, and Ryan said, "We should make our own beer while I'm home this summer."
I tried homebrewing once when I was about Ryan's age, and it ended … poorly … I've wanted to try again, but I've always been intimidated by what I remembered was a complex and peril-fraught process. When Ryan suggested that we do this, though, the excitement and joy of doing something together gave me a natural 20 on my Save Versus Fear. Besides, even if it's a spectacular failure, it's still something we did together, something we can bond over, and something that will stay with us — success or failure — for the rest of our lives.
"That would be the most awesome father/son activity, ever," I said. "Plus, we get beer when we're finished!"
The next morning, we did a little research online, and the entire process actually looked a lot simpler and more straightforward that I remembered it being coughmumble years ago when I was 22. As long as we could follow a recipe and do our fermentation in a place that was temperature-controlled, we'd probably be able to make some beer that didn't suck.
We found a local homebrewing supply store, and went there yesterday to get our kit and ingredients.
The late afternoon had given way to early evening, but it was still 90 degrees as we parked the car and walked up the sidewalk toward the shop.
"I'm really excited about this," I said, partially because it was true, and partially because I needed to calm the nerves that were working themselves up. What if they laughed at us when we walked in? What if whoever worked there wasn't interested in helping a couple of noobs get started? What if I said something stupid and embarrassed my son?
"Yep," Ryan said.
'Yep'? That's it? 'Yep'? Not "Me too dad this will be awesome!" Not "Yeah, I'm looking forward to this, too." Not even, "Don't embarrass me, dude." Just 'yep'. Okay, Wil, don't blow this.
We walked into the store. It was cool inside, and smelled delightful from all the different types of grain that were in tubs along the walls. A man sat behind a counter at the far side of the room, reading a computer screen. I took a breath, and decided that it was go time.
"Hi," I said, "I tried homebreaing once about 15 years ago, and it was a disaster. My son's home for the summer, though, and we wanted to make our own beer together. Can you help us get started?"
He looked up at me, and smiled. "Sure, just give me one minute."
Awesome.
For the next twenty minutes or so, he literally and figuratively walked us through the entire process, showing us equipment and ingredients, and explaining in simple and precise terms exactly how the whole thing worked. I'm not entirely sure, but I think this guy could cast Dispel Fear as a free action, because by the time he was done, I felt like I was ready to go home and start brewing right away.
"Is there one type of beer that's more difficult than another?"
"Not really," he said. "Most of the beers you're going to make are pretty simple and forgiving. The hardest thing to make, honestly, is something like Budweiser."
Before I could say, "I said beer," he continued: "That's a very pale lager that doesn't leave much margin for error."
So they make that shit taste that way on purpose? And it's difficult? Wow, I learned something today.
"What about a California-style Pale Ale?" I asked, hopefully.
"That's very easy," he told us, "it's one of the most popular styles." He gave us a recipe to follow, and helped us pick out the various ingredients to make it. I thought it was really cool that he didn't just show us where things were, but also explained to us what made each specialty grain unique, how different types yeast worked, and the benefits and risks associated with each one. I never felt like he was trying to sell us anything, but that he was educating and truly helping us. It was really great.
Ryan and I gathered up all our individual ingredients, including Caramel 10L, Caramel 40L, and Columbus and Cascade hops. We paid for everything, and I thanked the guy on our way out.
The whole way home, we talked about what we'd just learned, and I may have repeated several times that I was excited to get started and do this together.
We're going to do our brewing on Sunday, so we can continue to research and learn about the proper way to make it go. I asked Twitter for advice on forums, and here are the most frequently-recommended sites:
- Homebrewtalk, especially the beginner's forum.
- /r/homebrewing at Reddit.
- Midwest Homebrewing.
- Hopville.
- Alton Brown on Homebrewing. (For the record, I <3 Alton Brown. He's my favorite.)
Are you a homebrewer? I'd love to hear any advice/warnings/stories you have.
Sanitize the everliving hell out of things. Get a no rinse sanitizer like Star San (and don’t fear the foam: you don’t need to rinse it away). You don’t want to spend all that money and time on something, then wait a few weeks, only to find out lactobacillus found its way into your fermenter.
Relax. Charlie P had it right. You’ll make beer, no matter what.
Don’t worry if your first batch sucks. Mine did. Keep at it. (the federal government finally gave my friends and I our approval to be a brewery today: I’m going legit)
Tweet any problems. Geeks and homebrewers overlap quite a lot, so you’ll probably get instant feedback. And be aware that 10 brewers will give you 12 answers to every question.
Definitely blog your results and progress. I picked up all my homebrewing supplies 2 years ago and have enough bottles collected for 2 or 3 batches. But life got in the way and I never got around to brewing it. Seeing results from another newb and geek might make me wake up early one weekend and actually get off my ass to brew.
Looking forward to reading about how it all turned out.
Oh, and “The Joy of Homebrewing” is a great tech manual for homebrewing.
that’s a awesome activity to do with Ryan Wil! I may try that with my stepson next year when he turns 21, and hopefully get some awesome beer out of the process!
sounds like a blast. I’m wanting to start home brewing as soon as I finish up grad school. Would love to follow along.
So if its not too much trouble… what all did you buy, what did cost? I would also be starting from scratch…when i get to it.
Ben
Hell yah. Need to give it a cool name
While you’re boiling the wort, keep an eye on it, because if that shtuff boils over, it is a huge pain in the neck to clean up. And I recommend doing it when the weather is nice enough to open the windows when you’re done, because the house will smell pretty hoppy when you’re done.
And welcome to the tribe. I’ve always assumed that being able to make beer will make me a welcome addition to whatever is left of society when it all collapses.
Hell yah need to give it a cool name
That’s awesome Wil, but do you realize that the link to AB is to a YouTube video that was probably uploaded without AB’s or Food Network’s permission?
Just make sure everything is sanitized and kept that way. Otherwise it’s like following any other recipe. Just grab a beer, relax, and have fun.
Mmmmm beer. I only started learning to enjoy the taste of beer within the past 6 months, but in my defense, I’m only 22 and a girl. I hope y’all have a blast!
All I can say is that as the wife of a fairly hard core home brewer (we have a home rigged kegging system), it gets really stinky, so you might want to send Anne out for a nice mani-pedi or massage.
The devil is in the details. The worst beer I have made was made so because I pitched the yeast before the wert was cool enough. It ended up requiring an extra month or so to age, but once it had aged, it wasn’t sooo bad. A few of my friends actually said they liked it!
Keep a log. Even if you don’t share it, write down the details of your brew. Record ambiant temperature and humidity, record volumes used, etc. This will give you a great basis for meddling with the recipes later. And if you’re at all a geek, you will probably end up wanting to meddle with the recipes, just so you can buy those expensive labels (for no reason) and share your “estate brew” at your next poker night.
(the federal government finally gave my friends and I our approval to be a brewery today: I'm going legit)
Wow, congratulations!!
Sure, it starts with an easy beer. The next thing you know your husband has built a kegerator from a freezer with three taps (IPA, Stout and an Amber). Not that I’m complaining, mind you.
I took a one-night homebrew class a few months ago, but haven’t gotten around to making anything. I want to make some real ginger beer.
I’ve already experimented with Alton Brown’s recipe for Ginger Ale. That is dead simple. Just boil grated ginger in sugar water, mix with cold water, put it in a 2-liter soda bottle with some yeast and let it ferment for a few days. I don’t think it has a lot of alcohol though. I think the fermentation is just to carbonate it. I’m not sure.
I used bread yeast because that all I had. The yeast added a lot of flavor and not in a good way. I got some champange yeast from the brewers store which should have less flavor, but I haven’t used it yet.
I’ve also read a tip that you can throw a few raisins in with your yeast when you brew. Different yeasts have different tolerances for alcohol and produce different flavors. Raisins have wild yeast on them. Putting a few in can change the yeast community from the store bought monoculture and produce… interesting results. Sometimes better. Sometimes not. That is maybe not something to do on the first go around.
Good luck. Take pictures and let us know how it goes.
I saw sanitize posted earlier. That is the single most important piece of advice. Sanitize. I’ve been brewing for a few years now, and I’ve learned that it’s hard to screw up. If your fermentation temps, Ph, and all that crap are wrong, most likely the worst you’ll come up with is a beer that is good, but doesn’t taste like the target style…even that lager you mentioned. If you do it wrong, it won’t be bad, just not taste like you expect. The one thing that will ruin it is not sanitizing properly. Oh, and sanitize.
The total cost for us at $235, but we sprung for a carboy which added $60. The total cost of the ingredients was about $26, and that's going to make us about 50 standard bottles of beer.
I'll photograph and detail all of our equipment in a future post.
Don’t try to reuse twist-off caps, as they won’t take as well as normal caps. I suspect you need a machine to get a good seal. If you need bottle, call your local distributor. Mine sold me a bunch for the deposit. I had to clean them, which was a bit gross, but it was a lot cheaper than buying new.
Once you achieve BEER_SUCCESS you should continue on and try making Mead. Now there’s a classic D&D/Fantasy beverage to make.
Welcome to the addiction… er hobby… howtobrew.com is a great resource too. It’ll recap all that you were told at the homebrew shop and drive it home. Friend me up on homebrewtalk.com…
It really isn’t that hard. Keeping everything sanitary is the big key (I strongly recommend investing in a wort chiller if you haven’t already. I go for immersion, personally. The best one is counterflow, but those are a pain to clean.)
Also, the element that makes Budweiser (and other American pale lagers) so nasty is that it uses rice malt.
1. sanitize sanitize sanitize. You can get giant vats of the stuff from Aldis. Another method of sanitizing that we have found works well is to wash your bottles, put a little water in them and bake them until all the water boils off.
2. When bottling trying to fill all your little 12oz bottles with your batch of homebrew will quickly make you hate life and make your floor all sticky in a way that is really annoying to clean up. You are better off getting enough 22oz or 40oz bottles with the Grolsch style tops to hold your brew. It makes bottling MUCH more pleasant.
3. Sometimes bottles explode. Do not be afraid.
I’ll echo what everybody else said about sanitation. That’s critical to a stable batch of beer. It doesn’t take long and isn’t terribly difficult to do, but it couldn’t possibly be more important to the process.
Another lesson I learned, and the folks up on HomeBrewTalk will pound into your skull if you let them, is “don’t worry, it’ll work out, nothing is ever ruined.” Also, the longer you let the beer sit in the fermenter and bottles, the cleaner it’ll be. The yeast is still doing a lot of work even after the visible bubbles stop. 🙂
Ryan, who is a genius and a geek, wanted to craft his own recipe right out of the gate! I'm sure we'll end up making our own recipe at some point in the future.
I wouldn't have thought to keep notes. I'll get a journal just for that purpose. Thanks for recommending that!
I’m the wife of a homebrewer and I’ve had a brewery in my house for almost 10 years. Its awesome to come home to a tapped keg of home brew and its great.
My hubby made me a faboo imperial stout for my welcome home with baby (the baby you signed at PHXCC btw)and its heaven to request a beer and get to drink it.
My big advice is bottle in 22oz bottles. Makes it go quicker, less to clean and you always want another beer after only 12 oz…why not have a big beer.
Best piece I can give you is to take detailed notes on your recipes and processes, so you can reproduce them easier when you want. And don’t be afraid to use malt extracts. All grain brewing can be difficult and equipment expensive.
As for a funny/sad homebrewing study, my buddy and I started homebrewing together when we were in graduate school (pretty obvious hobby for a couple microbiologists). One batch we decided to make to a strawberry lambic with strawberries I picked locally. Unlike our other brews, lambics require additional bacteria cultures to obtain that lambic mankiness. So we make the lambic and it comes out ok. Then we go on to make the next batch, pretty much the exact opposite of a lambic, we make a steam beer. We make the batch and then go to taste. It tastes remarkably…lamic-y. Yeah, turns out some lambic culture was able to hang around in our equipment somewhere (I suspect a nozzle in one of our buckets). It was quite the nasty surprise. And a bit of a moral blow to guys really quite insane about our sterile technique.
Do you suppose maybe the brewer didn’t mean the Anheuser-Busch stuff, but the actual Czech Budweiser Budvar, which is a pale ale? Anheuser-Busch did some major copyright infringement; in Europe Budweiser is not made of nasty.
Welcome to a great new hobby with a fantastic community. If you think of a homebrew shop like you would a comic shop, you will fit right in. I’ve been homebrewing for about four years and noticed early on the similarities between comic shop and homebrew shop. Beer nerds love talking about beer as much as comic nerds like talking about Alan Moore.
Like any great hobby, it scales wonderfully. You can spend a little money, or go nuts. You can get super nerdy and worry about recipe formulation, water chemistry, or study for the BJCP exam. Or not!
Charlie Papazian’s Joy of Homebrewing is a great beginner’s book, and has some of the best advice: “Don’t worry, relax. Have a homebrew.”
Welcome again and prepare to say hi to some beer nerds at your next signing!
Ben,
If you have a local craigslist, keep your eye out on there. I got 2 glass carboys for $10. Beer and wine homebrewers often sell stuff on craigslist. And start saving the pop-top bottles you drink so you don’t have to buy any. 🙂
Beer people are the best people. And your friendly neighborhood homebrew supply shop people are the best beer people.
Best tip I have for you: To sanitize your bottles, run them through the dishwasher on the full heat cycle WITHOUT soap, then let them cool to room temperature before attempting to bottle.
Good luck! I can’t wait to hear how it turns out.
Wil, I’ve also been interested in getting started on brewing. It sounds like you had a fantastic customer service experience. Would you mind telling us where your supplier is located?
Welcome to the awesome-ness of homebrewing Ryan and Wil!
It’s great to see you’re supporting your local homebrew shop!
I’ve also used Austin Homebrew (austinhomebrew.com) for supplies. They were VERY helpful when I started out.
You’ll never find a better reference than The Complete Joy of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazian. Several people have mentioned it already, but hey… they’re right. It’ll make your brain swell to enormous proportions!
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Homebrewing-Third-Harperresource-Book/dp/0060531053/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310155919&sr=1-1
Wil and Ryan, You guys are entering an amazing community! Everyone, as you will see are very helpful! 🙂
When I got started in homebrewing I did plenty of research and still do to this day! I even went as crazy as hacking a wireless thermometer in order to monitor the temperature (http://www.gregorystrike.com/2011/03/13/wireless-thermometer-hacking-for-homebrew-beer/). Which, I found later, to be a little overkill.
However, “Relax, Don’t worry, have a homebrew!” I too (as Saboingaden did) recommend “The Complete Joy of Homebrewing”, the author is a tech head so relates quite well to us! It’s a must have!
~Greg
Surprised you didn’t go for a wheat beer or HefeWeizen, where the obvious (and awesome) name would be Wil’s Wheaten.
That is how you know you are in the home of a homebrewer. Homebrewers hoard bottles in an intense (boarding on insane) way. Large pop-top bottles are treated like gold and the big de beugel style bottles are treated like they are made of cut diamonds.
Very cool! I’ve been homebrewing for about 4 years now and have as yet to make a bad batch. Ales are pretty forgiving as long as you sanitize everything really well. I’m in Austin so I can recommend Austin Homebrew like Czmilosv did. Online or in person they’ve been great at recommending the right ingredients and tools to produce the results I’m looking for and I’ve put them to the test a few times with odd requests!
You have a yard! Grow your own hops! Then you can use it and be all THE GROUND HELPED US MAKE BEER!
Homebrewing geeks really are solid geeks, who are as nerdy in their pursuits as open source evangelists. For example, Sam C. who runs Dogfish Head — he’s got a beer cookbook out, iirc.
alas, I loathe beer (it’s the taste of hops, really), so instead of homebrewing beer, I make strange tasty syrups to make teas and sodas out of.
May I suggest names?
Ryan’s Twitterhacker Ale…..
Wil’s Bearded Lager….
Also, happy 33rd birthday to me! Thanks for the shuttle launch NASA!
#shamelessselfproomotionsorry
Welcome to the homebrew world. I myself am starting a batch of Irish Red on Sunday. The best advice I got when I started years ago is to sanitize everything, then do it again. Nothing is more important.
Best of luck and keep us posted.
I had no idea Alton Brown had anything about home brew. Awesome.
I'm pretty sure he was talking about the American Macrobrew.
Just a heads up, but, while Alton Brown is definitely an authority on food-related things, and while his video does a good job of showing how easy homebrewing can be, he makes a *lot* of mistakes in it that you should be careful not to make. The two that come to mind are 1) you shouldn’t sanitize with bleach and 2) you should never boil you grains. The grains should be steeped (assuming your brewing with malt extract for your first batch) at no more than 170F and then removed before you begin your boil.
Otherwise, welcome to your new addiction!
Skormos very funny 🙂
My husband and b-i-l homebrew beer and make wine. We just joined the local Home Brewers club in town and went to the meeting last Saturday. Everyone brings a bottle (or 2) of their brew for everyone to taste.
The club just started doing a raffle to help raise money instead of charging and keeping up with dues. So anyone starting out should look for clubs in their areas. They members are really helpful and may have gently used stuff to get you started.
If we liked wheat beers, we totally would have done that. Even though it's not our favorite, though, we're already talking about making a batch of wheat beer to label as Wheaten's to give as gifts to family at Christmas.
Awesome. I’m not a very active brewer myself, but I do brew a batch now and then. When you tweeted your request for resources, I was going to suggest going to your local brewing supply store. I’m glad to hear that your local store’s staff was as friendly, patient, infectiously enthusiastic and helpful as mine.
I was also glad to see that someone recommended keeping a journal. You’ll want that info in order to repeat and/or tweak your best batches.
You know what the hardest part of brewing is? Waiting for the bottle conditioning process. At least during the fermentation, you can watch the bubbles!
Happy birthday!!
Twitterhacker is a great name. I'll run it past the boy.
Also a homebrewer here. After making a few beers with kits, I finally made my first one from scratch on Wednesday, an American Strong Ale based slightly on an all-grain (beer made with no liquid malt extract) clone recipe of Stone’s Arrogant Bastard that I’m calling Audacious Bitch.
I’ll say this now: you are going to have a lot of fun and for the most part, the absolute worst you’ll get is “this is better than the mainstream beers”.
A couple of pieces of advice I can give…
1. You will make a mess with the grains. It’s going to happen. So just keep a broom handy.
2. Let the brew cool before pitching your yeast. Anywhere below 80 degrees is best.
3. When bottling, remember to prime with corn sugar. There are different ways to do it, either by mixing about 3/4cup of corn sugar in with a pint of boiling water or spooning the sugar in the bottles individually. To avoid variations in the priming as well as lessen the potential for the bottles exploding, I suggest the former method. On the note of bottles exploding as well, I tend to put my freshly bottled beer in boxes and put them in a garbage bag just to avoid beer getting everywhere.
4. After bottling, it’s best to let the beer age in the bottle for ten days to let it ferment further. The wait will be excruciating, but it’s worth it.
Hope you two have fun and best of luck! Have you got any ideas for the name of the brew yet?
OK, so it’s been said that you should “relax, don’t worry, have a homebrew” already, so I have to come up with something better.
Yeast want to make you good beer. Your job is to stay out of the way and let them finish.
Here’s the thing. You’re not making beer. You’re making a happy, comfortable home for yeast. Happy comfortable homes aren’t made by scared people, they’re made by happy comfortable people. So relax. Yes, you need to have everything really clean, but on a first batch it matters *less* than on later batches, because you’re stuff isn’t as dirty to start with. There’s no dried-on malt stuck inside a valve somewhere that’s had crap growing on it you didn’t see, because the equipment’s all new. So one less thing to worry about.
If you try it after the minimum time specified in the recipe and it’s nasty, don’t throw it out. Wait a couple more weeks or a month. Yeast are capable of doing magic. But they’re really slow at it sometimes. Don’t rush them and they’ll do beautiful things for you.