Home Brew

[bhoshour]

I have read up extensively on home-brewing and really want to give it a try. May I ask how time-consuming it is? I am a full-time student with two yound children. I would love to brew and I just want to know from people who do it (you all) how time intensive it is? In addition, how much do you think it costs to garner all your initial supplies? Thanks all. Oh, one last thing, can you recommend a good website for obtaining all my supplies? I appreciate it.

[sallad]

the actual process of brewing (from sanitation to clean-up) can take as little as about 2 hours for all extract brews. after a week or so, you should transfer to secondary, which may take 30 min or so. a couple weeks later, bottling will take probably close to 2 more hours. all this assumes you understand the process and can do things timely and orderly; it'll take a few brews to get it down, so allow more time at first.

on good thing is that after you brew, the beer is fairly forgiving as to when it needs to be transferred and bottled. if you don't have time, wait another week or 2. just don't do things to early, you can explode bottles!! there may be subtle differences in quality, but you will still have great beer!

initial equipment and ingredients.. you should be able to them get for maybe around $100, maybe even less. no need to be fancy at first, keep it simple! expand as you have more time and your interest grows.

one big factor that i'm sure all the other homebrewers on here will agree with is that you might find this to be a hobby that can be borderline obsessive-compulsive! (which is not a bad thing!) :D

[ray m]

A good website to obtain supplies is morebeer.com. I personally have had success with them and have absolutely no complaints. I have had to call them a couple times with questions and they are really cool to deal with. Very quick service, too. You may, however, want to check in your area for homebrew supply shop(s), since getting your stuff at a local shop will probably reduce your costs somewhat (no shipping charges, etc.)

[croc4]

You may also want to look at www.homebrewit.com, I recently picked up my kit (new brewer also) for ~$45 + ~$25 for the kits, it comes with
pretty much what you need to get started, I have dealt with them twice, once for the kit and the other time to get some more beer ingredient kits. Each time the stuff was shipped in a timely manner, so far no complaints.

I picked up a secondary at my local, to supplement the kit, but as far as the basic kit, I have no complaints.

[paul84043]

Sallad pretty much nailed it, I will spend a few hours on a Saturday brewing up a batch. It gets faster as you get better at it.
You'll probably find yourself wishing that there were more you could do with your first few batches, they never seem to get done fast enough.
If you're ordering supplies online and depending on where you live, austinhomebrew.com ships for free on orders over 60$ within the lower 48. That could save you a bunch of money on a large initial order.
I would venture closer to 200$ for some decent quality stuff that's going to grow with your hobby and last a decent amount of time. But you can definitely start small and add as you go.
ONce you're rolling, you save a bunch of money on the beer, especially if you factor in the cost of beer of equal quality. There's no comparison.

[b3s]

Originally posted by bhoshour
I have read up extensively on home-brewing and really want to give it a try. May I ask how time-consuming it is? I am a full-time student with two yound children. I would love to brew and I just want to know from people who do it (you all) how time intensive it is?


not very. however, the true answer is it depends. extract only with appropriate space and equipment and you can have your beer in the fermenter in under two hours. gonna do all grain? that adds another couple of hours. gonna use bleach instead of iodophor? add 30 minutes. no wort chiller? add even more time (like, say, a couple of hours, but you actually are not doing anything but waiting for the stuff to get to temperature).

In addition, how much do you think it costs to garner all your initial supplies?


my starter kit costed $160. That includes:

the el-cheapo starter kit from www.thebrewhut.com.
a 20-quart pot.
my first two recipes.
36 16-oz ez-cap bottles.


remove the ez-cap bottles and use recycled ones and you'll save yourself some coin.

Oh, one last thing, can you recommend a good website for obtaining all my supplies? I appreciate it.

there are several. northernbrewer.com is good as well as austinhomebrew.com.

unless you enjoy being treated like crap, i would avoid stpats.com.

thebrewhut.com is also good and the owner is a terrific person, but since they are local to me i have no idea how their web orders go.

before ordering on the web, though, try and find a local shop. odds are your shipping (especially for orders involving glass) is going to be more than the sales tax and the local shop is going to be there to help you out if you need it. i only order online when my local shop doesn't have what i want...and if the product is good, i recommend it to them.

[danno]

you guys all forgot to admit that the hobby soon turns into an obsession... :D

[paul84043]

I'm not obsessed! I can stop brewing any time I want....I just don't want to.

:eek:

[Beerconnoisseur]

Oh, I can stop brewing anytime, but I don't want to ;)

I can't speak for everyone else, but normally, start to finish, I find it takes me about 3 1/2 hours to brew an extract brew. You can do other things while your beer is brewing, but I wouldn't plan on having more than 30 minutes free here and there. Bear in mind, I make an effort to get out all the sugar that I possibly can from the grain, and my figure does include equipment cleanup time afterwards as well. Bottling 2 weeks later then usually takes about 2 hours.

The biggest time savings (I've found) comes from is avoiding messy spills in the kitchen. This comes with practice, as well as seeing firsthand what does (and doesn't) work.

Since I've been asked a few times what starting equipment I would recommend for beginners, I've attached a list. I'd agree with ray m; morebeer.com is pretty good, and their beginners' kits are pretty complete (starting from $65). They also have free shipping for orders over $49.00.

If you are starting out, I would not brew all-grain; most extract recipes have just as much flavor, and are simpler. Once you get 5-10 extract brews under your belt (and know you will be brewing for a while), or if you know you have a strong preference for more unique brews, like Doppelbock or Oatmeal Stout, then I'd switch to all-grain.

Personally, I would always use a wort chiller. The time savings is nice, but preventing bacteria from ruining a batch is also a big plus. Since a batch typically runs $20 or so, even 3 ruined batches will pay for the cost of most wort chillers...

Good luck, and feel free to ask any other questions!