Homebrew - What do I have?

Hey all,

I am taking a class for my last semester about beer and society. As with trying 33 beers (with certain guid lines) I have to home brew. I borrowed a kit from my landlord and need your help on what is what and what I need. I am going to post some pictures and I would like your help on naming the equipment and what I need it for (what step I need it for)!

Thank you!

Cleaning brush on top, don't know middle thing - slides in and out, bottom thing plugs into wall socket.


Next two pictures of the same thing. Inside the jug is this mesh tube that connects to the drainer.




Another drainer tub


Capper, two plastic things, a thermometer I think?



A soup pot, another drainer bucket, and a normal bucket.

 

The middle thing is an auto-siphon.

Use it when racking your beer from primary to secondary, or to a keg/bottle

This is a mash tun. You let grains sit in warm water and it pulls the sugar out. This is the mashing stage.

The plastic things are called an air lock. Let's stuff out, but prevents nasties from getting in. Use this for fermenting.

It's actually a hydrometer, not a thermometer. This tells you your gravity, which helps determine ABV. You'll use this right after a boil and after fermenting/primary.

Don't call it a soup pot when you're making beer. It's called a kettle The beer is brewed in this.

 

One of the most important aspects of brewing is keeping everything sterile and at the right temperature. Plastic is horrible to work with, so make sure to go balls to the fucking wall with sterilization. How long do you have to get this figured out? Is it basically try to brew, it'll suck but you get a pat on the back for trying, or does the end product need to be good? If you want it to be any good, you'll need to do at least 2 dozens brews through the same setup to have any hope of a drinkable result.


EDIT: I didn't mean this to sound negative or condescending... Brewing is extremely difficult to get right. There are just so many margins for error.

 

Check out this book

http://howtobrew.com/book/introduction

It helped me a lot. Might help you get started.

 

I was told you can never fuck up a batch of beer because someone will always drink it. While this is true, I know that I personally won't enjoy it if I missed the mark.

But my friends enjoy it no matter what.

Just have fun with it, @WildLand .

 

Totally disagree. If he researches first, it'll be fine first time. He doesn't need to make ribbon winning beer, just beer.

OP - read up on extract brewing. It will make it simpler. You do need a thermometer to keep your "boil" around 155. Otherwise looks like you can make beer there (but you need bottles/keg for secondary ferment/storage). Look up (and watch) the Good Eats episode where Alton makes beer. He'll do you right and give you confidence in 22 minutes.

 

The funny thing is.. it is incredibly difficult to make a boring run-of-the-mill stereotypical beer style. The smallest change to anything has drastic results. My last brew I threw in a handful of roasted barley. Mind you, this was a 15gallon batch, so a handful of barley in 25lbs of malt! The beer came out a dark chocolatey brown with a lots of roasty flavour. I'm not complaining, but I certainly wasn't expecting such a drastic result!

 

Must have been some nice fresh ingredients

 

I can pick up what you're putting down.

Part of what I was referring to is that it takes many many brews just to get comfortable with a setup and get the kinks out, not just the fact that it takes many brews to get an idea of what you are doing as a homebrewer.

You are absolutely right about looking up extract brewing. I would recommend that OP get a good starter kit and cut as many corners as possible. It'll be less hassle and still get ya where you're going! The less of a hassle it is the more motivated you'll be to give it another go and another and another and then bite the bullet and build yourself a proper stainless setup!

 

Thanks for the help guys!
I was wanting to go the extract way as it seemed the easiest and really do not want to mess with actual grains. Should I buy an actual beginner kit? They are like $100 locally and give $20 store credit to a beer recipe.

What my prof. wants is a good drinkable beer. He said if you are afraid to mess up, choice a kit that will hide the mess up.

I have 3 months to make a good brew so I figured I could try one and if I f up then I can try another.

 

So I should just go get a beginner kit as this one is more of a professional one? That's why I am confused as I haven't seen some of this in the beginner 5 gallon kits.

 

Save your money until you know what exactly to buy. A kit will get you junk plus the essentials (meaning an equipment kit, I highly recommend a pre-weighed ingredients kit in your case)

Seriously, google Alton Brown's recipe. Its the bare-bones, but results will be good.

 

2 weeks to make a batch, 2 more for it to condition. If you wanted to, you could make a batch every week or two and by the end of three months pick the batch that turned out best to give to your professor.

If you go with extract brewing, a single brew will take little effort. Even full blown brewing is minimal work, most of your time is spent waiting. Waiting for wort, waiting for boiler cycle, waiting for yeast to get going. It's all waiting and cleaning. Well, that and drinking

 

Boil 155? say what?

 

The boil is a stage. Much of it is done at ~155F, not 210+.

 

I've only ever measured brew temps in C, so you've lost me with this Fahrenheit talk.

 

Nah... Keep things clean/sterile where it counts (everything the wort touches post boil), and keep an eye on temps (transfer to fermenter as close to 70-80 degrees as possible, keep your fermentation temp consistent- don't allow for swings, this will screw up the end result more than anything). Other than that, use a forgiving yeast depending on the brew you are making. US05 is pretty forgiving and versatile. Good stuff on youtube as far as the process. Homebrewforums.com is a good resource too. Most of all, have fun and don't stress. It won't take 24 brew sessions to get good beer. I've seen excellent beer on someones first attempt many times. Replicating it is the hard part : )

 

That's not boiling, that is steeping. Boiling is boiling.

 

Hefeweizens are about the easiest recipes to brew. Pretty hard to not get a drinkable result.

Don't be intimidated by all-grain. Once you get a few extract brews down, try all-grain. It's not that much more difficult, just more steps.