Museum • Homebrew • Brewing Equipment
I have said for a long time that I wanted to try my hand at home-brewing beer. For years my excuse was the expense of buying all the equipment. My brother and his family gave me a home brewing kit Christmas 2005. Guess they've called my bluff!
The kit includes dry malt extract, yeast, hops, plus some powdered dextrose and sterilizer. It includes a collapsable plastic fermenter, 6 plastic bottles with caps, a siphon hose, an airlock, and labels. It is designed to make one-gallon batches, which finish in those plastic bottles.
In order to test out this beer kit I need a kettle. I chose this 12-quart pot from my local Wal-Mart assuming I might want to eventually boil more with different kits. My first test was seeing how long it would take to bring two gallons to a boil, actually I was testing the stove more than the pot. It took almost an hour, but it did get to a decent boil. I wondered if I'd ever be able to get a standard 5-gallon batch to boil with my kitchen stove.
I bought a few items that were not included in the kit. All from K-Mart - A large stainless-steel basting spoon, a stainless-steel funnel including a screen, and a dial thermometer. Now I'm ready to brew my first batch!
I determined a couple things even before tasting my first batch. (1) I enjoy this hobby and will continue, (2) it's a lot of work and waiting for a 6-pack, (3) this kit did not include enough sterilizer, (4) cleaning and drying equipment will be difficult and tedious when I move up to larger batches. I decided to buy a standard homebrew starter kit for 5-gallon batches. This kit includes a glass carboy, plastic bottling bucket with spigot, larger funnel, blowoff hose, fermentation lock and bung, siphon tubing, "AutoSiphon", bottle filler, bottle brush, carboy brush, bottle capper, bottle caps, beer thief (for sampling), thermometer, hydrometer, and 8 oz One-Step Sanitizer.
It's all about the bottles. The bottle tree is for hanging bottles upside-down to dry. The brass piece attaches to a threaded faucet to become a powerful jet washer. I don't recommend the "bottle sanitizer" that's sitting on the tree - it's completely useless. At the time of this picture I was using a "One Step" sanitizer, which I also no longer recommend. Instead I now use "PBW" for cleaning and then sanitize with "StarSan", a no-rinse sanitizer.
While I was checking out my local homebrew store I picked up a 5-Gallon carboy to use as a secondary fermenter, and two of these stick-on "Fermometer" thermometers.
For a while I tried using these mini-kegs. It seemed like a good idea, clean and sanitize one keg in place of twelve bottles. It turned out that cleaning the mini-kegs was a hassle too. Also, once you've tapped it you're basically committed to finishing the whole 5 liters within a day or two. Finally - the keg with the tapper installed won't fit in the refrigerator at normal shelf spacing.
To ensure a healthy batch of yeast for pitching it's a good idea to make a "starter" - this is a basic 1000 ml kit from morebeer.com. The kit includes a 1000 ml Erlenmeyer flask, some yeast nutrient, and some dry malt extract. For larger or higher gravity batches it may be necessary to "step up" the starter using a larger container and more starter wort to get the proper yeast pitching rate. There is an excellent reference work regarding yeast pitching rates at www.mrmalty.com.
To help the starters along I bought this magnetic stirrer, which keeps the yeast in suspension and aerates the starter wort. More recently I've stopped making yeast starters. For most batches I repitch yeast from the previous batch. When I do start a fresh pitch I make a normal 5-gallon batch of relatively low-gravity beer and just pitch it straight from the package.
One of the most significant factors on the quality of the beer is controlling fermentation temperature. I start by keeping the fermenter in a cool place, usually the basement. I attach the "Fermwrap" heater to the carboy and use the Ranco temperature controller along with the thermowell stopper to maintain the beer at a fixed temperature, usually between 65 and 68 °F. Since this picture was taken I upgraded to a two-stage controller. Now I put the ferm-wrapped fermenter in a mini-fridge that is also plugged into the controller. That should keep the beer within the right temperature range under most conditions.
In order to boil the full 5 gallons instead of continuing with the partial-boil method I needed a larger kettle, a more powerful burner, and an immersion chiller. I have since upgraded to a better burner and added a pre-chiller coil.