Anyone here do it? I just finished my third "batch" and it is good! The first two were good also and in fact out of 70 bottles I got maybe 15 or so.
Next up is a Porter

Nope, but you just reminded me that its waaaaaaaay hot, and my glasses are frosty, and the pantry fridge is packed with Black Butte Porter....


Thanks for the reminder....

My son , who used to live in the town of Alsea, likes BBP so I'm making some for him.
I don't consider it a summer brew so I am staying with some IPAs and lagers for this summer.

Lagers are pretty tough to get right unless you have a fridge to ferment in. It's especially hard to keep the temp in the low 50's during the summer.

Stick with ales until you really get the process down. Then you can progress to a partial mash, and finally a whole grain setup.

Porters are great beers to brew because it's hard to tell when you screw up. The flavor profile is so wide that unless there's a really serious flaw, all that delicious roasty chocolatey-ness will hide any mistakes.

Fortunately I do have a fridge to do just that. This batch I bottled 2 weeks ago was a modified IPA. Less hops

You are fortunate. If you can perfect lagers, you got it goin' on. They're so delicate compared to ales that they're just tough to do. A Bud clone is really tough to get right. Not that I'd ever be tempted to clone something like that, but I do give them credit for turning out such a consistent light beer.

Yeah I'm not ready to try one yet so I will stick with the ales.

I used to do a lot of it and was pretty good at it... now I have a buddy who runs a brewery and his brewer makes better beer than I ever did, so I just drink his beer. It's great fun, chemistry experiments you can drink. My favorites are IPAs and stouts but probably the best beer we ever made was a true pilsner, which is a far cry from American pilsner. If you've got the fridge capabilities for lagering you should give it a try sometime. I still have all the gear but have too many things going on to do any brewing for the next few years. Enjoy it!

I have been brewing for a few years now. Mostly ales. My favorite to date is a Alaskan Amber clone that comes out pretty good. My wife even likes it and she is not big on beer. I do not bottle, too much hassle. I keg mine and force carbinate. Much less wait time than bottling and natural carbinating. I have a fridge in the garage that is for beer and beverages so keeping the keg cold is not an issue. Always have beer on tap with frosty glasses in the freezer on top.
Bret

starfish is right on. to properly lager you must be able to age and store in a cool steady tempature. the biggest tips to making great home brew are simple yet often ignored. never scimp on any sanitation, wether your formenter, transfer hoses, or bottles. even the caps need to be sanitised.

if any of you are ready to step up from bottle conditioning for carbination. and want to move into Co2 bottles for presurre. i have a connection that deals in 3gal. and 5gal sankey cans. this way you can Co2 pour right from the sankey.

Man that is the way to go for sure.
I really like the ales I've done. Going to do a porter next then back to Hefes and IPAs.

If you guys ever need a tester for your home brews I can volunteer.

I've brewed a few times, still have all the gear and plan on brewing again this fall. I have a porter recipe I picked up when PIke's still sold brew supplies. Pike's Old 97 porter. It's easy, flavorful and is hard to screw up.
Sanitation is very important. Even though I cleaned everything thoroughly before starting, something found it's way into the wart and caused the beer to geyser 4 inchs or more when opened, especially if room tempature. I'd loose about 1/2 a bottle. If I cooled the beer before opening it, it didn't geyser as much. I was told it was probably free floating bacteria.

Too much corn sugar maybe?

do you get drunk on half as much beer?

my buddy got into home brewing back in the nineties. some batches were great, some were pretty tasteless, but they all got us drunk. and when you are drinking the not so great batch, don't try 'one bourbon, one scotch, and one beer.'

the guyser beer is caused from a over carbination. to much priming sugar added, orrr. another aspect can be a high gravity than expected when the the priming sugar is added. which means that while you added the correct amount of primings... you actually doubled it.

this is where a home brewer must use a hydrometer. it will measure your gravity. sometimes the gravity is still to high within the ale. if you have a slow or sluggish fermintaition, you will end up with a higher than expected gravity. which in the final stages of everything.... causes what?

GUYSER BEER!...

if this occures. be sure open the remaining bottles in a very cold state. this will in keeping the C02 from bursting from the solution.

oh! i just remembered.... a wild yeast can do this too. if the beer guysers and has a noticable off flavor or aroma. a wild yeast infected the secondary fermintation. if this occurs the entire batch is ruined.

this in the big breweries is called "being sewered" just dump it out. unless of course enjoy bad off flavored beer, then enjoy.

this is no joke or snide comment. but 90% of american beer drinkers can decypher a bad off flovored beer from a old aged beer. so they just drink bad beer all the time.

Thanks for all the info Brewer. I've done three brews so far and each one has been a success.
I like the way the brew mellows after a couple of months but even the stuff that has only been in the bottle a couple of weeks is good and just gets better.

The 'geysering' batch tasted the same as the batches that didn't. I did have one taste bad so I poured it out in the compost. One quiet night, the compost bin sounded like a small toga party so the compost worms liked it.

house plants love beer too. there is a lot of stuff in beer plants like. if the plant gets drupy, they snap out of by the next day.

When I help a guy at work brew we spend alot of time cleaning everything to keep the stray bacteria away. We normally brew a 50 gallon batch and then a smaller 15 gallon batch. Always good stuff. He made an excellent Irish Red not to long ago.

Brewer, your plants need water.

the sterilizing comments remind me of an episode of Myth Busters where they tested to see if bacteria from your toilet can migrate to your toothbrush. It can and it did, in a very short period of time. Keep this in mind when you choose a place/room to homebrew, it sounds like the most critical part of success.

"free floating bacteria" and "wild yeast" make this sound like a jazz music thread

good point spike. try to avoid brewing in bathrooms, outhouses or rest stops.

Well my beer fridge is giving up the ghost so lagering will have to wait.

Anyone ever tackle the Russian Imperial Stout or Barley wine. After sampling the Deschutes Brewing Co. Mirror Mirror Barley wine my curiosity for Old/Strong ales has really gotten to me. Now I just have to figure out how I can msh the 10-12 lbs. of grain they take.

A lot of my friends tried or do home brew at home point or another and 99% of them make what I consider to be "homebrew swill". Tastes "green", "raw", and always tastes like "homebrew" to me.

Interestingly enough, they ALL seem to think their beers are *good*, etc, etc.

Here's what I've learned so far about home brewing from the 1% that continually make a fantastic home brew:

a) Sanitation, sanitation, sanitation.
b) Forget the bottles (Unless you are Brewer).
c) Cornelous Kegs only.
d) Keep your recipe's simple, stupid.
e) if and when you actually make something that doesn't taste like "home brew", don't pretend you think you know what you are doing and "move on" to more complex beers, as all you're going to make is crap.

The few people that I know that make a really *good* home brew all use cornelius keg and C02 systems. No bottles. They are meticulous, and very adamant on the sanitation bit.