Perfect Beginners Start-up/set-up $1000.

[PistolPatch]

[(Thought I'd create this thread as I've done a few searches and have found so much good stuff here but nothing in the one thread.)]

I'm hoping that this thread will end up being of great assistance to beginners like me who have had a bash at brewing once or twice in the past with kits and have now learned a little patience and who maybe now earn more money!!!

So, I'm going to write what I've done, so far, under severe space limitations, and hope that you experienced guys can add/improve/criticise so as to create the perfect start-up/set/up for beginners who can afford say $1000 in equipment. (I've spent more but if I had more time, wouldn't have had to.) I've done heaps of reading etc. but some of my suggestions may be way off so please correct them.

(This is going to be a very long post!!! Been working on it for a while now but hopefully most of you will find it challenging and won't die of boredom! Moderator - please delete my post if I'm way off track or have made things too complicated!)

MY BASIC IDEA: I intend to brew 23litres per week (one batch), syphon it into PET jerry cans with finings, refrigerate for 4 weeks, carbonate for 1 week and drink for a week. (The above keeps it simple but can be scaled up or down.) Basic equipment includes:

Fermenter (1 or 2???) @ say $30 or more if we get basic kit with hydrometer etc.
Syphon Hose x 1 @ say $15
PET Plastic Jerry Cans x 4 @ $16
Brew Bratt Kegs (25lt) x 2 @ $185
Keg Gear x 1 @ $300
D Gas Bottle Hire x 1 @ $120
Second Hand 380lt Freezer 1 x $200 (Will hold 4 Jerrys and 2 Kegs)
Fridge Conversion 1 x $60
Anything Else I've Forgotten 1 x ???

STEP 1: TIME FRAME

My Suggestions: Don't expect to have a beer for 6 weeks! Just keep drinking whatever you drink now!

STEP 2: INGREDIENTS

My Suggestions: I have bought 2 types of kits, one being the liquid malt, the other being dried malt. My intention is to brew 3 of each alternately making a slight change in the brewing process for each one. The first two changes I have thought of so far are really basic - temperature and aeration (see Fermentation below).

Optional Additional Equipment: I bought a water filter that cost me $130 but this may be over-doing it???

My Beginner Questions: Can you actually get good beer from the above? What is the difference between the liquid and dried malt kits? Can you make up your own kit from dried malts?

STEP 3: FERMENTATION

My Suggestons: Keep the temperature constant preferably at 22 degrees though I may be wrong on this, it may be 20 degrees. I also have a fermenter with a screw down lid and O-Ring which I think is better than the push down lid. I also prefer the two piece air lock rather than the single piece S-shaped one. I'm in a really hot climate so was surprised that my tap temperature was 26 degrees. Check your water temperature before mixing up your stuff so you can have some refrigerated water available if neccesary. My first brews were brewed at 25 degrees so the first change I made was trying to lower this to 22 degrees. (See Optional Additional Equipment below).

The second change I chose to make was to aerate my wort (very primitively but at least I tried!!!) (See Optional Additional Equipment below).

Optional Additional Equipment: To try and cool things down a bit and as I live in a one bedroom apartment, I initially put my fermenter in my laundry sink sitting on an old fermenter (basically a bucket) so it was above the water level of the sink. I had a T-Shirt over my fermenter to hopefully draw the cool water up. Unfortunately I'd get home and the brew would often be up at 26 degrees on a hot day. (Sink temperature 19 degrees). So have now bought a pond pump ($40) and an HPM timer from Bunnings for $9 - twin pack actually! Still not satisfied with temp. control though it is a lot better, so am looking at a controller which I think will cost about $100. This will turn on and off my pond pump to flow chilled water over the fermenter as required. Up here though, it's even hard to chill your water to 19 degrees.

The other thing I bought was an aquarium pump to aerate the wort before adding yeast. This was my second change to my fermenting process and as I haven't drunk the beer yet, cannot tell you if it makes anyu difference. Also, haven't got temp right yet so will have to repeat this change later. Anyway, pump only cost $20 and used some tupperware to filter the air through diffusion stones and sterilisede water. Probably a waste of money/time???

My Beginner Questions: I read a lot of stuff about leaving beer in the fermenter. Should I have 2 fermenters and leave the beer to sit in the fermenter for a week before I rack it to my jerry cans? Does this make a difference to taste? If I do need a second fermenter, do I have to keep it at the same constant temp as fermentation?

STEP 4 - RACKING

My suggestions: Use a syphon, not the tap. Add finings to the jerry can before you syphon the beer.

My Beginner Questions: I am racking from my single fermenter into a jerry can. My jerry can then goes straight into the fridge. Is this good or bad? Fridge is at 2 degrees. I've been told that 1 week under this temp is equal to 2 weeks maturation at room temp. Is this true?

STEP 5 - LAGERING (Waiting)

My Suggestions: With my freezer converted to a fridge, I can fit 4 jerry cans and 2 kegs. What I'm thinking, is that I can have the 4 jerry's lagering, one keg carbonating and one that I'm drinking.

My Beginner Questions: Will lagering the jerrys at two degrees really improve the beer?

STEP 6 - KEGGING

My Suggestions: As an ex-manager. many years ago (like 20!), at Australia's first pub brewery, 'The Sail and Anchor, in Fremantel', we used Beer Gas!.

My Beginner Questions: I've heard that you can carbonate the beer using beer gas and a diffusion stone. Any suggestions on how I should carbonate a keg over a week's period of time? Any thoughts on CO2 versus Beer Gas?

Hopefully the moderator will tidy this post up over time so that it becomes of some use.

Cheers
Pistol!

 

[peas_and_corn]

Great post, full of questions!!

Anyway, first about racking. Basically it's good to have your brew fermenting for a couple of weeks, but when it's been fermenting a while trub forms at the bottom of the fermenter, and if the wort is sitting on it too long bad flavour tannins form. So, about 10 days you rack it (the jerry cans sound all right). After racking maturation of the beer happens, and it's best if you keep the beer at the same temperature as during the primary fermentation. This is because this is the temperature the yeast works at best. If you want to know about different ways to keep the temperature down, do a search, there are plenty of threads about it.

Lagering- as the name suggests, you only really need to do this with lagers. You must have a lager yeast (the only real difference between a lager and an ale), have the primary at around 10C and then after racking have it at about 3C for a couple of months, as this is the time needed by the yeast to properly mature a lager. However, if you're making an ale (and since you're struggling to keep it to 19C I'd suggest to stick to ales until you get a fermentation fridge) then leaving a secondary phase at primary fermentation temperatures would be recommended (did any of what i just said make any sense?)

The difference between liquid and dry malt is very little- liquid is just what they get from malt and condensed, dry they take an extra step and dry it out. Dry lasts longer, while in my experience (however this could be due to other reasons) the liquid has tended to make better beer, somehow. Let your taste buds do the decision making. However, instead of using malt extract, maybe you could consider getting a mashing container of some sort and mash grain instead of using malt (I know someone would say this, might as well be me). The one at my HBS is $95 and I'll be getting one soon (beats my esky).

Water filter- you're from the Gold Coast so I don't know about the water quality there. I have started using spring water to add to my brew because SA water is so shocking. Also, I refrigerate it so it makes it easier to stabilise temperatures.

For aeration if you're going for a kit and extract, just splashing the water in is enough to areate as much as needed. If you're adding water from a container kept in the fridge, put a bit in then shake it like there's no tomorrow to get more air into it, then add it (of course splashing it in)

lastly- beer gas???? :huh:

 

[Jazzafish]

Fermenter (1 or 2???)

If you want a batch per week, and you did mention racking... I dare say 4 is more of a reasonable number.

Can you actually get good beer from the above? What is the difference between the liquid and dried malt kits? Can you make up your own kit from dried malts?

Liquid malts come with a set gravity and a generally consistant produduct. However dried malts are fine if used correctly. Yes you can make your own kits from malts, but you would need to add hops and I'd also recomend steeping grain like mentioned in www.howtobrew.com

To try and cool things down a bit and as I live in a one bedroom apartment, I initially put my fermenter in my laundry sink sitting on an old fermenter (basically a bucket) so it was above the water level of the sink. I had a T-Shirt over my fermenter to hopefully draw the cool water up. Unfortunately I'd get home and the brew would often be up at 26 degrees on a hot day. (Sink temperature 19 degrees). So have now bought a pond pump ($40) and an HPM timer from Bunnings for $9 - twin pack actually! Still not satisfied with temp. control though it is a lot better, so am looking at a controller which I think will cost about $100. This will turn on and off my pond pump to flow chilled water over the fermenter as required. Up here though, it's even hard to chill your water to 19 degrees.

Best bet is to make an ice bath. Put the fermenter in a bath of sanitised water chilled by ice bricks/bottles of ice. Using your pumps will help too. I normally keep my fermentation in the dark too, so the shirt idea is good too.

My suggestions: Use a syphon, not the tap. Add finings to the jerry can before you syphon the beer

Check out a GMK filter. Do a search. No looking back. No need to syphon.

My Suggestions: With my freezer converted to a fridge, I can fit 4 jerry cans and 2 kegs. What I'm thinking, is that I can have the 4 jerry's lagering, one keg carbonating and one that I'm drinking.

That will work. I cold condition in kegs before carbonating them as I don't have cubes

lagering the jerrys at two degrees really improve the beer?

YES!!! Lager for at least the same time as fermentation took.

My Beginner Questions: I've heard that you can carbonate the beer using beer gas and a diffusion stone. Any suggestions on how I should carbonate a keg over a week's period of time? Any thoughts on CO2 versus Beer Gas?

Sure just at a lower pressure. I'm too impatient and carbonate as fast as I can. See Ross' method of force carbonation.

 

[Ross]

Any thoughts on CO2 versus Beer Gas?

Cheers
Pistol!

[post="95668"][/post]​

No, they are the same item

 

[berto]

CO2 and beergas are different. IM assuming you mean cellarmix and multimix when you talk beergas. These each come with a different % of nitrogen in them. One for stouts, the other for the rest of your beers. We experimented where i worked with different gasses, and there is taste difference between CO2 and your CO2/nitrogen mix.

 

[PistolPatch]

Thanks for having the patience to read and reply to my excessively long post - was working 10hrs yesterday in 40 degrees, had a few beers with mates, came home, had more beers and started writing. It seemed like a good idea at the time!!!

As for the answers so far, thanks to you all. Very impressed with the help you get here. I'm too scared to reply to each answer after taking up so much space last night but appreciate every one of your replies. Also, there is a bit to think about so I might read through and then write a concise reply tomorrow with questions that newbees like me may still need answered.

P.S. Hopefully Peas_and_Korn's question re beer gas has been answered by berto. If my memory of 20 years serves me correctly, I think Multimix has a higher CO2 content than Cellarmix so Cellarmix would only be used for stouts.(Ross thanks heaps for all your replies to my other posts - much appreciated. I thought Beer Gas was Multimix and CO2 was just CO2????)

 

[big d]

SHOCK HORROR
correct me if im wrong but beer gas and co2 is carbon dioxide.cellarmix is a mixture of nitrogen and co2.
im sure this has been done to death on ahb but from memory its all in the marketing when we come to beer gas and co2.
our resident ex gas worker tells us its all from the same supply just goes into different marketed bottles unless its medical c02 then its filtered heaps more.

cheers in gas
big d