Question for beer brewers!

[daniel_buck]

A friend of mine brews his own beer, he was showing me his setup last night and he mentioned that the main stainless steel pot that he boils with is kind of thin on the bottom, and gets burn spots sometimes if he turns the heat up to much.

I suggested maybe throwing a cut of plate steel under the pot, to distribute the heat a bit more evenly (kind of like a cast iron skillet!)

His pot is about 14" across, I was thinking of cutting him up one of my scrap sheets of steel in to roughly a circle, I wonder would 3/16" be thick enough for this? or 1/4"? Or would that be to thick?

I assume I would want to grind down all the mill scale off of the metal, and clean it real good with acetone before he puts it over the burners.

Any thoughts?

[Black & Tan TJ]

Don't turn the heat up too much.
I have a 26 gallon kettle I use and yes if I get in a hurry I'll have burn marks though you do want to get a good rolling boil to reduce tanins. One thing to remember this is a higher then normal gravity liquid your boiling which means higher in temp and it doesn't just burn if you get the heat up too high, it grows and then boils over very quickly. With the amount I boil safety is a factor so I just go slow, boil over's also means less beer in the end. Let us know how this works out.

Cheers!

[daniel_buck]

I don't know anything about the process, I'll relay that info to him

thanks Tom!

[curtis]

Tom where is the best place to buy equipment and get info on the craft beer home brewing? I guest they have contest around hear for the best tasting beer. Could be fun.

[daniel_buck]

And time aside, good beer for a cheap price If I didn't have so much other things going on, I'd probably get into brewing. Maybe later. My free time is just so limited, and so is my space :-\

[Black & Tan TJ]

Tom where is the best place to buy equipment and get info on the craft beer home brewing? I guest they have contest around hear for the best tasting beer. Could be fun.

http://morebeer.com/about/retail

This is probably the best place and there's a store in Riverside. You can spend $$$ and/or fab some of the hardware. They have all to goodie there. Endless fun where one can get carried away or keep it simple. Go for it!

[Materdaddy]

Tom where is the best place to buy equipment and get info on the craft beer home brewing? I guest they have contest around hear for the best tasting beer. Could be fun.

Not to deter you or sound like I don't think you, personally, can compete, but competition is fierce. Most people winning brewing competitions have been brewing for years (upwards of 20+) and spend thousands on equipment and materials.

And time aside, good beer for a cheap price If I didn't have so much other things going on, I'd probably get into brewing. Maybe later. My free time is just so limited, and so is my space :-\

Depending on a number of factors, brewing beer isn't necessarily getting you "good beer for a cheap price". I have home brewed a couple times and not even counting the equipment (about $1000 initial investment between a few friends for good equipment) we spent about ~$40 per 5 gallon batch of beer. That seems cheap, but you are brewing for most of a day and your results (at least if you're new) might leave something to be desired.

After brewing a handful of times and drinking more and more variety of craft beers, I have come to the conclusion (for me) that I want to enjoy other people's hard work when it comes to beer. I also value beer differently now and "cheap" has changed.

[Black & Tan TJ]

Not to deter you or sound like I don't think you, personally, can compete, but competition is fierce. Most people winning brewing competitions have been brewing for years (upwards of 20+) and spend thousands on equipment and materials.
... ...

After brewing a handful of times and drinking more and more variety of craft beers, I have come to the conclusion (for me) that I want to enjoy other people's hard work....

Kill Joy

Daniel, I be doing a few batches soon, I do all grain brewing. I let you know when if you'd like to see the process. Nothing fancy just in the garage brewing.

Cheers!

(need to have some for IDTT)

[daniel_buck]

I'll take you up on that Tom! I remember you pointing out a few of the items when I was at your place a while back


Mat, I don't know how much he had invested in the setup (it's fairly small time) But what he gave me to drink was good. While it wasn't my style (it was a lager) but it wasn't bad at all. Certainly better than Budweiser or Miller. He's got a darker brew going right now, I can't wait to try that I kind of got the idea that after the initial purchase of the equipment, his on-going cost was fairly low. Most of the stuff that I saw didn't look to expensive, some plastic 5 gallon buckets for mixing things, a few gauges for temperature and weight, a large metal crawfish-boil type pot for boiling. I imagine that probably cost the most of everything, but I think he said that was given to him, so he didn't even buy that.

He's making his own cooling setup now, with copper pipes. Copper isn't cheap, but there wasn't a huge a mount of it. And he was fermenting in old cider jars, it looked like. Those are cheap, even if you buy them full of cider I didn't really see anything that was expensive? Maybe it just all adds up, lots of little things maybe. I know how that goes, haha

[Materdaddy]

I'll take you up on that Tom! I remember you pointing out a few of the items when I was at your place a while back

Mat, I don't know how much he had invested in the setup (it's fairly small time) But what he gave me to drink was good. While it wasn't my style (it was a lager) but it wasn't bad at all. Certainly better than Budweiser or Miller. He's got a darker brew going right now, I can't wait to try that I kind of got the idea that after the initial purchase of the equipment, his on-going cost was fairly low. Most of the stuff that I saw didn't look to expensive, some plastic 5 gallon buckets for mixing things, a few gauges for temperature and weight, a large metal crawfish-boil type pot for boiling. I imagine that probably cost the most of everything, but I think he said that was given to him, so he didn't even buy that.

He's making his own cooling setup now, with copper pipes. Copper isn't cheap, but there wasn't a huge a mount of it. And he was fermenting in old cider jars, it looked like. Those are cheap, even if you buy them full of cider I didn't really see anything that was expensive? Maybe it just all adds up, lots of little things maybe. I know how that goes, haha

No one thing is that expensive, and things can be done pretty cheap if that's your goal. One thing is that you can do malt extract brewing with less equipment and much less time. Good beer can still be made this way, although if you ever plan to scale, you'd want the all grain route.

I too was doing all grain like Tom. For that you need a little more equipment mash tun which consists of a container (we used a marine grade cooler) and a false bottom w/ valve or something to filter the malt. This is to make your malt. A lot of the money we have in equipment was in kegs, c02 & regulator, bottling, cleaning, hoses, etc.

Also, most people that home brew (depending on brew capacity) will ferment in glass carboys and you'll want 2 for 2 stage fermentation and filtering. Again, there are a hundred ways to do different steps, but the most common ones are what we were doing.

If your buddy brewed a lager he probably brewed it in the winter, had it ferment it in his house, or maybe has temperature controlled fermentation. Lagers ferment at a lower temperature than ales.

Definitely take Tom up on his offer. I actually want to see his setup and taste his beer. I know he drinks good beer when we're hanging out, so I'm sure his beer comes out pretty tasty as well.

Tom, I'm holding you to having some at IDTT. Save me a bottle of each style you brew!

[daniel_buck]

I believe my friend was doing malt extract, and bottle conditioning, so no Co2

Indeed, Tom has good choices of beer when I've been with him, we seem to have similar tastes, I've been enjoying the more bitter IPA beers recently. Stone brewery seems to be my favorite lately.

[Black & Tan TJ]

Tom has good choices of beer (the jury's in!). Stone brewery seems to be my favorite lately.

Search out Oskar Blues Brewery. They're in Co. and only use cans, my new fav.

Cheers!

[daniel_buck]

I've drank alot of Dales Pale Ale Haven't had any of there other brews though. Just haven't seen them anywhere.

[Materdaddy]

I get my fare share of Stone, especially since they opened a company store in Oceanside. Now it's even closer. I probably spent more than $500 on Stone beer last year between my regular "always on supply" stone IPA, special releases, anniversary parties, and the quingenti millilitre series.

I was even persistent enough to get some of the latest "Enjoy By" IPA while in Lake Tahoe last week since I was in the area they were distributing that batch. One of the better IPAs you'll enjoy...

My second favorite right now is probably a tie between Ballast Point, Port Brewing, and Firestone Walker. I'm looking forward to Bagby Beer in Oceanside. If you're unfamiliar with Jeff Bagby, read this: http://allaboutbeer.com/live-beer/pe...th-jeff-bagby/. Also, I've been going to Pizza Port Carlsbad nearly every Friday for the last 7 years.

Next MJR Meet & Greet we should drink some craft beer!

[daniel_buck]

I have really been enjoying the Smoked Porter from Stone, but for the last few months my local grocery store hasn't had any :-(

I'm tottally up for a beer meeting