Brewing Beer on a Budget?!
Answers: Im looking for suggestions/tips on homebrewing beer(lager) on a very tight budget. No money for a hi-tech setup, just something basic. Im very interested in doing this as a hobby, if anyone can provide any information, recipes, ingredients, or tips ide deeply appreciate it, especially referring to a home setup
Marc G is close.
Forget the water cooler and airlock. Just go to a hardware store. They should have 5 gallon buckets with plastic lids (with rubber seals, that is important...well, important enough). If you want to go cheap, you don't need the seal, just a lid to cover will work as long as you don't let it sit for over a few weeks. If you want to use an Airlock, just drill a hole in the lid, and stick some plastic tubing in it, seal it with silicon, and stick the other end in a cup of water. Home-made airlock. simple, cheap. For a fermenter, lid, and piece of tubing and silicon, you'll spend around $10 at most hardware stores. Much cheaper than buying a $60 basic fermenting kit from a homebrew store.
Make sure to sanitize stuff well so you don't make swill. Cheapest way to do this is use a dilute bleach solution, bleach is cheap, and then rinse it really well with tap water.
Then make sure you have a big pot and boil your extract and hops and dilute it down and ferment it with dry yeast.
Thats the way I got started. Also, check out the website below on making simple brew.
Pick up a book called The Alaskan Bootleggers Bible. It has info on making all the equptment you need to make beer wine and spirits plus lots of recipies.
http://www.happymountain.net/index.html
Get this book: http://www.amazon.com/New-Complete-Joy-H...
It tells you everything you need to know including multiple recipes. He even has advise on making equipment.
Homebrewing needs some special parts. Otherwise during fermentation your beer will just spoil.
Get a simple homebrew kit, the main tools you need are the fermenters with the airlock.
Don't want to skimp on the ingredients if you want to have a good brew. Check out http://www.beertools.com/ for recipes, sure you'll find something good there.
Hmmm.... This is a rather expensive time to get into beer brewing because of the current hop shortage. I honestly have never brewed a lager, and don't know much about them. However, I have some advice for the beginning brewer as I have just started myself.
For five gallons of beer...
Get a 5 gallon spring "water cooler" bottle (the fermenter).
Order a fermentation or air lock (or pick one up at the local home-brew store).. these are cheap, you could probably make it yourself if you're DIY. This keeps air from getting into your brew while it's fermenting but allows air to escape (some ghetto rigging roommate uses balloons with holes poked into them).
Let's assume you already have some kind of big pot for spaghetti, that may be good enough for boiling the wort (beer before it has finished fermenting).
Most beginners start with an extract brew.
Beer is essentially...
malt barley (sugars or fermentables)-extracts of this can be bought in both dry and liquid form,
yeast (convert sugar into alcohol)- don't be intimidated by dry ale yeasts packets they are cheaper but exist in fewer varieties than the liquid wyeast smack-pack pure cultures,
lastly you'll need water (tap water is fine).
You can add hops (for bittering and flavor) if you want to, technically (and flavor-wise) it might not be "beer" until you do, but it will still have alcohol!
If you want to know exactly how much alcohol is in your beer you'll need a hydrometer (get the one with the thermometer on it- as this comes in handy when deciding to pitch the yeast). This instrument measures specific gravity or else you can just leave it in God's hands and judge with your tongue.
If you want to try your hand at brewing why don't you try some simple experiments first. I'm brewing mead right now and it only cost me $20 to brew 5 gallons of 12% ABV mead.
the very least you'll need for a mead (honey wine) is a fermenter, 10 lbs of honey, 5 gallons of water, champagne yeast, and a fermentation lock. You can scale this recipe down, I'd try doing just a gallon first.
Some advice, pay the money and buy a good kit from Northern Brewer that comes with the brewpot and all the other stuff that you need. I have easily spent twice as much buying all those items individually. It's worth it if you're going to take brewing seriously.
Hope this heps get you started.
go shopping at wilkinsons they have a good cheap range of home brew equipment and kits. http://www.wilkinsonplus.com/page/home
You can buy the equipment and supplies for about $100USD and follow it with supplies for $20-30 per batch. Each batch will yield about 5 gallons. Alternatively, you can pick up used equipment fairly cheaply, if you shop around.
I suggest starting with a purchase of Papazian's book New Complete Guide to Homebrewing. That will describe what you want to do and what you need to do it. The recipes are mostly good ones. Another good book is Brew Ware. It describes how to make a lot of your own equipment. Check it out at your library before buying your own copy.
Your best bet is to go to your local homebrew shop. you can eith buy a beginners kit, or select your pieces. I started with about a hundred dollars for the equipment, and 42.00 for the ingredients. There is a web site that you can go to to find an online book that covers everythng from beginning brewing to advanced production brewing, and best thing is it's free. I don't remember the site but I'll try to find it for you.
As for equipment, you'll find that you already have alot of what you'll need around the house. (If you're married ask your wife before using any of the good pots and pans in the kitchen, or anything else you might find useful around the house matter)
18-20 quart canning or stainless stock pot(Not your wife's good one that used to belong to grandmother)
5 gallon fermentor bucket with lid (Get one from the brew shop)
long handled plastic spoon(any local store will carry them in the kitchen isle)
3 peice airlock
drilled rubber stopper(one that fits the hole in you bucket lid)
Hydrometer (you will need it to test the starting and final gravity of your beer)
stainless steel mesh or narrow slotted plastic strainer
an Autosiphon
8 feet of food grade rubber hose cut intwo 4 feet sections ( brew shops carry it)
Bottling bucket
about 40 nontwist-off top bottles
bottle caps
bottle capper
small sauce pan ( for sterilizing bottle caps )
a bottle of idophor ( for sanitizing your equipment)
4-5 towels, you'll figure out why after your first boil over (note: not the good one your wife actually cares about, go to good will and pick up about ten for two bucks)
Anything else you can just ask the guys at the brew shop for their advice, and most do carry beginners kits for anywhere from $100 to $150 . Most of them are home brewers themselves. Yes their trying to make a living too but they understand brewing on a budget and would rather you walk out their door with the most basic nessesities and happily on your way to brewing than frustrated and empty handed. Not to mention that you'll probablly come back when you want something else. On top of that they'll also probablly be more that willing to set you up with a good beginnners recipe, or pre-made beer kit. Just remember to go in there with a good Idea of what you want but still willing to listen.