Homebrewing Thread for KCW

[MacMullen]

This post is in reply to another post by KiltedCodeWarrior, as I didn't want to hijack the other thread with my reply. Anyone and everyone else should feel free to throw in their opinions or their own experiences.

As a home brewer myself, more wine lately than beer, I can understand your inspiration! Let us know how the stout comes out! Do you bottle or keg?

Do you make grape wines or fruit wines? I had some great apple-raspberry wine at the Burn's Supper a couple of weeks ago, made by the guy standing behind me in my Toast to the Lassies pic. Incidentally, his name is, actually, Guy.

KCW, what styles of beer have you brewed? Do you bottle or keg? How many gallons a year?

I bottle in 1 liter brown plastic bottles (formerly Frost Top root beer bottles). I did use a Party Pig until I, um, melted it. The instructions mean what they say when they tell you not put boiling water in it. It wasn't actually boiling, but it had been, a little too recently

Most recently I've been using the new 16 oz Coors Light bottles. They're great, plus, you get to empty them first. I recommend pouring the contents in a glass, rather than down the drain.

The thing about plastic bottles is that you never have to worry about breaking a bottle if you overprime it, and I usually finish drinking a batch of beer within a couple of months, so I don't worry about air penetrating the plastic bottle and spoiling the beer.

I've brewed my Irish Stout several times, and it has always been excellent. I use the Brewer's Best kit because, unless I do a full mash, I couldn't buy all of the ingredients separately for the same price. Lately I've been using White Labs liquid yeast, WLP004, Irish Ale, and then I recover the yeast at the end of fermentation and use it again for the next batch, which spreads out the added cost of the liquid yeast.

Stout is my favorite style of beer to drink, but it's too expensive to buy very often. Guinness around here costs roughly $17/gallon. My stout tastes every bit as good, if not better than Guinness, and it only costs me $6/gallon. If you like premium beers, especially imports, homebrewing is the way to go.

Here's the label for Stryker's Irish Stout:


You can check out the other beers that I've brewed on my Webpage Don't be afraid of the labels. Most of them incorporate pics of some of my friends, although, the Joel's Wretched labels truly live up to their name. My Cerveza and my Lawman's Lager are both high octane. A couple of those and you'll either go to sleep or start a fight.

Currently, I'm drinking my Hefeweizen until I get my Stout brewed and bottled. I would be ahead in my brewing, but the Burn's Supper put a dent in my supply.

Anyway, probably more info than you were looking for, but homebrewing has become one of my favorite hobbies (as if you couldn't tell).