Home Brew Beer Thread

a reply to: luthier

Thanks!

Yeah it's my understanding that the vinyl is an underlayment, right?

a reply to: wtbengineer

It is if you haven't laid the sheet rock yet. In that case you can build a proper sound proof room with the sound absorbing foam behind it then the vinyl, furring strips and then drywall. Sound treatment is still nice if you want to avoid the slap back. Especially if you have drums.

a reply to: luthier

Very helpful, thanks brother! No, not yet drywalled.

a reply to: eriktheawful

HA!! NEVER!! My college roommate and I decided to make beer once on advice from a fraternity brother. We had about half the instructions, but great desire!

Didn't have any money, so we scrounged most of the stuff. For the primary fermentation we used a 6 gallon pickle bucket we scrounged from McDonald's (one of the old green ones with the lids that took a tool to remove).

Everything was going perfectly. Cooked the wort, got everything in the fermentation vessel and it was off to the closet to ferment.

Long story short...one day I was upstairs and I hear this giant KA-BOOM!!...and then "S#!!!". I go downstairs to the kitchen and I can smell beer...beer everywhere! My roommate is sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor holding his eye, the entire kitchen was bathed in a heavy coat of beer. Beer dripping off the ceiling, off the light fixtures...beer everywhere!!! There's about 1" of beer on the floor (it took weeks to clean it all up too!! Smelled like stale beer for months!)

Well, in our haste we didn't put any kind of a vent on the fermentation vessel, and those old pickle buckets would contain a grenade with the lid on! My roommate had pulled the bucket out and lifted about three of the locking fingers on that lid and...KA-BLOOOEY!! Beer bomb!! Roommate got a nice shiner of a black eye too from the lid hitting him in the face.

Yeah...nothing can ever go wrong! LOLOLOLOL!!!!

Oh, and then there's the exploding beer bottles at 3am that jolt you awake thinking someone just tossed (another) brick through your window!~

Love making the stuff though. Got pretty good after a while. Haven't done it for years, but I still have all my stuff (an no McDonald's pickle buckets anymore). I should get back into it.

edit - I'll bet everyone who does it has some kind of a story like this too!

a reply to: wtbengineer

No problem. Happy wife happy life.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I had an air lock get clogged by a very active fermentation. It was seated well so when I checked there was foam coming out all portions. I grabbed another one, attached a length of beer hose, filled a milk jug 1/2 full with water, air lock back on, other end of hose in the jug, home made air lock that allows for foam out!

Beer bomb is a better story!!

a reply to: luthier

Yes, I try very hard to live by those words!

a reply to: luthier
But the more important thing is they didn't die from drinking the water.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Awesome story! I had a similar experience but with root beer and creme soda. Luckily, it was all in my laundry room so the mess was somewhat contained.

Durango weed beer is a trip.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
edit - I'll bet everyone who does it has some kind of a story like this too!

I think so too. Your story was great! I am glad that your roommate only got a black eye, it could have been worse but now the whole thing is kind of funny.

DB, I figured out the other author: Dave Miller

It is, The Complete Handbook of Homebrewing, and takes you from kit to DIY grain brewing. Lots of illustrations and tips. Lots of science too.

The book is a bit dated but like anything else having another source will give you more confidence as you get started.

One thing he points out is that a brew kit does not have everything you are going to need.

A scale is good investment. Your are going to be measuring out hops so it will need to do ounces. You are also going to be measuring up to a pound of specialty grain so it should be able to do over a pound.

Glass measuring cups are also a must. I use a couple of the Pyrex ones. One is the large 4 cup and the other is the standard one cup. Glass will last longer as long as you don't break them. Plastic scratches too easy and does not handle hot liquid very well. Again, these are only used for brewing beer.

Sanitizer is a personal choice! I find that TSP takes too long to dissolve (like putting sugar in iced tea, it just sits there). You can use bleach but only use the unscented stuff! Bleach also needs a lot of rinsing for my taste. The one I found was at the homebrew store: iodophor. It is an iodine solution in concentration (like used during surgery) which you dilute in water. Warning: it does turn your plastic items brown! Say you are going to sterilize your fermenter, as you are filling it up with water, add the amount specified (it varies by concentration) by the amount of water, wait ten minutes and rinse.

Hope Santa gives you a wonderful Christmas present!

Well???? We're waiting!

* taps foot *



(Hope Santa was kind to you!)

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
Well???? We're waiting!

* taps foot *

(Hope Santa was kind to you!)

Santa was not kind.



The isea was shot down by a higher authority.

Yeah, the bride.


But as a small consolation, she got me a 3 litre keg to age some scotch in.

a reply to: DBCowboy

D'oh!!

It is waaaaaaayyyyy easier to make beer than to distill scotch!

From I have read, you are going to have to kick the scotch up a notch (poet and didn't know it). It sounds crazy but listen.

Once a whiskey, bourbon, or scotch gets put in a bottle, that is it; no more aging will take place. To get some of the flavor of the wood out you will need to add some high-octane alcohol, like the real deal Everclear. Bourbon (applies to all) sits on a barrel for years at a high octane (like 130 proof or something ungodly like that). It seeps into the wood and evaporates out (the angels share, as it is called). Once deemed ready, it is watered down to 80- or 100-proof. That is the general idea of how it is made which means you might have to spike your scotch with a neutral grain spirit and leave it there for a while.

I've always wanted to try that myself: barrel aged *whatever*

Sounds like an adventure!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Since there's a thread on the main page about beer I thought I'd resurrect this thread.

I have a similar story to yours except on a much larger scale. At the last brewery I worked at I was dry hopping 40 BBLs of IPA. Apparently there was still a fair bit of CO2 in suspension however because next thing I know the fermenter has turned into a beer geyser with me holding on for dear life 30 feet up at ground zero. I don't think I will ever be that sticky again.