Thinking of home brewing

The 13er we are making just about blew a hole through his ceiling with the first night fermentation. You have to think that 13 is approaching the theoretical maximum without distillation or fortification.

Oh, and I'm deeply jealous of folks with kegging units. If you could test me now I'd be right at about 102 IBU's.

I'm planning on picking up a kegging system soon - nice to see what people are doing. I just haven't decided if I want to buy a system outright (expensive) or buy a fridge and drill some holes.

Paleocon wrote:

The 13er we are making just about blew a hole through his ceiling with the first night fermentation. You have to think that 13 is approaching the theoretical maximum without distillation or fortification.

Oh, and I'm deeply jealous of folks with kegging units. If you could test me now I'd be right at about 102 IBU's.

I'm doing a Pliny Clone this weekend... 'nuff said.

DrunkenSleipnir wrote:

I'm planning on picking up a kegging system soon - nice to see what people are doing. I just haven't decided if I want to buy a system outright (expensive) or buy a fridge and drill some holes.

I'm not going to steer you either way.. but drilling a fridge is so easy. It literally took me an hour to install two faucets, and run my CO2 line through the side.

Kegging is kind of finicky, but if you like that sort of thing it's fun. It's probably my favorite brewing upgrade since I started. I HATE bottling, and SWMBO really likes the lack of bottles lying around.

I agree with the other commenters--drilling a fridge is easy.

IMAGE(http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d133/Salvaje1/fridge.jpg)

I keep two homebrews and one commercial "guest" beer on tap. The guest beer at the moment is a lovely 7.2% Founder's I.P.A.

You guys must drink a lot of beer to have multiples on tap /jealous

carrotpanic wrote:

You guys must drink a lot of beer to have multiples on tap /jealous

Yep.. not to mention I always seem to have a lot more visitors since installing my kegs.

It's weird.. the kegs seem to be leaking...

What's a good 1 gallon kit?

Dirt wrote:

What's a good 1 gallon kit?

1 gallon? Why would you bother? 5 is about the smallest I would consider.

Dirt wrote:

What's a good 1 gallon kit?

I would recommend brewing 5 gallon batches. That's pretty much the standard. I would imagine it would be nearly impossible to have a "good" 1 gallon kit.

I've plugged them before, but I get most of my hardware from morebeer.com. I think five gallons is a good starter size. One gallon doesn't seem to be worth the time or effort.
On the subject of kegging, my wife just got me this and a small fridge for my birthday

Phishposer wrote:

I've plugged them before, but I get most of my hardware from morebeer.com. I think five gallons is a good starter size. One gallon doesn't seem to be worth the time or effort.
On the subject of kegging, my wife just got me this and a small fridge for my birthday :)

Nice. I have 4 corny's.. and am already wanting more

carrotpanic wrote:

You guys must drink a lot of beer to have multiples on tap /jealous

Not that much, really. Unless I have a party, each keg will last several months (no problem when they're under CO2). That means I only end up brewing 10-gallon all grain batches 3-4 times a year. My other fermentation experiments (mead, dandelion wine, persimmon beer, etc.) usually end up going into bottles.

1 gallon for space. And time. Mostly space.

Dirt wrote:

1 gallon for space. And time. Mostly space.

It won't save you much space.

Paleocon wrote:
Dirt wrote:

1 gallon for space. And time. Mostly space.

It won't save you much space.

Or much time. It might take a little less time for 1 gallon of beer to boil, but it still has to boil for the same amount of time.

Dirt wrote:

1 gallon for space. And time. Mostly space.

Make room for the 5 gallon bucket, seriously. To a certain extent the higher the volume of liquid the more you can mangle the ingredients or timing yet still obtain an acceptable result. Brewing beer is a lot like maintaining a fish tank in this respect, it's a LOT harder to maintain the microbiological balance of a 1 gallon fish tank than it is a 5 or 10 gallon one. Wort has the same kind of biological action going on inside it, and the more of it you have the hardier it will be when the temperature fluctuates or you don't get a measurement quite right etc.

A 6 gallon bucket takes up very little space and the "brewing" process from start to finish will take almost exactly the same amount of time.

Those kegerator pics are making me seriously thirsty jealous.

I'm curious to see how it all fits together on the inside, though -- especially those with multiple canisters. Any chance one of you fine upstanding gentlemen would be willing to post an inside shot?

merphle wrote:

Those kegerator pics are making me seriously thirsty jealous.

I'm curious to see how it all fits together on the inside, though -- especially those with multiple canisters. Any chance one of you fine upstanding gentlemen would be willing to post an inside shot?

I second this. I'm seriously considering buying a fridge and tap sized bit for a pneumatic drill. Just need some ideas

merphle wrote:

Those kegerator pics are making me seriously thirsty jealous.

I'm curious to see how it all fits together on the inside, though -- especially those with multiple canisters. Any chance one of you fine upstanding gentlemen would be willing to post an inside shot?

I'll try and take some pics this weekend for ya. It's ugly.. but it's what's outside that counts

DrunkenSleipnir wrote:
merphle wrote:

Those kegerator pics are making me seriously thirsty jealous.

I'm curious to see how it all fits together on the inside, though -- especially those with multiple canisters. Any chance one of you fine upstanding gentlemen would be willing to post an inside shot?

I second this. I'm seriously considering buying a fridge and tap sized bit for a pneumatic drill. Just need some ideas :)

I just used a regular drill with a metal 1" hole saw. Went through like butter. The shank covers up any imperfections around the hole.

I know there are folks out there with "houses" and "basements" or "garages" with "second refrigerators" and "more than two rooms in their home," but that extra .7 cubic feet is meaningful to the rest of us.

On the other hand, I don't know what my building's rules are about things like home brewing.

wordsmythe wrote:

I know there are folks out there with "houses" and "basements" or "garages" with "second refrigerators" and "more than two rooms in their home," but that extra .7 cubic feet is meaningful to the rest of us.

On the other hand, I don't know what my building's rules are about things like home brewing.

Why would they have rules about it? It's the same thing as making a giant vat of tea.

merphle wrote:

Those kegerator pics are making me seriously thirsty jealous.

I'm curious to see how it all fits together on the inside, though -- especially those with multiple canisters. Any chance one of you fine upstanding gentlemen would be willing to post an inside shot?

No problem. There's a single gas line coming in, connected to a three-way manifold (upper left corner):

IMAGE(http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d133/Salvaje1/IMG-20110310-00011.jpg)

From manifold, the lines connect to the keg In fittings (two homebrew ball-lock connectors, one commercial connector).

From the keg Out fittings, the lines go to the taps:

IMAGE(http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d133/Salvaje1/IMG-20110310-00009.jpg)

wordsmythe wrote:

I know there are folks out there with "houses" and "basements" or "garages" with "second refrigerators" and "more than two rooms in their home," but that extra .7 cubic feet is meaningful to the rest of us.

On the other hand, I don't know what my building's rules are about things like home brewing.

If your living arrangements are really that tight, you need to move out of the shelter.

You can do a good amount of bottle aged beer with a small kitchen, a decent sized stock pot, and a closet to let them ferment in.

conejote wrote:

No problem. There's a single gas line coming in, connected to a three-way manifold (upper left corner):

Thanks! I don't currently homebrew, but this thread (and a good friend who does) is really tempting me, and those awesome DIY kegerator shots are piling the temptation up really high.

merphle wrote:
conejote wrote:

No problem. There's a single gas line coming in, connected to a three-way manifold (upper left corner):

Thanks! I don't currently homebrew, but this thread (and a good friend who does) is really tempting me, and those awesome DIY kegerator shots are piling the temptation up really high.

One of us! One of us! One of us!

KrazyTacoFO wrote:
merphle wrote:
conejote wrote:

No problem. There's a single gas line coming in, connected to a three-way manifold (upper left corner):

Thanks! I don't currently homebrew, but this thread (and a good friend who does) is really tempting me, and those awesome DIY kegerator shots are piling the temptation up really high.

One of us! One of us! One of us!

Ya'll are dirty, filthy enablers. So question: Anyone done anything with root beer? I'm not much into the alcoholic stuff, but I'm a sucker for good root beer, and DIY makes it all the better.

KrazyTacoFO wrote:
merphle wrote:
conejote wrote:

No problem. There's a single gas line coming in, connected to a three-way manifold (upper left corner):

Thanks! I don't currently homebrew, but this thread (and a good friend who does) is really tempting me, and those awesome DIY kegerator shots are piling the temptation up really high.

One of us! One of us! One of us!

Gooble, gobble, gooble, gobble. We will make you one of us!