poutanen

Here's the kit my neighbours got me. No idea about the gluten...

Beer Making Kit: Everyday IPA - Beer Making Kits - Store

That ended up making 6-500 ml bottles, took a few hours the first night to prepare the wort. Then two weeks to ferment, an hour one night to bottle, and another two weeks to carbonate.

So total time is 4-5 weeks or so, with about 4 hours of that being work. Probably a lot less than 4 hours once you know what you're doing.

Would I do it again? In a second... It was really fun. My first thought as I was drinking it was "THIS IS BEER!!!" I don't know why I was expecting something different. But it's beer, different than anything I've bought in the store before, but that's okay. I suppose as you get more into it one of the cool things is you know 100% what's in the beer you're drinking.

tigre

Cool!

Yeah, for sure. A lot of my beers are basic recipes (pale ales, brown ales, porters) with other flavors added, usually when I transfer to secondary or at kegging/bottling. I should work on more styles, though. I'd love to be able to do Belgians. And meads. I have a friend who does great meads, but the only one I've tried (a raspberry mead) tasted like cough syrup. It's the only bad thing I've brewed.

It's so much easier than bottling. You only have one container to clean and sanitize, instead of dozens. And no capping! We're just using our old fridge with plastic picnic taps for now. It's pretty easy to setup, you just need the CO2 tank + regulator, a manifold to split the gas to multiple kegs, and hoses, quick connects, and taps. If you use a freezer you need a temperature controller, too. We're going to go to a chest freezer and get a couple more kegs (six beers on tap sounds about right, right?) and then mount all the taps right. Maybe fancy it up with wood paneling.

Yay!

tigre

Behold: Gluten Free Brewing - Home Brew Forums

Do you have a homebrew shop nearby? They'll have everything you need and should be able to get you set up. You don't need that much to start brewing standard 5-gallon batches. A big stainless pot, a plastic fermentation bucket/airlock setup, bottles and a capper is the majority of it. You can get a lot fancier, but you don't have to. I can brew an extract recipe, including steeping specialty grains (which isn't required), from start to cleanup in two hours. Bottling day is another two hours or so. It'll probably take longer when you first start.

For anyone starting out, I'd recommend getting this book: The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Third Edition: Charles Papazian: 9780060531058: Amazon.com: Books.

MccBeth

so... is figuring out different flavors something that is explained when you buy your first "yaaay you're making your own beer" kit, or mostly what you have learned on your own.

i have to assume my experiences will probably be different. i'm going to have to experiment a lot to get what i used to love... amber to dark.

i won't be able to use wheat or malt... so besides those ingredients... what have you used for flavoring? and if it isn't mentioned (or is and you prefer a different way) in the instruction manual to brewing, what do you prefer?

MccBeth

you're awesome

i will definitely look more into this! i'm so excited haha

tigre

I just throw whatever I want in there. If it seems like it would taste good, I'll give it a go. To me, that's a lot of the point of homebrewing. There are lots of good beers out there, but I can make stuff that I can't buy. I've made beer with walnut extract (soak nuts in vodka, don't just put them in the beer), spruce tips, ginger and lemongrass, toasted hickory chips, cinnamon, chocolate, and so on. Next up is a Kona coffee stout.

Read the forum I posted. I'm not up on gluten-free brewing (though I've been thinking about making some for my dad-in-law, who's celiac), but it looks like there are plenty of recipes in there for you. That's a good forum, too. If you have questions, just ask. Read a bit about basic brewing first though, so the recipes will make more sense. In addition to the book I posted before, this one is good too (there's a newer version, but for basic stuff this one works well and is free!): How to Brew - By John Palmer

MccBeth

kona coffee stout sounds so good! if i don't have coffee within 20 minutes of waking up, i'm a raging bitch! unless i'm going boarding haha.

i now have both links bookmarked, thank you! about to do more research to finally start my own brew

Beeb

Snowboarders brewing, like it! I'm English so not used kegs yet, but probably will after the move to Colorado. Just cask brews with top fermenting yeasts and bottle off half of it. And I like my beer cold!

Brewing is fun, experimenting with ingredients and altering when you add stuff to the boil (or after) changes things a lot. I've had OK results with coffee. Does add some bitterness. Are you adding fresh grounds in a bag or just adding strong brewed coffee to the wort? Either way boiling water with it should kill the nasties. I found adding coffee too early gives a tobacco flavour which isn't good at all!

BoardWalk

Waiting to taste the results is the hardest part. Truthfully the only undrinkable beers I've made or tasted were the ones where sanitization was an issue.

boarderaholic

BeerAdvocate - Respect Beer. One of my favourite beer sites to date, and I'm fairly certain their forums can answer brewing questions as well. Also, sort-of not relevant to the topic at hand, but check out www.untappd.com. It's a fun website that keeps track of the beers you've drank, including homebrews and you can unlocked badges and stuff. I'm on it as "scoobaroo"