Give The Gift Of Home Beer Brewing! #homebrew #homebrewing #gift #beer #brewing #kits

With the Holidays upon us and people scrambling to find the perfect gift, tis the season to give the gift of home beer brewing! 

A beer brewing kit is one of those gifts that any beer fan is thrilled to receive! Not only does it provide the recipient with a batch of their very own home brewed beer to enjoy, it also educates them on the beer brewing process! With one of these home beer making kits, you actually produce beer similarly to how current craft breweries make beer; only on a smaller scale.  You doing everything from boil wort and add hops additions to pitch yeast and ferment your beer!

Over the last several years, home beer brewing has really surged in popularity and there are several options out there for home brewing kits.  There are a few things to consider when picking the perfect beer making kit.

1 Batch Size: Most beginner home beer making kits will come in either a 1 gallon or 5 gallon size.  The 1 gallon kits are typically less expensive, but if you can afford the 5 gallon kits, I highly recommend them.  I know 1 gallon of beer sounds like a lot, but it is only about 8 glasses of beer and will go very quickly if shared with friends!  A 5 gallon kit is only about twice the cost of the 1 gallon kits, so it is a much better value.

2 What Does The Kit Include: There are few things more frustraiting  than brewing your batch of beer and then at the very end realizing that you are missing a critical item and your beer is ruined! So make sure that you purchase a complete kit, so home beer brewing kits do not even include the beer ingredients or yeast!

3 Cost: It is easy to spend way to much for a home beer brewing kit, especially when brewing kettles and shipping charges come in to play. I have listed 3 kits that are a great price, include everything needed to start brewing a batch of beer and ship free when the order is $59 or higher!

Home Beer Brewing Kit #1

This is the home beer brewing kit that I would recommend if you are on a tight budget or only want to brew 1 gallon beer batches.  With this kit, you will need to supply the brew kettle, but just about any large kitchen pot will do the trick! Click Here to purchase this home made beer brewing kit.

Home Beer Brewing Kit #homebrew #homebrewer #homebrewing

Home Beer Brewing Kit #2

This is the best deal out there for a 5 gallon home beer brewing kit, especially when you consider that it ships for free, comes with a 5 gallon stainless steel brewing kettle and a beer ingredient kit! Click Here to purchase this 5 gallon beer brewing kit.

5 Gallon Home Beer Brewing Kit

Home Beer Brewing Kit #3

Lastly is a premium home beer brewing kit that comes with some advanced home brewing items including a copper wort chiller and upgraded 8.5 gallon stainless steel brewing kettle with a valve. This is a fantastic home brewing kit to get started with!  Click here to purchase this home brewing kit.

Premium Home Beer Brewing Kit

If you have any questions on home brewing or need any advice, please feel free to reach out to me, I am always happy yo help when I can.

Home beer brewery setup

This weekend I brewed up a batch of Coffee Milk Stout.  If it turns out well, I will be sure to post the recipe for it.  It should ride that line in between stout and imperial stout.  I also chose to diminish the hop profile on it a bit so that the coffee flavors could be showcased on this batch.  I am also going to try adding a cold brewed coffee concentrate to the fermenter after about a week instead of adding coffee beans to the fermenter.  Fingers crossed that this will turn out well!

Guide on how to convert an old refrigerator in to a kegerator #kegerator #guide #howto #DIY

For the last several years, I have been using a boring old white refrigerator to store my kegs. Originally when it came time to purchase one, I was just looking for the best deal out there on a refrigerator that could keep my homebrew cold. I have been serving my beer from picnic \ cobra taps that sit lose on top of the kegs in my fridge. A couple of weeks ago I decided to take the keg fridge to the next level and convert it to a full fledged Kegerator with for taps to accommodate all of my kegs. After ordering the beer tap hardware at MoreBeer and taking a trip to the local hardware supply shop, I had everything that I needed to begin my work.

My goal for this homebrewing blog entry is to list out all of the basics of what you will need to conduct the process yourself but I am sure to miss something and if you need any specifics please feel free to ask; I am happy to help if I can.  Please keep in mind that I am not a carpenter, engineer or machinist; so there are probably 10 better ways of doing this, I am just trying to share my experience in case it helps someone else out.

Step 1 – Ordering your gear!
I figured that if I am going to take the time to do this project, I was going to do it right!  Recently MoreBeer started to carry Intertap stainless steel beer facuets – tap, which are basically the Holy Grail of beer taps and the best beer faucets currently available!

 

Intertap Stainless Steel Beer Faucets, Shanks and Beer Taps! #intertap #beer #taps #faucets #stainless #steel

I chose these intertap beer faucets for a few different reasons.  For one, they offered an all stainless steel faucets which is important to me because I want it to last, I want my homebrew beer serving to be as sanitary as possbile and I do not want to be worrying about releasing strange metallic particulates in to my beer like I do when using an old chrome tap that erodes after time. Another great thing about  these Intertap beer faucets is that they are forward sealing and with forward-sealing faucets the faucet keeps beer in it so the inside doesn’t have a chance to get sticky. This makes cleaning your draft beer system far easier. It also reduces the chance of off flavors transferring to your beer while you are pouring. One of the things that sets Intertap beer taps apart from other forward sealing beer taps is that Intertap faucets use a sliding shuttle that guides the internal o-ring into the perfect position every time. The Intertap stainless steel faucets are also modularly designed  allowing you to add helpful items like a ball lock spout, stainless steel growler filling spout and an elongated stout beer spout! They have two varieties of beer faucets in all stainless and 1 features a flow control lever.  I ended up getting one of the stainless steel flow control beer faucet and three of the standard stainless steel beer faucets.

MoreBeer has the best price I have found for Intertap Faucets and they also offer free shipping on any home brewing equipment or supply orders over $59.  Here are links to them as well as links to the anti-microbial beer line which I also highly recommend. Do not forget to pick a shank for each beer faucet, I got the 4″ shanks and they have me plenty of extra room to run them into my refrigerator door.

Intertap Forward Sealing Stainless Steel Beer Faucet

Intertap Forward Sealing Stainless Steel Beer Faucet with Flow Control

Intertap Stainless Steel Beer Faucet and Beer Tap Shanks

Ultra Barrier  Antimicrobial and PVC Free Beer Tubing

West Coast Brewer Beer Tap Handles

For now, I am using chalkboard tap handles, which make it convenient to remind me which beer is on which which tap in case I consume a few too many and can no longer remember. At some point I would like to design a handle for each one of my home brewed beer that I make;  but for now, these look great and are very functional tap handles.  They come in both chalkboard style tap handles and white board dry erase tap handles:

Chalkboard Beer Tap Handles

Whiteboard Dry Erase Tap Handles

Depending on what draft beer equipment you are starting with or if you have anything at all for that matter, there may be a few other items that you want to pick up, such as a CO2 manifold (which permits you to dispence CO2 to multiple beer kegs from one tank or regulator), homebrewing beer kegs, a CO2 Tank and regulator. Here is a link to a great place to start if your are looking for an entire draft beer setup or just random draft beer and keg items:

Draft Beer and Keg Equipment

Those were the items that I picked up at MoreBeer, the remaining items I purchased at my local Lowes. I purchased 1 box of Stainmaster Vinyl flooring, which is great because it is resistant to liquid and stains; two things you need to consider when building your kegerator. Normal wood flooring does not do well with moisture so I would recommend avoiding it if possible.

I also picked up a small container of vinyl flooring adhesive, a plastic spreading knife, a razor blade cutting knife (to cut the vinyl flooring), a 1″ drill bill to cut the shank holes for the beer taps, chalkboard spray paint (for the refrigerator upper door), a 3″ wide plank of wood (to make a frame for the upper door), some wood stain to match the vinyl flooring, black duct tape for trim and a brushed aluminum kick plate to put on over the vinyl but under the beer faucets and tap handles.

Once you have all of your supplies in hand, it is time to get to work!  I started off my shutting off the refrigerator and giving it a good cleaning. Next I removed both of the refrigerator doors and all of the handles and hardware from the doors. I then sanded the refrigerator doors with a high grit sandpaper to make them more receptive to the vinyl adhesive and chalkboard spray paint. I did not remove all the paint but instead just roughed them up a bit. I then measured and cut the flooring so that it would fit my refrigerator door.  After making all of the needed cuts, I applied the adhesive to the lower refrigerator door. I waited approximately 10 minutes as per the instructions for my adhesive and began to put the vinyl planks in place. I tried my best to mix the planks up a bit so that it did not look to repetitive as can be the case with synthetic flooring.

These Stainmaster vinyl flooring planks were very easy to install. They locked in to place with one another crating a strong bond. After placing all of the vinyl wood planks, I put pressed down on each of the planks firmly and then set it to the side to allow it to dry.  Next I began work on painting the upper door, building the wood frame and preparing the mash paddle door handle for the kegerator.

After giving it a little thought, I figured that I would paint the upper door with a chalkboard spray paint. I was hoping it would add some contrast to the kegerator doors and would also give me the option of adding some notes about the beer being served or allow me to change the appearance of the fridge easily by modifying the drawing on the board. Painting the door was very easy and I gave it two coats of paint.

After the upper kegerator door was painted, I began my work on creating a simple frame to give it a border and add some cohesion with the rest of the kegerator. I searched for the cheapest 3″ wide plank I could find at Lowes and had them cut it to the appropriate sized lengths which they are always kind enough to do at no cost. I joined the pieces together with some wood glue and staples. I was going for a rustic look so was not too concerned with any rough edges or the staples showing. I sealed some of the gaps with putty, sanded it down a bit and then stained the wood. Lastly I applied a clear acrylic coat once the stain had dried.

Next up was crating a door handle for my homebrew kegerator.  I wanted a door handle that said beer and homebrewing when you looked at it! So I decided to use an old mash paddle that I had hanging around the garage. I am really pleased with how it worked out, it is very functional and has the look and feel that I desired for my kegerator. I started by staining the mash paddle to a color that would contrast the wood on the doors but compliment the beer tap handles. I then drilled the mounting holes and used a wine cork as a spacer so that the top of the handle would have about an inch of gap between the kegerator door to make it more easy to open. I used a heavy stainless steel bolt to mount the top of the handle so that it would not pull off the door if one of my buddies starts lifting weights and pull the door open too hard.

Once the kegerator door handle was completed I mounted the doors back on the kegerator after I had verified that the flooring had adhered well enough and the paint had dried. Next I installed the brushed aluminum kick plate to the lower door after measuring it and cutting the excess metal off with a pair of tin snips. I placed the kick plate in the center of the area where I was planning on installing my stainless steel beer taps. I simply drilled it in with screws that would be long enough length to make it into the door but not so long as to pass in to the interior of the kegerator.

Once the kick plate was installed, it was time to position and install the frame for the upper kegerator door. I drilled some pilot holes and affixed the frame to the upper door with 4 screws. I then mounted the mash paddle kegerator door handle and applied some vinyl squid decals that I picked up online to add a little something different to the kegerator. It was then time to install the beer tap shanks! I drilled pilot holes and used my 1″ drill bit to cut the 4 holes for the stainless steel Intertap tap shanks.  If I had this part of the process to do over again, I think I would have switched drill bits to a 1″ saw style drill bit as I think the holes would have been a little cleaner. On one of the holes that I drilled, some of the plastic splintered on the inside of the kegerator.  It was not a big deal, but could have been better.

If you are like me and do not have room to fit your CO2 tank in your kegerator and or do not want to store your CO2 tank in the kegerator then you will need to drill a hole in the door to pass the CO2 line.  I did so with a 1/4″ stainless steel pipe and brass fittings. It works well and makes it easy to disconnect from the kegerator door if needed. Eventually I am also going to drill 3 additional holes so that I can connect my SS BrewTech conical fermenter chilling system; but that is for a later homebrewing blog!

if you are reading this while you are building your own kegerator, at this point all of the hard work is behind you and you are probably ready for a beer! Next clean up the mess that you have certainly created from drilling in to vinyl and styrofoam. Then slide the shanks in to the holes and tighten down the bolts on the inside of the homebrew kegerator.  Once the stainless steel tap shanks are tightened in to place, you can install the beer taps – faucets on to the front of your kegerator. They make an actual wrench specifically for doing this but if you do not have one, you can simply hand tighten them. Next, attach your beer tap handles.  All that is left is to connect the kegs, test for leaks and you are ready to enjoy a nice cold beer!

I really enjoyed this project and my hope is that some of this information will help a fellow home brewer or beer lover. If you have any questions or suggestions about converting a beer fridge in to a kegerator, please feel free to shoot me an email or leave a comment on the blog.

Pliny the Elder All Grain Homebrewing Recipe

For anyone who is interested in brewing an all grain homebrew batch of Pliny the Elder, I have posted the recipe that I brew.  It is a great recipe and tribute to one of the most famous and hard to get Double IPA’s out there. In fact it is so hop packed that this home brewing recipe even calls for a hop addition to the mash!

Click here to view the Pliny the Elder Homebrewing Recipe

Digital Homebrewing System and Brew Rig

Great news homebrewers, MoreBeer just released a follow up to their popular line of Homebrewing Brew Sculptures and HomeBrew Rigs! They are bringing homebrewing into the future and to a whole new level with a digital touch screen interface for they Low Rider homebrewing stand that lets you control almost every aspect of your brew session.

They are calling this new digital, stainless steel homebrewing system the Low Rider! The Low Rider is their new top of the line Single Tier Brew Sculpture. Since this brew system is low to the ground with all of the brew kettles at the same height, it allows you to access each kettle without the need for a step stool.  That is one of the reasons why these stainless steel homebrewing systems are popular pilot systems for  breweries like Russian River and Sierra Nevada.

So what makes this new homebrewing rig better than the other brew rigs out there? Quite simply, they are loaded with features and are super reliable!  Also, these home brew systems are built in the USA by MoreBeer and include free shipping.  Free shipping is a big deal when it comes to a homebrewing setup like this because it can cost several hundred dollars in freight charges to ship a setup like this! Following is a list of features included with this new MoreBeer.com homebrewing rig:

• 304 Food Grade Stainless Steel Stand

• 304 stainless steel brew kettles with welded fittings, notched lids included

• High temp march pumps, heat resistant food grade silicone tubing and specially designed stainless steel quick disconnects all come standard

• Includes a More Beer Ultimate Sparge Arm, which is one of the best sparge systems available in home brewing.  The mash tun has a perforated stainless mash screen that is reinforced for use with pump recirculation. Internally etched volume markers on the kettles makes for simple mash water additions.

• Top of the line homebrew burners that are fast, efficient, reliable and have precision flame control.

• The included boil kettle features an innovative whirlpool maker! This allows the home brewer to leave the hops and trub behind when transferring your wort to your fermentor!  The bottom of the boil kettle is tri-clad with a 4mm aluminum core sandwiched between two layers of 304 stainless which helps to eliminate scorching!

• Free Shipping!

Digital Brew Rig

This new digital homebrewing system comes in two different versions.  The “low rider” format featured at the top of the article and this tippy dump version that is shown above. The two formats are priced similarly, so depending on which design works best for you, that can drive your choice.

What makes this new MoreBeer homebrewing system so incredible is the innovative new digital touch screen brewing control system.  This new digital brew rig control system is built around a 7 inch touch screen that lets you control everything from times and temperature to setting reminders for additions throughout the entire home brewing process. They have really brought home brewing into the future with this new digital brewing system.  The touch screen control panel allows the home brewer to  choose from 3 preset mash schedules and even design their own schedule with up to 5 steps.  Best of all, the digital control module maintains the hot liquor tank temperature for you by automatically turning the burner off and on and monitoring the temp with a digital probe.  If you are old school or afraid of Sky Net taking over, there is also a manual mode that allows you to over ride the system.

Click Here for all of the details and pricing on these new MoreBeer Digital Homebrewing Systems!

Morebeer also sells a variety of other homebrewing rigs, brew stands, brew rigs, homebrew rack, brew sculptures and homebrewing stands from other vendors such as Blichmann and Pico Brew.

Home brewing stainless steel conical fermenters!

Stainless Steel Conical Homebrewing Fermenters

Back in my day, if you were a home brewer and wanted to ferment your beer, you only had a few options. You could ferment in a bathtub, plastic bucket, glass carboy or perhaps if you liked to hang out at the Renaissance Faire a bit too much you might ferment your beer in a wooden barrel.

Image courtesy of Angelfire

But now a days with home brewing growing so rapidly in popularity we have it easy and there are a variety of fermenter options we can choose from! So wipe that mascara and tears from your eyes pirate man, because home brewers can now brew with small scale versions of what pro brewers use and for relatively low prices. As a matter of fact, right now you can pick up a 14 gallon stainless steel conical fermenter for $495. Click here for more details. These are not some piece of junk fermenter either, they are the real deal, constructed from Food Grade 304 Stainless Steel.  Here are some specs on the stainless conicals:

• Rotating Stainless Steel Racking Arm
• 60° cone for yeast harvesting and cleaning
• Weldless thermowell included
• 1.5” Tri-Clamp Fittings on the lid, side and bottom
• Molded Silicone Gasket for airtight Lid seal.
• Pressure relief valve included
• Spring-Loaded Lid Clamps hold Lid in place
• The fermenter is pressurizeable to 5 PSI for beer transfers
• Electrically etched (not painted) gallon markings

Stainless Steel Homebrewing Fermenters

You can pick up a 7 gallon version of this stainless steel conical fermenter for just $395, but I would recommend the 14 gallon version which is currently $495 and is perfect for 10 gallon beer batches. Even if you are not brewing 10 gallon batches now, you may be down the road, so it is something to consider.

Click here for a full list of available fermenters

West Coast Brewer featured stainless steel home brewing fermenters

Article Keywords: Home brewing, Conical fermenters, stainless steel homebrewing fermenters, home to ferment your home brewed beer, best home brewing fermenters, beer fermentors, stainless fermentor, homebrew.

West Coast Brewer Top 10 Easy Ways To Improve Your Home Brewed Beer

Top 10 Tips For Improving Home Brewed Beer

Home brewing is an fun but complex hobby, and home brewers are always on the lookout for ways to make their next batch of beer better than the last. The following is a list of the 10 easiest tips and methods for improving your home brewed beer.

1) Proper Cleaning And Sanitization
Probably the easiest way of improving the quality of your beer is to simply clean and sanitize your home brewing equipment properly. Cooled wort is extremely susceptible to contamination from bacteria and wild yeast strains. Anything that comes in contact with the wort once it has been cooled must be sanitized. Even small amounts of bacteria can quickly ruin the taste of your home brewed beer.

2) Use a Yeast Starter (or at Least Rehydrate Dried Yeast)
Many home brewers fall prey to under fermented home brewed beer, stalled fermentations, or off flavors caused by under pitching yeast or pitching nonviable yeast. A yeast starter is a great way of boosting your yeast cell count and of verifying the viability of a liquid yeast. If you are unable to create a yeast starter and are using dry yeast, at the very least you should rehydrate your dried yeast.

3) Aerate/Oxygenate Your Wort
Aerating and oxygenating your cooled wort is a fantastic method for improving the quality of your beer. Yeast requires oxygen to replicate quickly and once the airlock has been placed onto your fermenter, little to no new oxygen will be available for the yeast to consume.

4) Temperature Controlled Fermentation
Many home brewers who are first starting out take the importance of fermentation process for granted. During fermentation, billions of yeast cells are digesting malt sugars and converting them to nearly equal portions of carbon dioxide and alcohol. If the temperature of the fermentation is too high for your yeast strain, the fermentation may occur too rapidly and foul off flavors may be produced in your beer. If the temperature is too low, the yeast may not reproduce quickly enough and your beer may stall, be under fermented, or increase the possibility of a bacterial infection. So always pay attention to the temperature requirements of your yeast strain, and ferment your beer in a temperature controlled environment if possible.

5) Dechlorinate and Filter Your Water
Water is the primary ingredient in beer, and its importance should not be underestimated. Chlorine and contaminants can create significant off flavors in your finished beer. Carbon water filters are relatively inexpensive, and I highly advise that you pass your brewing water through one before using it during any part of the home brewing process.

6) Use Fresh Ingredients, Especially Hops
Home brewing ingredients, just like all other food ingredients, go bad and diminish in flavor and effectiveness over time. Whenever possible, always use the freshest available extracts, grains, yeasts, adjuncts, and hops when making your home brew. If you have spare ingredients, make sure that you store them properly for future use. Hops and yeasts should always be stored in the refrigerator.

7) Dry Hop Your Beer
Dry hopping is a simple and effective way of improving the aroma of a beer. Approximately 7 days prior to kegging or bottling your beer, simply add an appropriate amount of aroma hops to your fermenting beer to impart some fresh hopped aroma to it. Dry hopping is not acceptable for all beer styles, but can be a fantastic addition to IPAs and pale ales.

8) Do Not Rush Your Beer
It is easy to get excited about a beer and cut corners so that you can enjoy the beer more quickly. Unfortunately, cutting corners typically comes with a price. Beer takes time to brew, ferment, and condition. Do your best not to cut your boil short of 60 to 90 minutes, rush your fermentation by allowing the temperature to get too high, end fermentation early, or take shortcuts in bottle or keg conditioning.

9) Use Finings When Appropriate
A lot of things go into making a great home brewed beer. It is more then just taste. When appropriate, fining agents such as whirlfloc should be used to improve the clarity of your beer. Whirlfloc and other finings, such as Irish Moss, are very simple to use; you just drop a tablet in 15 minutes prior to the completion of your boil, and it will help precipitate excess proteins and tannins out of your wort, leaving you with a clearer and cleaner finished beer.

10) Do Not Oxidize Your Beer
Oxygen can quickly skunk the flavor of your home brew, and the only time when oxygen is a good thing is when you are aerating your wort prior to pitching your yeast. Even then you must be cautious not to aerate your wort if it has not been cooled to 80F or less, as you may risk causing hot side aeration. When racking or transferring your home brew, always be cautious not to splash or let the beer bubble up, introducing oxygen into it. If you keg your beer, it is a good idea to purge the head space of the keg with CO2 after filling the keg.

Those are the West Coast Brewer 10 Easy Ways of Improving Your Home Brewed Beer.

Many of the items mentioned above such as whirlfloc and Irish moss can be purchased here:

Home Brewing Equipment and Ingredients

You can also view home brewing deals here: HomeBrewingDeal.com

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