Hi all,
I've been toying with the idea of starting to home brew beer, but I am completely clueless regarding even the basics. I've watched a few videos on youtube, and it seems simple enough. I guess I have a few questions that some of you may be able to help out with.
1) Where do you buy your ingredients?
2) Where do you get your equipment?
3) Where do you get your supplies?
4) Is it possible to poison yourself when making home-brew? Any good resources on how to avoid this?
5) Any beginner resources (websites, books) you'd recommend?
Any other pointers would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks!
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Introducing Light Mode! If you would like a Bar Towel social experience that isn't the traditional blue, you can now select Light Mode. Go to the User Control Panel and then Board Preferences, and select "Day Drinking" (Light Mode) from the My Board Style drop-down menu. You can always switch back to "Night Drinking" (Dark Mode). Enjoy!
Home brewing: where to start?
I get my ingredients off the internet. Mostly from Ontariobeerkegs.com or Torontobrewing.ca, but I'm not really married to any one supplier. Your local homebrew, if you have one, is fine too. Prices and shipping will vary, so poke around a bit.
Ditto for equipment, except shipping is a bitch on the heavy stuff so I tend to go to home brews for them. For your first beer your best bet might be finding a friend with a carboy you can borrow. Heck, if you're in Toronto you can borrow a plastic bucket from me. For a pot I started with my biggest canning pot. You don't really need a full 5-6 gallon capacity, but I'd want at least 2.5 or so. I think the one I started on was 3. Any old cheapo pot will work, but if you stick with it you'll eventually want a nice one. So if you don't have a big pot and you're not sure you're going to stick with brewing, go find a canning pot in a hardware store or restaurant supply or something. If you know you want to do this forever and ever, get a nice brew pot. The websites all have them at various price points.
Are supplies different from ingredients?
I guess it's probably possible, but you're just as likely to poison yourself cooking dinner or something. I'd wager it's safer than cooking chicken. Don't worry about it.
I got started off of John Palmer's excellent book How to Brew. It's conveniently converted into a website at howtobrew.com. He even has a section called "brewing your first beer with malt extract" which is a great place to start. I basically just started at chapter 1 and worked my way through. It really has everything you need until you want to start doing more complicated stuff.
Ditto for equipment, except shipping is a bitch on the heavy stuff so I tend to go to home brews for them. For your first beer your best bet might be finding a friend with a carboy you can borrow. Heck, if you're in Toronto you can borrow a plastic bucket from me. For a pot I started with my biggest canning pot. You don't really need a full 5-6 gallon capacity, but I'd want at least 2.5 or so. I think the one I started on was 3. Any old cheapo pot will work, but if you stick with it you'll eventually want a nice one. So if you don't have a big pot and you're not sure you're going to stick with brewing, go find a canning pot in a hardware store or restaurant supply or something. If you know you want to do this forever and ever, get a nice brew pot. The websites all have them at various price points.
Are supplies different from ingredients?
I guess it's probably possible, but you're just as likely to poison yourself cooking dinner or something. I'd wager it's safer than cooking chicken. Don't worry about it.
I got started off of John Palmer's excellent book How to Brew. It's conveniently converted into a website at howtobrew.com. He even has a section called "brewing your first beer with malt extract" which is a great place to start. I basically just started at chapter 1 and worked my way through. It really has everything you need until you want to start doing more complicated stuff.
Welcome to the hobby!
I will second Toronto Brewing and OBK. If you are in the GTA Toronto Brewing is convenient because it has a storefront and the guys there will walk you through what you need and don't need. If you are in Durham and don't want to drive to Toronto Brewing, Brewer's Pantry in Oshawa can help you out.
I will also second How To Brew but recommend that you spring for the print edition from amazon.ca. The website version is 1st Edition and the print version is 3rd Edition. There are quite a few updates between the two.
Assuming you stick to water, barley, yeast, and hops there are no known pathogens that can survive in beer. The pH is too low for most organisms and part of the process is boiling the wort for an hour or more so that will kill almost anything. Just don't dump cyanide in your beer before bottling and you'll be fine!
If you are in Toronto you can join the local homebrew club (on Facebook). There are dozens of people on there answering questions each day: https://www.facebook.com/groups/GTA.Brews/
If you are in Durham there is the Durham Homebrew Club, and there is a York Region club just starting up as well.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/ is my favorite homebrew site, lots of beginners on there and thousands of active members answering questions.
I'd recommend you do your first batch as extract plus specialty grains, then work towards all grain when you get the hang of fermenting and making clean extract batches. Something hoppy, roasty, or belgian would be good since it would hide some off flavours.
My top 3 tips would be:
- Pay attention to sanitation after the boil and all the way into bottling
- Focus your efforts and budget on fermentation first (once you have the basic equipment). Even before all grain. A fridge/freezer with a controller (or one of the alternatives) will control your beer temperature during fermentation without any fuss. Yeast is very sensitive to swings and higher temperatures and will product off flavours (but still safe to drink).
- Have fun and enjoy learning about beer and brewing, there's always more to know to improve. It's a lifelong project and hobby!
I will second Toronto Brewing and OBK. If you are in the GTA Toronto Brewing is convenient because it has a storefront and the guys there will walk you through what you need and don't need. If you are in Durham and don't want to drive to Toronto Brewing, Brewer's Pantry in Oshawa can help you out.
I will also second How To Brew but recommend that you spring for the print edition from amazon.ca. The website version is 1st Edition and the print version is 3rd Edition. There are quite a few updates between the two.
Assuming you stick to water, barley, yeast, and hops there are no known pathogens that can survive in beer. The pH is too low for most organisms and part of the process is boiling the wort for an hour or more so that will kill almost anything. Just don't dump cyanide in your beer before bottling and you'll be fine!
If you are in Toronto you can join the local homebrew club (on Facebook). There are dozens of people on there answering questions each day: https://www.facebook.com/groups/GTA.Brews/
If you are in Durham there is the Durham Homebrew Club, and there is a York Region club just starting up as well.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/ is my favorite homebrew site, lots of beginners on there and thousands of active members answering questions.
I'd recommend you do your first batch as extract plus specialty grains, then work towards all grain when you get the hang of fermenting and making clean extract batches. Something hoppy, roasty, or belgian would be good since it would hide some off flavours.
My top 3 tips would be:
- Pay attention to sanitation after the boil and all the way into bottling
- Focus your efforts and budget on fermentation first (once you have the basic equipment). Even before all grain. A fridge/freezer with a controller (or one of the alternatives) will control your beer temperature during fermentation without any fuss. Yeast is very sensitive to swings and higher temperatures and will product off flavours (but still safe to drink).
- Have fun and enjoy learning about beer and brewing, there's always more to know to improve. It's a lifelong project and hobby!
I used Brooklyn Brew Shop to get going. Don't bother ordering from the site as the shipping is ridiculous to Canada but there are plenty of places in Southern Ontario that sell the kits. It's a quick and cheap way (up front) to see if you'll like brewing and get a feel for it. You'll only produce about 9-11 bottles but that's enough for learning. I still make 1-2 gallon batches due to my condo size but I like the variety and if you screw up it doesn't hurt so much as 5-10 gallon batches. Brooklyn Brew Shop has a couple of books out with recipes for one gallon batches.
I've bought from Brewer's Pantry, Toronto Brewing, Ontario Beer Kegs, Canadian Homebrew Supplies and there's also Beer Grains. I mainly buy grains from BP since they'll mill the grains for me. I think one of the other places does too but shipping is a little more due to distance.
Haven't poisoned myself yet. I'm more worried about making sure any chicken is cooked properly than being poisoned by homebrew.
One important key as mentioned already in another post is sanitation. Unlike my earlier efforts with friends where sanitation was so-so and produced infected beer, for this go-round I've really paid attention to it and haven't had any issues unlike previously.[/url]
I've bought from Brewer's Pantry, Toronto Brewing, Ontario Beer Kegs, Canadian Homebrew Supplies and there's also Beer Grains. I mainly buy grains from BP since they'll mill the grains for me. I think one of the other places does too but shipping is a little more due to distance.
Haven't poisoned myself yet. I'm more worried about making sure any chicken is cooked properly than being poisoned by homebrew.
One important key as mentioned already in another post is sanitation. Unlike my earlier efforts with friends where sanitation was so-so and produced infected beer, for this go-round I've really paid attention to it and haven't had any issues unlike previously.[/url]
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Cadbury102
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