Home brew set up.

[Ozzy]

My better half past comment recently"our garage space looks like it's turning into a brewery."(in good spirits I should add)
I'm just starting out,was wondering any1 could show me a good set up. Before I start extract brewing.....and hopefully all grain.

 

[Dorst]

I'd say there are three parts of a "good" setup: The hot (mashing and boiling), the cold (fermenting), and the dispensing. I'm assuming you want advice on extract or full grain brewing/

What a good setup is has a lot to do with how much space you have and how much you can spend. In general it takes years to build up your ideal setup.

Let's start with the hot:
If you start with extract brewing you basically need a large pot to add the extract + water and boil it (with some hops). Some of these pots have a tap attached that makes it easier to get the wort out after the boil.

Going all grain adds mashing (soaking malts in warm water to extract flavour and sugar) to the equation. You could do this in a cooler box or use the big pot with a bag (the so called brew-in-a-bag method). There are also electric all-in-one systems that allow you to mash and boil in the same vessel. Some people prefer to have 3 seperate vessels/pots. All of this equipment can be found at several prices and several sizes. A good setup is a bit subjective here.

Ideally you also want to find a way to cool down the wort after boiling - this can be with a spiral cooler, plate cooler, or simply by keeping the pot sealed and letting it cool naturally over a longer period.

Next the cold (fermenting):
You need a vessel that's ideally airtight with an airlock. The airlock allows the CO2 that is created during fermentation to escape while preventing anything else from getting into your fermenter. This can be a plastic bucket or glass vessel with an airlock when you start out, or stainless steel when you have a bit more to spend. Get a fermenter that is at least 20 percent bigger than your brewing size to allow headspace. So if you brew 20 liters, get a fermenter that is 25 liters or so.

Because controlling the temperature during fermentation has a big impact on the final product you want to create an environement as optimal as possible. This could be by storing the fermenter in a room with good temperature conditions. Many enthusiastic brewers create a temperature controlled environment in a brew fridge that can cool or heat depending on the temperature. Even fancier are solutions with glycol chillers and fermenters with heating built in. When you start out it's easier to choose a yeast that is not too picky about the temperature rather than spending a lot of money on this.

Dispensing:
After fermentation is done you need to be able to store/prepare so you can drink it. Most people bottle their beer. The easiest way is adding some sugar to your beer and transfering it to a bottle and putting a crown cap on it. The sugar that you added will ferment in the bottle and because the bottle is sealed by the cap it will add carbonation to the beer. Leave the beer for at least a week at good temperatures before trying, but general wisdom is that 2 weeks is safer. Some people move their beer to a stainless steel keg. You can use the same method (adding sugar) or use CO2 cylinder to add pressure to your beer. The advantage of using a keg is that it's easier to transfer your beer and it allows you to drink your beer from a tap. Taps come in all shapes and forms - and price ranges.


If you are starting out you need to decide if you want to go one step at a time or buy a bit more future proof equipment.

Minimal setup:
-When you want to start with extract brewing you will need a large pot / brewing vessel. You will need to find a way to heat the pot (either stove top or burner).
- You will need a fermenter vessel with an airlock.
- You will need bottles (can be used beer bottles). Many beginning brewers prever bottles with swing-tops or twist caps. If you want to use crown caps you will need to buy a tool to cap the crown caps, and of course the crown caps themselves.

Other than that you will need ingredients for your brew and some cleaning agents.
- Get an extract kit. They contain extract malt, hops, yeast. You can also buy these seperately if you want more creative freedom or enhance the kit
- It's important to work clean. I recommend getting some Starsan and an Oxi cleaner from the homebrew shop.
- Some simple sugars to prime your beer bottles

Good to have:
- a way to cool down the beer after you are done boiling. A spiral cooler is an obvious choice.
- a bottle wand to make bottling easier and less prone to oxidation
- a simple spray bottle with some water + starsan to keep things clean


Some other thoughts:
If you do decide for all-grain it might be worth making the jump to an all-in-one kettle or brew in a bag solution. You need to invest in the hot side of things to brew beer, but I think most of the gains can be made on the cold side of things. A lot of homebrew groups have equipment for sale that will get you up and running quickly and cheap. They are also quite willing to show you the ropes. More importantly you can bring your beer to the meeting and get feedback on how to improve.

 

[Ozzy]

Thanks for the advice,I was wondering if anyone had a a photo of their set up as an example. Thinking of getting a work bench,I've got both types of bottles and a capper.
It gives my dad another interest,quality time.

 

[Dorst]

I'll oblige since I think I have a "good" setup ;-)

One of our bedrooms is my work-from-home office and brewing storage room (it has a guest bed in it as well). I brew in our laundry room which is well ventilated and has water.

My setup
Brew kettle: Speidel Braumeister 20
Malt Mill: Mattmill Master
Cooling: Speidel spiral cooler
Fermentation: 2x Grainfather conical fermenter with glycol cooler + SS Brew bucket for
Dispensing: self built tap based on Liebherr display fridge + 3x Lindr taps, 6 corny kegs, Boel ITAPx for bottling

I buy my malts in bulk (25KG bags) which double as a bed for my cat.

 

[Ozzy]

Thank you!
The other problem is bottle storage,it's hard to get 2nd hand pint bottle crates.
I've taken to getting used mayonnaise buckets,which seem strong enough and stackable with the lids on.
Some of the cafes and butchers have been decent.

 

[Dorst]

Thank you!
The other problem is bottle storage,it's hard to get 2nd hand pint bottle crates.
I've taken to getting used mayonnaise buckets,which seem strong enough and stackable with the lids on.
Some of the cafes and butchers have been decent.

When I do need to bottle I like to use German half litres with swing tops. German beer can be had relatively cheap, are tasty, and they know their bottles :-)

 

[Clint]

Cats seem quite interested in brewing...especially soft places to sleep and boxes things come in!

 

[nickjdavis]

I think that, ignoring the brewing side of things totally, one of the most important things you can set up (and I get that this is not always possible depending on where you brew) is to have a washing/cleaning facility in the immediate vicinity of where you brew with both cold and hot running water.... I brew in my garage and my closest source of hot water is our kitchen some 10 yards away....it might not sound much, but the constant walking to get hot water, rinse things off, clean things etc is a real pain.

I usually have a large vat of hot water with a dose of VWP in it by the garage door but that entails several trips from the kitchen with buckets of hot water to fill it...and eventually the water obviously gets cold....anything that requires cleaning gets lobbed in said vat (especially useful for putting the Braumeister malt pipe in....the last thing you want is to leave a sticky sugar coated malt pipe lying around to dry....becomes a bugger to get clean quickly) and after a rub down then gets hosed down with cold water.

In an ideal world I'd have a water supply and a boiler in the garage with a 2 sink cleaning station....one filled with hot water/VWP for cleaning and the other a rinsing bath....so much about brewing is related to cleaning that I think one of the most convenient things you can do when setting up a brewing space is to ensure you have close by washing/rinsing/draining facilities.

 

[Braufather]

we don't have a garage, so a spare bedroom upstairs is now the fermenting kegging and storage room. our laundry room is where most of the hot side stuff is stored including the BM, and home office is filled with misc stuff too. And as I brew in the kitchen, that 4 rooms taken over on brew days and the wife has one or twice " politely" suggested that I should get a better system worked out!

 

[gyurmaember]

I brew in the bathroom, prepare the additions in the kitchen, prepare and sanitise the fermenter in the landing, in a tomato tray, and ferment and store stuff in the spare room

 

[dad_of_jon]

I'll oblige since I think I have a "good" setup ;-)

Dorst, I have to disagree with you. You have an excellent setup.

I'll never get to you anywhere near like that so KUDOS to you.

At least when Mrs DOJ complains I can show her yours and others on the forums far superior setups. Hopefully she'll realise that I am brewing with minimal kit - 1 plastic FV and a 15 litre pot for boiling.

 

[Worf]

...

Zingers, brother! Do you have an RV out back to live in? I mean if you're in full holiday-preparation mode, you've at least gotta have a port-a-jon.

I'm a bit envious. You've got some quality equipment in there. Makes my one-pot, two-speidel, all-analog sampling equipment, 20yr-old fridge in the garage
look somewhat... Substandard. Yer lady needs a night out with you every week (at least) for her happiness.

 

[moto748]

I think that, ignoring the brewing side of things totally, one of the most important things you can set up (and I get that this is not always possible depending on where you brew) is to have a washing/cleaning facility in the immediate vicinity of where you brew with both cold and hot running water.... I brew in my garage and my closest source of hot water is our kitchen some 10 yards away....it might not sound much, but the constant walking to get hot water, rinse things off, clean things etc is a real pain.

...

I think that is an important point. My brewing is all done in my kitchen, and when I see photos of hardy souls brewing out-of-doors in wintry conditions, or in cold garages/sheds, I'm glad of it! But I realise that that may not work for everyone, especially if other family members want kitchen access.

On cooling facilities, I have nothing, bar sometimes putting a bucket of wort in the sink and filling it with cold water. So I'd categorise that as 'desirable', rather than essential.

 

[DuncR]

Gyur, love the Grainfather setup. Just interested…. Why 2 Grainfather? Also is the display on the wall running the gf app then bluetoothing to the Grainfather?

 

[gyurmaember]

Gyur, love the Grainfather setup. Just interested…. Why 2 Grainfather? Also is the display on the wall running the gf app then bluetoothing to the Grainfather?

Because the parallel brewday is less exhausting than making 2 brews, and clean up in-between them. And also this way I get the benefits of a bigger system, without the price tag, and crane for the grain basket.
During the fermentation it's running the tilt app, and logging onto my Grainfather account, during the brew it comes down, and running the Grainfather app.