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briang's OFFICIAL BYO (brew your own) thread where Matt is a Pro Brewer .... we knew him back when!

22,811 2,637 December 17, 2008 at 09:18 AM in Chat (2) Slickdeals
everyone else has theirs.... i want mine.

March 28, 2009, 3:10 am: System Notice: This thread has been automatically renewed after reaching a post limit. Most of its content has been moved to this thread for reference purposes.

May 30, 2009, 3:10 am: System Notice: This thread has been automatically renewed after reaching a post limit. Most of its content has been moved to this thread for reference purposes.

July 12, 2010, 3:17 pm: System Notice: This thread has been automatically renewed after reaching a post limit. Most of its content has been moved to this thread for reference purposes.

Community Wiki

Last Edited by daveotero November 11, 2009 at 10:51 AM
Here it is folks..... add your links.

Good vendors to order from:

www.rebelbrewer.com Almost always the cheapest shipped
www.northernbrewer.com
www.morebeer.com
www.freshops.com
www.austinhomebrew.com
www.midwestsupplies.com
[midwestsupplies.com] Accepts paypal
http://homebrewheaven.com


Recipe Database:
Award Winning Recipes, Including Denny Conn and Jamil Z. [beerdujour.com]
Brew 365 Recipes [brew365.com]
Tasty Brew's Recipes [tastybrew.com]

Hop Information:
Hop Union PDF [hopunion.com]
Oregon Hop Commission [oregonhops.org]

Beer Calculators:
ABV and Calorie Calculator [probrewer.com]
Hydrometer Correction Calculator [hbd.org]
IBU Calculator [tastybrew.com]
Bottle Priming Calculator [tastybrew.com]
Mash Calculator [rackers.org]


Equipment How To's:
Create your own Mash Tun [lustreking.com]
Create your own 3-Tier Brew Sculpture Simple Schematic [imajininteriors.com] Pic [homebrewtalk.com]

Great Beer Radio:
The Brewing Network [thebrewingnetwork.com]

All Grain Brewing Info:
Sparge Methods [hbd.org]
Step by Step Video [homebrewtalk.com]
All Grain Home Brewing (1 to 8) [youtube.com]

Keg dimensions for use in determining refrigerator and chest freezer sizes:
http://www.wortomatic.com/article...Dimensions

Terminology & Abbreviations:
Home Brewing Wiki [homebrewtalk.com]

What you'll need to start:
A stainless steel (preferably) stock pot, at least 3 gallon capacity. Aluminum will do.
A basic brewing kit. Northern Brewer item #7601 [northernbrewer.com]
A recipe kit [northernbrewer.com]. I would suggest a porter or a stout for your first brew, as dark brews are very forgiving of beginner mistakes. I would suggest using US-05 dry yeast.
A fermometer, NB item #7411 [northernbrewer.com]
Starsan Sanitizer, NB item #7930 [northernbrewer.com]
I would *highly* suggest some Fermcap-S, unless you like scrubbing nasty gooey dried up wort off your stovetop, NB item #9136 [northernbrewer.com]

263 Comments

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Joined Oct 2005
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> bubble2 91 Posts
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thekingofspain
06-22-2010 at 10:22 PM.
06-22-2010 at 10:22 PM.
Quote from mattman688 :
i would just make a co2 line through the collar and keep the tank outside the unit.... not as pretty but you can fit more beer in your chest freezer... (make a nice box or bracket on the outside to keep the tank stable) i am not sure how paint ball tanks work, but they need a completely different connection and to fill it you need a different type of co2 tank(i think its an inner tube difference) to fill the pb tank...
Looking into making a collar. Need to buy some wood and I think I am going to dove tail the corners. In the front I am going to make a tongue and grove pane that would slide into the collar vertically such that I can replace the panel If I add more taps and want to recenter etc. Put some type of cross beem into collar and mount the regulator there instead on the tank. Also have some compressor quick disconnects laying around that I can use.

My freezer is really nice for a collar:

a: It has a nice small lip on the outside to prevent the collar from sliding off.

b. The part the of freezer where the bottom collar will rest on is 1.25 inches of perfect flatness.

c. The weather stripping was fastened via a T slot and popped right out. I can probably put a wood tongue on the top of the collar and insert it into the T slot (mortise).

d. I can put a T slot on the bottom of my collar and fasten the existing weather stripping.


Need to look at some wood and insulation to get some widths. Might do all wood, wood & insulation, or wood insulation sandwich.
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Joined Oct 2005
L2: Beginner
> bubble2 91 Posts
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thekingofspain
06-22-2010 at 10:30 PM.
06-22-2010 at 10:30 PM.
I will be in San Diego (Rancho Bernardo) Monday through Wednesday next week visiting family. They asked if I had any special requests and I said a brewery tour probably of Stone. My other brother will be there as well he might dictate which brewery we visit.

So is there any other breweries worth seeing, have better freebies, or better discounts than Matt?

I could be purchasing my first tap handle on this trip or sampling Matt and Brian's award winning (or soon to be) tasty beverages.

Will post more as I know more.
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Joined Dec 2003
L10: Grand Master
> bubble2 26,586 Posts
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Mavtech
06-23-2010 at 08:31 AM.
06-23-2010 at 08:31 AM.
Quote from XL_Jockey :
Nice, good luck Matt. Brian entered one recently... I think he had 10 entries or 12 entries or something. I forgot to check to see if/what he won.

My basement is in shambles but I'll have the opportunity to brew on Sunday. The problem is that I won't be able to ferment in the basement due to the work I'm doing. Anyone have any good recipes for a beer that has to ferment at about 72deg? I have a porter extract kit that I'll probably just do no matter what, but I'd like to do my first all-grain batch on Sunday, hopefully an amarillo IPA. It'll be my first IPA.
An IPA should be fine at 72. That's the top end of what I would ferment it at. So, make sure it doesn't go much higher. The most important thing is temp stability. You don't want your ambient temp fluctuating too much which is why I primarily use a chamber. I ferment at 68 and then sometimes bump it up to 71 or 72. Many breweries do this for secondary.
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Joined Oct 2005
beeeeeer
> bubble2 11,718 Posts
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mattman688
06-26-2010 at 11:14 PM.
06-26-2010 at 11:14 PM.
I have 4 beers entered in the largest homebrew contest in southern California. Well over 800 beers entered! I have a blonde, a ris, an American ipa, and an English brown. Considering I bottled my brown on Tuesday and my ipa on Thursday of this week I wasn't too optimistic, but they came out pretty good, my ipa has that hazy look from the second fermentation from adding the priming solution, but the hop profile is awesome! (used cents, Amarillo, and simcoe only on this beer, 3 oz in the last 10 min of the boil and 3 oz as dry hop). Don't expect medals this time around but I am looking forward to some great feedback. My blonde is tasty but way out of style, 90s in efficiency led to a 9% blonde!!! EEK!
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Joined Oct 2005
beeeeeer
> bubble2 11,718 Posts
2,539 Reputation
mattman688
06-27-2010 at 04:30 PM.
06-27-2010 at 04:30 PM.
94 beers in the ipa category, I scored a 40 and still didn't place in top 5! Tough comp!
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Joined Oct 2005
L2: Beginner
> bubble2 91 Posts
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thekingofspain
06-29-2010 at 03:59 PM.
06-29-2010 at 03:59 PM.
I was at stone on monday and looked for matt before, during, and after the tour. My family was a little grumpy and did not want to stay that long. Frown

Also talked to the brewmaster at Green Flash Brewing at their facility. Very small place in a garage of sorts.

The inside of stone was much smaller than I thought from the building size. The distributor side must be taking up most of the space. Also storing the base grain out side made space requirements less. Also interesting was it take 3 mash tun runs to fill a primary.

Have not cracked open any the 22's I purchased and hopefully they make it home in suitcase.

Off to Chicago tomorrow morning.
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Joined Oct 2005
L2: Beginner
> bubble2 91 Posts
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thekingofspain
06-29-2010 at 06:57 PM.
06-29-2010 at 06:57 PM.
Oh i tried posting at stone when we figured out we were going there, but sprint cell access is bad there, sd main web page is now big ad laden, and I could not get the blackberry browser to goto the forums page.
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Joined Oct 2005
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> bubble2 91 Posts
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thekingofspain
07-01-2010 at 07:02 PM.
07-01-2010 at 07:02 PM.
The 22's and the pint glasses made it home
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Joined Jan 2009
L5: Journeyman
> bubble2 974 Posts
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XL_Jockey
07-02-2010 at 04:20 AM.
07-02-2010 at 04:20 AM.
Awesome, that's great news. I love stopping at breweries and getting a chance to look at their setup and browse their store and wish I had more money. Hopefully one day I'll make it out to Stone. Until then I'll keep trying to hit the local ones. Luckily PA (especially near Philly) has a ton of them.
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Joined Oct 2005
beeeeeer
> bubble2 11,718 Posts
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mattman688
07-03-2010 at 11:17 AM.
07-03-2010 at 11:17 AM.
Stone doesn't have their distributing at the brewery anymore, they bought a new location for their coldbox and trucks, the new location is about the same size as the brewery, right now stone is in the process of adding 30 new 360 barrel fermentors and adding another 5 580 barrel bright tanks....
Green flash is the typical microbrewery in size, though they are in the process of getting a new location for expansion.
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Joined Oct 2005
L2: Beginner
> bubble2 91 Posts
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thekingofspain
07-13-2010 at 08:22 PM.
07-13-2010 at 08:22 PM.
Brewed a SMASH 2 row cystal this weekend. Missed the strike temp and eventually figured out the flash boiler is even better as a steam engine in the mash tun.

Also moved broke my boil kettle plumbing, and kept unsoldering a joint as I was soldering another one. Changed the plumbing to a single pipe with butted up to the side, huge improvement. Evtually I will get this thing down.

Both fermentors were hopping with in 8 hours. Probably had too big of starter. Actually was down a airlock, and had to get one Monday after work.

Down to my last stone as well, I actually like the RIS the best. I did not purchase the porter, but the sample of the porter kept changing on me. Thinking I need to try a full one now. I was actually tasting bacon in it on the last tasting.
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Joined Oct 2005
L2: Beginner
> bubble2 91 Posts
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thekingofspain
07-15-2010 at 12:24 AM.
07-15-2010 at 12:24 AM.
Tasted my bad oatmeal stout today, thought it was less astringent than before, sour and watery. Wife said it tasted like medicine. It might be doomed.

The new beer is actually fermenting hot at 76F in the basement. I moved them close to the wall to lower the temps a little. Should I leave it, ghetto cool it, or use the freezer as a temp fermentation chamber and wiring up the aquarium thermocouple?
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Joined Dec 2003
L10: Grand Master
> bubble2 26,586 Posts
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Mavtech
07-15-2010 at 05:05 AM.
07-15-2010 at 05:05 AM.
I vote for the fermentation chamber in a fridge. That works wonders.
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Joined Jan 2006
Nerd Circus: Ringmaster
> bubble2 19,213 Posts
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AggieMom
07-15-2010 at 05:16 AM.
07-15-2010 at 05:16 AM.
We don't have a kegerator now, so DH is fermenting in my bath tub. The carboy goes in a rubbermaid tub with some water, he wraps the carboy with a wet towel and points a small fan at it. We have frozen jugs of water that we put in from time to time as needed. We were able to keep the last 2 batches at 70 degrees with minimal effort. If that's ghetto cooling, it works in a pinch! Not sure how else you'd keep stuff cool in Houston without a rigged up brewing shed in the back yard. We're not there yet... but once the kid's play fort comes down I see a change in the landscaping on the horizon. laugh out loud It'll be a few years.

DH made his first batch of cider this week. I'm interested to try that one - not sure what he brewed yesterday. I'll find out when I help bottle it, I guess.
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Last edited by AggieMom July 15, 2010 at 05:17 AM.

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Joined Jul 2004
Magically Delicious
> bubble2 10,796 Posts
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SlicKitty
07-15-2010 at 05:23 AM.
07-15-2010 at 05:23 AM.
I miss brang. laugh out loud
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