New member, new to brewing

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Brewnaldo

Landlord.
Joined
Nov 21, 2019
Messages
1,700
Reaction score
1,794
Hi folks, just getting started here ahead of getting some brewing gear for Christmas. Fancy giving it a go. I mainly want to learn to brew lager, so I intend to give it a go with kits first up, just to get myself used to the process, cleaning everything, bottling etc etc then move onto extract and finally once iv gathered up the various bits of kit, on to all-grain. It's the all grain brewing that really interests me as I am really into cooking and love making things from the raw ingredient.

This site has proved useful so far in identifying what I need so look forward to houndung everyone for more help as my journey goes on!
 
Welcome aboard. In my experience, and others may disagree, "lager" includes some of the most difficult styles to get right. The beer turns out very nice providing everything's been done properly but it's not always recognisable as the beer you're trying to copy. For example, I've been trying to make Pilsner Urquell for as long as I can remember and haven't come close to nailing it yet, but have had some lovely pints along the way. Another hitch is that lager has to be lagered, which means stored a cold temperatures. I make lagers in November, December, January, for drinking in August and September.
So unless you've got the patience of Job you might brew some quicker turnaround beers to get started. I've seen some talk about pseudo-lagers on this forum or you might try a SMaSH with pale or pilsner malt. Here's a link to start you off:
https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/how-to-brew/keeping-it-simple-with-smash-brewing/
 
Thanks mate. First up will be a kit lager which should work quick anyway I suppose. Will just order a starter set of equipment that comes with a lager kit and brew that up, and whilst thats fermenting I will research what I want to do next. Like I said though probably on to extract.
 
Hi, I agree that lager is a harder style to get right than say, a British ale, but it's not impossible for a beginner to start there. Lagering is a technique, which basically means cold storing beer for long periods. You can come close to a lager style by doing what's called a "pseudo-lager". That uses kölsch yeast or Nottingham ale yeast (or a few others) and is fermented at ale temps then "lagered". Have a read up and see if that's a possibility for you.

Another possible avenue is the Brülosophy quick lagering method - check their website.

If you have the space you should get hold of a fridge or freezer (Gumtree/eBay/facebook) as quick as possible to turn into a fermentation chamber for your fermenting beers. You'll need a heat source (I use a 40w greenhouse heater) and a temperature controller (i.e. an inkbird) too. Having control over the temperature of your fermentations will allow you to brew lagers year round. If you are lucky you can build the whole thing for £50-£100.

A lot of the tins of lager kits (like those in Wilkos) aren't really lagers if you follow the instructions on the tin. They're basically light ales. You might get something you enjoy drinking though so worth a try.

Hope this isn't too much to think about.
 
Hi, I agree that lager is a harder style to get right than say, a British ale, but it's not impossible for a beginner to start there. Lagering is a technique, which basically means cold storing beer for long periods. You can come close to a lager style by doing what's called a "pseudo-lager". That uses kölsch yeast or Nottingham ale yeast (or a few others) and is fermented at ale temps then "lagered". Have a read up and see if that's a possibility for you.

Another possible avenue is the Brülosophy quick lagering method - check their website.

If you have the space you should get hold of a fridge or freezer (Gumtree/eBay/facebook) as quick as possible to turn into a fermentation chamber for your fermenting beers. You'll need a heat source (I use a 40w greenhouse heater) and a temperature controller (i.e. an inkbird) too. Having control over the temperature of your fermentations will allow you to brew lagers year round. If you are lucky you can build the whole thing for £50-£100.

A lot of the tins of lager kits (like those in Wilkos) aren't really lagers if you follow the instructions on the tin. They're basically light ales. You might get something you enjoy drinking though so worth a try.

Hope this isn't too much to think about.

Not at all thanks for this. This is pretty much what my intention was having read up over the last few nights. My brew space will be my garage which is obviously cold at this time of year so even a lager will, I guess require a heat source. I have a load of electrical trace heating tape which, I think combined with insulation should be able to maintain a decent temp, but I will have to check what it is capable of.

I assume lager kits (which I will no doubt get included when I buy the equipment) use yeasts more at home in a normal home temperature as you describe above so maybe the garage wont even be an otpion until I progress to using proper lager yeasts.

As it is, for my first brew I will go with the instructions but then do what I can to improve it. I guess if I ferment as per the yeast requirements then rack to a bottling bucket and leave it outside in the winter cold for a while that should give an improved product?

I get that theres a lot of trial and error involved so I am itching to get going.
 
Guys, didn't want to clutter up with a new thread but I could do with some help for my shopping list.... My plan is to buy a starter kit, ie Home Brew Online one with FV, bottles, taps etc etc, which will allow me to rattle a quick kit brew into bottles and have something to work with. Following this and heaving read loads over the last few nights I think the best balance for me in terms of kit and what I want to acheive is going to BIAB. So lets assume I have all the basics for kit brewing. I then need to be able to heat, mash, and cool? I like the look of a Peco boiler over a burner and big pot, in terms of money and convenience but I don't have a water supply in my brewspace so a coil chiller could be a pain to work with for me.... I believe you can just let the boiled wort come down over time but I am unsure if there are inherent issues with that?? I guess a pot holds the advantage here as it can get fired into a bucket of icey water.

Any thoughts on the above folks?
 
Guys, didn't want to clutter up with a new thread but I could do with some help for my shopping list.... My plan is to buy a starter kit, ie Home Brew Online one with FV, bottles, taps etc etc, which will allow me to rattle a quick kit brew into bottles and have something to work with. Following this and heaving read loads over the last few nights I think the best balance for me in terms of kit and what I want to acheive is going to BIAB. So lets assume I have all the basics for kit brewing. I then need to be able to heat, mash, and cool? I like the look of a Peco boiler over a burner and big pot, in terms of money and convenience but I don't have a water supply in my brewspace so a coil chiller could be a pain to work with for me.... I believe you can just let the boiled wort come down over time but I am unsure if there are inherent issues with that?? I guess a pot holds the advantage here as it can get fired into a bucket of icey water.

Any thoughts on the above folks?

You could do no chill, using a large food grade plastic Jerry can. Think mine was 8 quid from Amazon. Another idea could be to use a large bucket full of ice water and a small submersible aquatic pump to recirculate the water through a coil chiller. Run the first lot of water (which will come out very hot) into another bucket and save it for cleaning, then just recirculate into the same bucket until your temp comes down to pitching temp. You'll need a lot of ice, I've seen people use big blocks from ice-cream tubs for slow melting or just buy a few of the £1 bags from the supermarket if you're lazy/don't have the space.

A few months ago I was in your position, weighing up options for moving to all grain. I ended up buying an all-in-one. The Robobrew v3.1 (although there are other similar brands). It has almost everything you need included and for the price it's a great option, imo. I've not looked back since I got it.

Another option I've seen for chilling (but not tried) which is similar to the above, is running the pump of the robo to circulate the hot wort through the inside of the coil, which is submersed in the ice water. Again, you need a fair amount of ice for this I think.
 
You could do no chill, using a large food grade plastic Jerry can. Think mine was 8 quid from Amazon. Another idea could be to use a large bucket full of ice water and a small submersible aquatic pump to recirculate the water through a coil chiller. Run the first lot of water (which will come out very hot) into another bucket and save it for cleaning, then just recirculate into the same bucket until your temp comes down to pitching temp. You'll need a lot of ice, I've seen people use big blocks from ice-cream tubs for slow melting or just buy a few of the £1 bags from the supermarket if you're lazy/don't have the space.

A few months ago I was in your position, weighing up options for moving to all grain. I ended up buying an all-in-one. The Robobrew v3.1 (although there are other similar brands). It has almost everything you need included and for the price it's a great option, imo. I've not looked back since I got it.

Another option I've seen for chilling (but not tried) which is similar to the above, is running the pump of the robo to circulate the hot wort through the inside of the coil, which is submersed in the ice water. Again, you need a fair amount of ice for this I think.

Thanks for the reply. Theres so many different ways of doing things which I guess is part of the fun but I am just trying to think of whats going to be practical for me. BIAB seems to me like the best solution as it will be a long time learning at that and brewing different stuff before I am competent to A: produce beer of quality and B: discern any difference in quality between that and a true All Grain mash. Big believer in sacrificing a wee bit of authenticity in favour of making it easy enough that you go back for more time and again.
 
Back
Top