Brewing beer at home

Brewmonkey,
Myself and a good buddy from work are going to attempt the home brew. Where would you recommend I look to get a good base of information regarding home brewing. Also, any helpful hints or other pieces of information would be greatly appreciated. I've searched the internet a bit, but haven't found what I'd consider a great source. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

[Roguish Lawyer]

I know the question was not addressed to me, but a mistake I made once when brewing my own beer was trying to raise the alcohol content as much as possible. The stuff was NASTY! LOL

[Bill Harsey]

Ryan,
This is a worthwhile activity. Brew will set ya straight later.
I have done many batches in the past and the first thing to learn and practise is CLEAN! Clean your hands, your bottles, the big glass thingy you let the beer set in before bottling CLEAN! oh yeah, and pay attention to sugar content.

Also get set up to do several batches in sequence so after you sample the first success, you don't have to wait three months before you can taste the next batch.
Get a couple 500 gallon stainless steel tank...

...that will cut down the lag times.

[brewmonkey]

Cruise on over to http://www.realbeer.com/discussions/index.php where they have some forums for everyone from the cherry to the professional. Some great information on the forums and if you need some help I am one of the moderators and post as Brewmonkey on there as well.

I would start with doing some reading and the primer text for this hobby is "The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing" by Charlie Papazian and it is available at almost any book store or homebrew shop in the US. You might also check out www.beertown.org for some info. It is the group that Charlie founded and is the parent company of The American Homebrewers Association.

Other books are Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels (My favorite one), How to Brew by John Palmer and Dave Miller's Homebrewing Guide. They should all be available from the beertown site.

When it comes to equipment it is really going to depend on the type of beer you are going to brew, extract vs. all grain/lager vs. ale.

The beertown site should also have an index of Homebrew shops in your area and they are a great place to get info as well. Generally they are staffed by knowledgeable folks (not always though!) and they should be able to help.

Some magazines to look for are Brew Your Own (www.byo.com) and Zymurgy which is put out by the folks at beertown. BYO is geared more towards the novice/intermediate brewer and would be my suggestion for you to start with.

I will come back to this question in tomorrow once you have had a chance to hit some sites. I am sure you will have some more questions as well I will have time to sit down and get you a list of starting supplies you will want as well as the ones that they will try to sell you but you don't need.

As for RL's trying to increase the alcohol, as long as you do not do it with basic sugars (table, corn, turbinado etc...) you will be fine. Using those sugars in excess of 10% of the fermentables will give you a VERY nasty cidery flavor. Bleechh...

[SP5IC]

Originally Posted by brewmonkey

Cruise on over to [url] As for RL's trying to increase the alcohol, as long as you do not do it with basic sugars (table, corn, turbinado etc...) you will be fine. Using those sugars in excess of 10% of the fermentables will give you a VERY nasty cidery flavor. Bleechh...

I once had a neighbor who liked Grain Belt near beer...spiked with grain alcohol. He would take a pull from a just opened bottle, pour in the grain alcohol and put the bottle on the fence post. He would then make one round on his rider mower, stop and take another drink. He did this until the yard was done, and so was he.