Getting Started with Brewing Beer

I just bumped the home brew thread for you.

Start small.
Google Brew in a Bag (BIAB) recipes tips and tricks. Basically you'll brew small batches on your stove to get the hang of the process.

Northern Brewer and Austin Homebrew are good places to buy mail-order ingredients. Stop at LA Homebrew in Baton Rouge if you're in town to get your hands on stuff.

Homebrewing as a hobby can get very expensive very quickly.

A couple of "general" pointers:

- Everything that touches the beer before the boil needs to be completely clean. Everything that touches the beer after the boil needs to be completely sanitized. There is a difference between clean, sanitized, and sterilized.

- Water quality and water chemistry cannot be neglected. Unfiltered/treated tap water, in general, makes not very good beer. (There are exceptions of course)

- Fermentation temperature - you don't want wild swings in temperature while your beer is fermenting. You also don't want it to be too warm. Yeast can and do make off flavors if the temperature isn't right. In general, most ale yeasts do best between 64 and 70 degrees. Which is usually a little bit cooler than most people keep their house.

- It's ok to make mistakes. If you forgot to sanitize the airlock, you're probably going to be ok. If you miscalculated your recipe and put too much or too little of a certain grain, you're probably gonna be ok. Relax don't worry, have a homebrew.

- Don't start drinking on brew day before the boil. You just do a better job handling boiling wort, santizing the fermenters, cleaning up if you don't have a serious buzz on.

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I know right?

Actually it's good advice for a new brewer. But once you get the process down, all bets are off. I usually have a few beers of the same type I'm making...you know, for inspiration.

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once you get the process down

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Yeah, I could brew on my old system in my sleep. I tried my new system out the other day and drank and smoked the normal amount and it was a shite show.

find a local homebrew club and go watch someone brew. It sounds overwhelming at first, but its very easy once you see it happen. They can also help you out with equipment. As for recipes, start with kits for the styles of beer you like.

and there is an online pdf version of Palmer's book How To Brew. Start there.

I'm not saying one should abstain from drinking on brew day. It's just that brew day can be a 5 hour process. That's a long time if you're not regulating/pacing your consumption. I'd say that drinking is necessary for making the cleaning process tolerable. Buddies showing up with 10% IPA's and Stouts can make it get out of hand in a hurry.

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It's just that brew day can be a 5 hour process.

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My brew days seem to last even longer. :|

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Buddies showing up

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Mine never do. :|