Happy and Hoppy New Year! With the arrival of 2018, WestCoastBrewer.com is going to get a new look and feel! It will be a bit of a work in progress, fixing all of the broken links as the website transitions to its new format, so please hang in there with us. Ultimately it should be a big improvement to the old website! We hope that 2018 brings you only the best and plenty of good homebrew!
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With the Holidays upon us and people scrambling to find the perfect gift, tis the season to give the gift of home beer brewing!
A beer brewing kit is one of those gifts that any beer fan is thrilled to receive! Not only does it provide the recipient with a batch of their very own home brewed beer to enjoy, it also educates them on the beer brewing process! With one of these home beer making kits, you actually produce beer similarly to how current craft breweries make beer; only on a smaller scale. You doing everything from boil wort and add hops additions to pitch yeast and ferment your beer!
Over the last several years, home beer brewing has really surged in popularity and there are several options out there for home brewing kits. There are a few things to consider when picking the perfect beer making kit.
1 Batch Size: Most beginner home beer making kits will come in either a 1 gallon or 5 gallon size. The 1 gallon kits are typically less expensive, but if you can afford the 5 gallon kits, I highly recommend them. I know 1 gallon of beer sounds like a lot, but it is only about 8 glasses of beer and will go very quickly if shared with friends! A 5 gallon kit is only about twice the cost of the 1 gallon kits, so it is a much better value.
2 What Does The Kit Include: There are few things more frustraiting than brewing your batch of beer and then at the very end realizing that you are missing a critical item and your beer is ruined! So make sure that you purchase a complete kit, so home beer brewing kits do not even include the beer ingredients or yeast!
3 Cost: It is easy to spend way to much for a home beer brewing kit, especially when brewing kettles and shipping charges come in to play. I have listed 3 kits that are a great price, include everything needed to start brewing a batch of beer and ship free when the order is $59 or higher!
This is the home beer brewing kit that I would recommend if you are on a tight budget or only want to brew 1 gallon beer batches. With this kit, you will need to supply the brew kettle, but just about any large kitchen pot will do the trick! Click Here to purchase this home made beer brewing kit.
This is the best deal out there for a 5 gallon home beer brewing kit, especially when you consider that it ships for free, comes with a 5 gallon stainless steel brewing kettle and a beer ingredient kit! Click Here to purchase this 5 gallon beer brewing kit.
Lastly is a premium home beer brewing kit that comes with some advanced home brewing items including a copper wort chiller and upgraded 8.5 gallon stainless steel brewing kettle with a valve. This is a fantastic home brewing kit to get started with! Click here to purchase this home brewing kit.
If you have any questions on home brewing or need any advice, please feel free to reach out to me, I am always happy yo help when I can.
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Tis the season for Homebrewing! It is not always easy to find that perfect Holiday gift for your boss, Father In Law, Dad, Boyfriend, Girlfriend or Beer Lover in your life. So with the Holiday Season quickly approaching, we thought this was the perfect time for our Top 10 Best Home Brewer Holiday Gift Ideas! This year we tried to select a variety of the very best home brewer holiday gifts that accommodate a wide range of home brewing budgets as well as home brewing gift ideas for every beer brewing experience level from advanced home brewers to someone who loves beer and is looking to try their hand at home beer brewing for the first time. So with out further ado, here is the HomeBrewingDeal.com Top 10 List for Best Home Brewing Gifts Ideas of 2017!
Click Here to View the List!
I have been an avid home brewer for over 8 years now and In that time I have probably brewed more than 70 batches of home made beer. I will always love beer and brewing it, but sometimes it is fun to trying something different. Not to mention, sometimes the different seasons of the year impact what my taste buds desire. With fall is upon us, I figured I would try brewing up a batch of hard apple cider and add a little diversity to my kegerator selection!
So I started to do a little research on home cider making, and just like home brewing, there are a few ways to go about making cider at home. Some methods are simple and others are a little more complicated and require more equipment. Since this is my first time trying my hand at home apple cider making, I figured I would keep it simple and use one of the home apple cider making kits that are available on the market. One of the great things about these home cider making kits is that they include almost everything you need to get started making your first batch of cider! One thing to be aware of is that most of the cider making kits that I checked out do require you to supply dextrose / corn sugar; so if that is the case with the kit you purchase, make sure you purchase some. You can also pick up optional items to personalize your home cider making recipe. For instance, I also decided to add some medium toast American oak cubes to my batch of home made hard apple cider to add a little additional complexity to my cider; it is not required to make a great hard cider but I think it will be a nice touch.
Here is a list of the items that I purchased for my batch of home made hard apple cider. You can click any of the links for more information or if you need to purchase any of the items:
1) Cider House 6 Gallon Home Cider Kit
(There are a variety of kits available, this was one I found at a good price)
2) Wyeast Liquid Cider & Mead Yeast
(The kit actually comes with yeast, but I figured I would step things up a notch with some specialized liquid yeast)
3) Toasted American Oak Cudes
(Not required but should enhance the complexity of the cider)
4) 3 LBS of Corn Sugar / Dextrose
(The recipe called for 2 LBS but I like to live on the edge)
STEP 1 – Read Your Cider Making Instructions
I know it is boring and you just want to get started, but…. it is always wise to read all of your instructions and home cider making recipe first. Sometimes your kit may not include all of the ingredients you need or you may be missing an import piece of hardware that you will need to make your cider and this is your chance to determine that before it is too late! You will probably also enjoy the process more if you understand what it is that you are doing before you begin. Now that we have have that out of the way, we can get down to business and make some hard apple cider!
STEP 2 – Boiling Water & Sugar
After reading all of the directions that were included with my home cider making kit, I was pleased to learn how simple the process was. Step #1 was to boil 1 gallon of water with the dextrose that I purchased. The dextrose that I used was actually initially purchased for carbonating beer, but since I almost always keg now, I decided it to put it to good use for my batch of home made hard cider!
I used a large stainless steel kettle to heat 1 gallon of water. Once the water was hot, I began to add the dextrose and slowly stir it.
Make sure that you use a large enough pot to boil the water and dextrose. If the boil becomes to rapid, you can have a boil over and those are no fun to clean up! I let my water and sugar boil for approximately 10 minutes and then turned the burner off. At that point your should let your water and dextrose solution cool down. You can either let it sit in an ice bath with a lid covering the kettle, use an immersion chiller or add some ice to the kettle; just be careful to keep everything sanitary.
STEP 3 – Clean, Sanitize & Prepare Your Fermentor
Just like home beer and wine making, cleanliness and sanitization are critical to making great cider! At this point you will want to make sure that you clean and then sanitize anything that will come in contact with your cider or water dextrose solution! Both the water and apple cider concentrate are loaded with sugars and any bacteria or wild yeast strains lurking about would just love to get hold of it! So make sure you sanitize your fermentor and any implements that will come in contact with your home made cider. I recommend Star San, but you can use any odorless and tasteless food grade sanitizer.
The cider fermentor that I use is a 7 gallon stainless steel fermenter which I first cleaned with PBW and then sanitized with Star San. If you are looking for an incredible cider fermenter, I highly recommend this one and you can get it for a great price and with free shipping. You can also use plastic fermentation buckets, or glass carboys as cider fermentors. If using a glass carboy, just be very careful not to add boiling hot liquids as the fermentors can shatter making for an incredibly dangerous situation! There are also stainless steel 7 gallon brew bucket fermenters for just $229.
STEP 4 – Add Your Apple Cider Ingredients To The Fermentor
The next step is to add your different home cider ingredients to the sanitized fermenter. I first added in my boiled water and dextrose solution. Be careful as this still may be very hot! Next I added in the package of apple cider concentrate that came with my kit. Make sure that you sanitize the outside of the package and even the scissors that you use to open the kit, just to be safe! After pouring in the mixture, rinse the pouch with filtered and dechlorinated water (I use a carbon filter and seen in the photo, which highly reduces chlorine levels); and add the water to the fermentor. I then tossed in my oak cubes and filled the fermentor to the 5.5 Gallon level. The home made cider directions recommend filling it to the 6 gallon mark, but as I mentioned earlier, I like to live on the edge! You will want to make sure that your fermentor can support at least 7 gallons if not more! Keep in mind, the more sugar you add and the less water you add, the stronger your cider will be! So use caution!
STEP 5 – Check Your Cider Temperature
Yeast is a delicate and will parish if the temperature of your cider is too high! The ideal fermentation temperature for cider is between 65F – 70F. So, cool your cider down to no more than 70F before you add your yeast to the cider mixture. You also do not want your temperature too low or else the yeast will not activate, so try to get it above 65F. I use a converted chest freezer with a digital temperature controller as a fermentation chamber so that I can keep a stable fermentation temperature. If you do not have access to one, do your best to keep your cider fermentor in an area that has a stable temperature of approximately 67F. Keep in mind that the fermentation process generates heat and your cider will be warmer than the ambient temperature of the room that the fermentor is residing in.
STEP 6 – Add Your Yeast To The Cider
Next add your yeast to the fermentor! The fermentation process for you cider will take about a week to complete, but may take more or less time depending on a variety of factors including temperature, quantity of yeast, health of yeast, quantity of available sugar and type of yeast.
You should begin to see fermentation activity within 24-48 hours of pitching your yeast. If bubbles are not forming in your air lock, your yeast may not have been healthy enough for fermentation and you will need to add new healthy yeast as soon as possible. It is always wise to keep some dry cider yeast on hand, just in case this occurs. Dry cider yeast is far more durable than liquid cider yeast.
After the fermentation is complete almost all of the sugars will have been converted over to alcohol and the cider will be very dry. So at that point I will add a sweetener to the cider that the yeast in unable to convert. This will help to intensity the apple flavors in the cider. At that point I will also keg and carbonate my cider and it will be ready to server approximately 7 days after that. Once completed I will post the results!
You can purchase everything that you need to make cider at home at MoreBeer.com. Here are links to some of the items I use! MoreBeer is great because you get free shipping on any order over $59, they have some of the lowest prices available on home cider making ingredients and cider making equipment and incredible customer service!
Cider Making Ingredient Kits
7 Gallon Stainless Steel Cider Fermentor
Cider Yeast
Cider Oak Cubes
For my most recent home brewing project I converted an old decommissioned 5 gallon keg that my buddy hooked me up with in to some seating for brew day! For me, half of the enjoyment of home beer brewing is being creative, either in designing beer recipes or making things such as homebrew tap handles, home brewing equipment or accessories like this brewery bar stool, beer brewing throne!
The design process for this brewery bar stool, keg stool was pretty hap hazard. Basically I went online, search for an inexpensive bar stool that had the aesthetics that I was looking for for the base materials and cut it up to be used for parts. As expected, the homebrew bar stool did not fit together perfectly so there was a good deal of cutting, grinding, welding and finishing involved to get the keg stool to fit together as desired. All in the project took about 3 hours but I am happy with the results. Having the ability to adjust the height on the seat comes in pretty handy depending on what project I am working on. The additional legs around the base of the keg adds some stability to the stool in case one of my friends or I has had a few too many!
The tools that I used to make my brewery stool were a old crappy mig welder, grinder, hack saw / cut saw, wire brush, hammer and a little sand paper for finishing. If you would like to make your own brewing throne, brewery stool, keg stool or keg seat and have any questions, please feel free to ask or leave a comment. I am always happy to help a fellow home brewer out!
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This weekend I brewed up a batch of Coffee Milk Stout. If it turns out well, I will be sure to post the recipe for it. It should ride that line in between stout and imperial stout. I also chose to diminish the hop profile on it a bit so that the coffee flavors could be showcased on this batch. I am also going to try adding a cold brewed coffee concentrate to the fermenter after about a week instead of adding coffee beans to the fermenter. Fingers crossed that this will turn out well!
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Home Brewing Link: Beer Kit Sale
Product User Rating: 5/5
Availability: In Stock
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McQuaker’s Oatmeal Stout by Palmer Brewing
Cerveza de Malta Seca Dry Irish Stout by Palmer Brewing
Nutcastle Northern English Brown Ale by Palmer Brewing
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Ruabeoir Irish Red Ale by Palmer Brewing
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Hop Hammer Double IPA by Palmer Brewing
Strict Observance Belgian Tripel by Palmer Brewing
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