Re: Beer

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If it's available in your area, Boxer Lager. In the words of a famous military strategist, "Quantity has a quality all its own".

Or did you mean "re-loading" equipment for firearms ammunition? The thread title has confused me.

If the latter, I've done OK with a Lee Turret Kit that I bought from Midway USA.

Re: Beer

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Sonofagun wrote:Imagine not being prepared for the worst. I'm thinking of investing in some "re-loading" equipment.

What do I need?
From the title
Re: DIY brewski?
Depends on to what degree the SHTFness you expect.
I do all grain brews. Generally you need:
1. a heat source
2. a water source
3. something to boil 5 gallons in (prefer 7 gals)
4. A 5 gallon fermenter
5. Individual containers to hold yer product
6. A thermometer to measure at least 150 degrees F.
7. A grain source (2 or 6 row barley)
8. Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae
9. Hops
10. Tubing
11. An understanding of sterile technique
12. Bleach / povidone
13, Patience, 'cause start to finish is at least 2 weeks
Is THIS what you're asking?
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Re: Beer

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Yip, thanks. I'm considering the hobby like past time to see what I can come up with. My experience level is zero, other than running the shipping and receiving department in Chateau Elan Winery. I was good friends with the wine maker and watched him work on this scale. I have room in my basement for a small beer making process till Colorado opens it's boarders. I'm thinking of starting with a good book and some advice from "the" pro's.
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Keep Bow Tight ~Sitting Bull
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/90682-i ... ooks-ahead

Re: Beer

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I knew what he meant right away. (Well, my own fondness for barley pop may have something to do with it.)
"There never was a union of church and state which did not bring serious evils to religion."
The Right Reverend John England, first Roman Catholic Bishop of Charleston SC, 1825.

Re: Beer

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You can dabble with both beer and wine making pretty easily these days. Amazon has kits for both, and you can order all the supplies to feed the kits online. I grew up making fruit wines (Shuddup, it was rural Colorado) every year. Requires some attention, but very doable. Get's trickier if you really want to prepare for SHTF though, as you'll need to be able to grow it all.
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
- Maya Angelou

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Re: Beer

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Sonofagun wrote: I'm thinking of starting with a good book
This is the one I started with:The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Third Edition by Charlie Papazian.
You can start very simply and build from there. I crack my grain and do extraction brewing. Takes longer, bit more labor intensive, but the techniques are similar as in reloading.
The steps and effort mirrors buying versus reloading. Attention to detail, recipes and record keeping are similar.
Be warned the "Now I need this piece of equipment" jonesing is as intense in brewing as in reloading.
I had more stainless steel than a hospital operating room until I gave away a truck load of extraneous brewing equipment a month ago.
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Re: Beer

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A soda keg setup or at the very least one liter Easy Cap bottles will make your life simpler and possibly keep you interested longer. Washing, filling and capping bottles sucks.

Buy a kit without a glass carboy to start with, for your first beers you won't need it but will have to store it if you buy it.

You can find really thin cheap stainless steel brew pots at Big Lots, usually. They are barely adequate but useable. If you have a HomeBrew USA nearby just wander in with a couple of hundred bucks, they'll set you up. Their instructions are super easy. Look for Easy Cap bottles on Craigslist
'Sorry stupid people but there are some definite disadvantages to being stupid."

-John Cleese

Re: Beer

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Mason wrote: Look for Easy Cap bottles on Craigslist
Be advised, if you get these, get dark brown. Avoid the clear bottles to store any beer in. Don't know about the blue, I have several cases of brown. Yeah, bottling and capping 12 oz beer bottles is no fun. (5 gals = 2.5 cases of 12 ouncers)
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Re: Beer

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Avoid glass carboys.

I know it's the old standard, but I bumped one wrong once and it shattered, and I mean shattered into about a thousand razor edges ... those things aren't made of safety glass, that's for sure.

Use a bucket or a plastic carboy.

A good site for brewing supplies is morebeer.com ... they have free shipping for orders over $59, and it's easy to hit that amount.

Capping bottles is fine, but kegging is much, much better. These days I do ten gallon batches, using two corny kegs as fermenters (I put blowoff tunes on the gas "in"), and then when they're done I use the CO2 to transfer into two waiting cornies ... then straight to the fridge for force carbonation and serving. Easy as pie, but it does require a bit of investment (in both $$ and space).

Oh, and watch Craigslist ... many try the hobby, but few persevere. You can get good brewing stuff quite cheaply, if you keep an eye on the listings. I've gotten some kegs, some gas fittings, a CO2 canister, and a wicked 10 gallon brewpot off CL.

Re: Beer

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+1 on Papazian
While glass carboys are breakable, they are a LOT easier to sterilize, which is important - at EVERY step. Nothing worse than all the labor to make the beer, only to find you have a lactobacillus infection. Plastic is great until it starts getting little teeny tiny scratches from cleaning, and it will. Then you start getting contamination and your beer sucks. Skip the bleach and go with an iodine based disinfectant - lower taste thresholds. Be ready for another expensive hobby. And treat it like reloading, in that you should read a BUNCH before you jump in with money. Oh, and skip the just add water kits at Big Lots :crazy: But yeah, you can make some GREAT beer at home.
Be sure to make good choices when you're being stupid...

Re: Beer

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Damn, I've been posting a lot on this.
foghorn wrote:+1 on Papazian
...glass carboys are breakable, they are a LOT easier to sterilize, which is important - at EVERY step. Nothing worse than all the labor to make the beer, only to find you have a lactobacillus infection.
Glass is my choice, also. Sterility (required at the initial fermentation stage) is far easier. I use bleach for general clean up, but anything touching the unfermented wert I use povidone. My brew shops sells the dairy grade stuff, 5mls in 5 gals for 5 minutes. It's a non rinse recipe, works great.
The glass carboys are rare and / or pricey. The factory in Mexico that made 'em by the metric shitload switched production. Hard to find any locally because meth cookers love 'em and the cops break 'em to shards during meth raids.
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