BeerBorg

For the discount, read the first post in this thread. There's a link to a post on how to get the discount there.

Hi Rycon, welcome aboard!
My starter books were Brewing Classic Styles, and How to Brew. How to Brew used to be free online for an older edition, so you can see if you like it before buying an up to date version. I subscribe to Brew Your Own, I think all of the recipes have both grain and extract instructions. When I started it all seemed a little challenging, but study and practice made sense of it all.

Hey guys, I am prepared to be assimilated due to the pandemic quarantine. Beer + trek is an easy yes for me! Couple rookie questions, I followed the link, but how do you get the discount if you already had an account? Next, I'd be interested to know if there is any brewing secret to maybe get another point or 2 higher in the ABV? 4.6 is cool but, any way to max that up a bit? and finally, any sources for recipes and ingredients besides brew demon for the 2 gal kit I just bought? Any mead sources?

Thanks all!

Brad

11bcollins11 wrote:Hey guys, I am prepared to be assimilated. Beer + trek is an easy yes for me! Couple rookie questions, I followed the link, but how do you get the discount if you already had an account? Next, I'd be interested to know if there is any brewing secret to maybe get another point or 2 higher in the ABV? 4.6 is cool but, any way to max that up a bit? and finally, any sources for recipes and ingredients besides brew demon for the 2 gal kit I just bought? Any mead sources?

Thanks all!

Brad

Welcome to the Borg. Seems you already found out resistance was futile.
Go here to get info on the discount.http://beerborg.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=583
Have fun.

11bcollins11 wrote:Hey guys, I am prepared to be assimilated due to the pandemic quarantine. Beer + trek is an easy yes for me! Couple rookie questions, I followed the link, but how do you get the discount if you already had an account? Next, I'd be interested to know if there is any brewing secret to maybe get another point or 2 higher in the ABV? 4.6 is cool but, any way to max that up a bit? and finally, any sources for recipes and ingredients besides brew demon for the 2 gal kit I just bought? Any mead sources?

Thanks all!

Brad

There are many ways to increase the ABV, but my advice is that you should chase flavor, not ABV.

If all you want to do it's increase your ABV, dump in a bunch of white sugar. That'll increase your ABV, but it'll also thin out the beer and give it a cidery flavor.

You can add additional extract to increase the ABV without thinning it, but that will also change the flavor. It'll make it sweeter, and give whatever malt flavors the extract is designed to provide. You can offset that with a hop boil, but you'll need to make sure the hops you add play will with the hips already in the kit.

Mr beer sells booster and brewdemon sells enhancer. These are supposed to increase the ABV without changing the flavor much or making the beer too thin or cidery. There is some debate about how successful they are at that.

There are also recipes that have higher ABV.

If you want to take things up a notch, you can use some base grains and fo a partial mash (a boil is required for that, and you can boil hops in it at the same time).

I'd suggest working on your process first, then learn what the various ingredients bring in terms of flavor so you can design your own recipes.

bpgreen wrote:

11bcollins11 wrote:Hey guys, I am prepared to be assimilated due to the pandemic quarantine. Beer + trek is an easy yes for me! Couple rookie questions, I followed the link, but how do you get the discount if you already had an account? Next, I'd be interested to know if there is any brewing secret to maybe get another point or 2 higher in the ABV? 4.6 is cool but, any way to max that up a bit? and finally, any sources for recipes and ingredients besides brew demon for the 2 gal kit I just bought? Any mead sources?

Thanks all!

Brad

There are many ways to increase the ABV, but my advice is that you should chase flavor, not ABV.

If all you want to do it's increase your ABV, dump in a bunch of white sugar. That'll increase your ABV, but it'll also thin out the beer and give it a cidery flavor.

You can add additional extract to increase the ABV without thinning it, but that will also change the flavor. It'll make it sweeter, and give whatever malt flavors the extract is designed to provide. You can offset that with a hop boil, but you'll need to make sure the hops you add play will with the hips already in the kit.

Mr beer sells booster and brewdemon sells enhancer. These are supposed to increase the ABV without changing the flavor much or making the beer too thin or cidery. There is some debate about how successful they are at that.

There are also recipes that have higher ABV.

If you want to take things up a notch, you can use some base grains and fo a partial mash (a boil is required for that, and you can boil hops in it at the same time).

I'd suggest working on your process first, then learn what the various ingredients bring in terms of flavor so you can design your own recipes.

Actually, I posted a more complete response to a similar question here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7511

Hi BCollins, welcome!
I think I remember that applying the discount to an existing account required contacting BrewDemon.
I agree that you should probably brew a few recipes as they are before searching for bigger, better beers. You might find that standard 5 gallon recipes can be split. You certainly can find homebrew extract recipes in print that can be scaled. I started with Clonebrews and Brewing Classic styles, two great books with both extract and grain directions for each recipe. Good luck, keep us posted!

Hi I am a pandemic brewer, staying healthy and at home, I like beer so i'm in.
Just bottled my first batch, and prepping to make another batch. I am using a one gallon due to lack of space. I asm using Brewers best kits for now till i get the hang of it.

First question: They recommend moving to a second vessel calling it secondary fermentation. Its not really necessary is it?

Thanks

Disasterdave wrote:Hi I am a pandemic brewer, staying healthy and at home, I like beer so i'm in.
Just bottled my first batch, and prepping to make another batch. I am using a one gallon due to lack of space. I asm using Brewers best kits for now till i get the hang of it.

First question: They recommend moving to a second vessel calling it secondary fermentation. Its not really necessary is it?

Thanks

Hi Disasterdave and welcome to the Borg. Sounds like you're moving along nicely.
No, secondary is not necessary. Some of the reasons you might want to would be if you had a high gravity beer, you want your beer clearer faster, you want to add fruit or oak or maybe a big dose of dry hops. Personally, I think you risk a better chance at getting an infection or introducing oxygen. Long ago it was just accepted to use a secondary but I bet if you put up a poll in this or another forum, you'd see the great majority of us don't use it at all or, very seldom.

Welcome to the Borg. Nope, I don’t use a secondary either.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm kind of new to brewing. I didn't start until 2009.

I've never used a secondary.

Welcome aboard Dave!
I don't secondary either. I just let the beer ferment three weeks and it clears nicely.

Disasterdave wrote:Hi I am a pandemic brewer, staying healthy and at home, I like beer so i'm in.
Just bottled my first batch, and prepping to make another batch. I am using a one gallon due to lack of space. I asm using Brewers best kits for now till i get the hang of it.

First question: They recommend moving to a second vessel calling it secondary fermentation. Its not really necessary is it?

Thanks

Thanks so much

First forum for me. Started brewing five years ago with a Mr. Beer kit, and have been using it up until a couple of months ago when I bought the 3 gallon conical. Loving this thing, bought a second, and now picking up one of the little one gallon fermenters. Southeast Alaska here, small town without a brewshop, so everything is online orders. I primarily use DME because it is easy. I brewed up some of the kits from various places, and although they can be done well, I now prefer coming up with my own brand of poison. Of particular note is one I call my "Rooftop Ale". We are not on a water system here, so we use a cistern (Big tank of water outside the house, it collects rainwater from the roof of the house), ours is "open", meaning it is topless and open to whatever might fall, fly drop or jump into it. My rooftop ale turned out great, I'm afraid however that it is because of all the gunk in the cistern, pine needles, cedar cones, bird****, no critters though. I recently hooked up a new 4500 gallon water tank, all nice and clean inside, closed and more like something the civilized drink. Now I just need to figure out the right ratio of water to gunk, and I'll be set.

One thing I have noticed over the few years I have been mixing my own brews, there are a lot of people out there that are very particular about their home brew, all the respect and appreciation to them for their knowledge, experience and hard work in perfecting their craft. However, I have been told that I wasn't making "real" beer because I was using the kits, or extract. I looked at what I was doing, looked at the results of my efforts. My taste buds are just not sophisticated enough to get into water profiles and such, but what I make looks like beer, smells and taste like beer, and I get tipsy or better, must be real beer. Humans have been doing this for a very long time, best to keep it simple. Thanks to all here for your thoughtful advice and recommendations.

KTNbrew wrote:First forum for me. Started brewing five years ago with a Mr. Beer kit, and have been using it up until a couple of months ago when I bought the 3 gallon conical. Loving this thing, bought a second, and now picking up one of the little one gallon fermenters. Southeast Alaska here, small town without a brewshop, so everything is online orders. I primarily use DME because it is easy. I brewed up some of the kits from various places, and although they can be done well, I now prefer coming up with my own brand of poison. Of particular note is one I call my "Rooftop Ale". We are not on a water system here, so we use a cistern (Big tank of water outside the house, it collects rainwater from the roof of the house), ours is "open", meaning it is topless and open to whatever might fall, fly drop or jump into it. My rooftop ale turned out great, I'm afraid however that it is because of all the gunk in the cistern, pine needles, cedar cones, bird****, no critters though. I recently hooked up a new 4500 gallon water tank, all nice and clean inside, closed and more like something the civilized drink. Now I just need to figure out the right ratio of water to gunk, and I'll be set.

One thing I have noticed over the few years I have been mixing my own brews, there are a lot of people out there that are very particular about their home brew, all the respect and appreciation to them for their knowledge, experience and hard work in perfecting their craft. However, I have been told that I wasn't making "real" beer because I was using the kits, or extract. I looked at what I was doing, looked at the results of my efforts. My taste buds are just not sophisticated enough to get into water profiles and such, but what I make looks like beer, smells and taste like beer, and I get tipsy or better, must be real beer. Humans have been doing this for a very long time, best to keep it simple. Thanks to all here for your thoughtful advice and recommendations.

It seems like you already know this, but don't listen to the naysayers. I've been brewing for more than 10 years. I've made good batches that were based on prehopped extracts. I've also made good batches using only extracts, water, yeast, hops.

I'm now doing all grain batches, due to covid and the mash and boil.

Don't let anybody tell you that what you're doing isn't brewing.