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[ Questions from non-brewers | Sanitation | Recipe | Fermenting | Bottling | Yeast culturing | Frugal brewing | Equipment ]

This FAQ last updated on Tue Dec 29 17:30:15 CST 2009.

Questions from non-brewers
Is it legal to brew beer at home?
Is it hard to make beer?
If it can be hard, why do it?
Is it cheaper to make your own beer?
What kinds of beers are harder to brew?
How much beer do you make at one time?
Dang. How much beer do you drink?
How long does it take from start to finish?
Dang! Why so long?
How do you put the caps on the bottles?
Is all beer bitter?
Can I use [exotic ingredient] in my beer?

Sanitation
What does "no-rinse sanitizer" mean?
What if I rinse my no-rinse sanitizer off?
Can I use bleach as a no-rinse sanitizer?
Can I use iodophor as no-rinse?
Can I use StarSan as no-rinse?
Do I have to make 5gal of sanitizer?
Why should I use a syringe to measure undiluted sanitizer?

Recipe
Will table sugar make my beer cidery?
So how do I increase the alcohol level?
How fermentable are sugars?
Should I use DME or LME?
Is AG brewing for me?

Fermenting
Can I use those 5-gallon water bottles as fermenters?
Is a 5gal primary big enough?

Bottling
Can I re-use twist-off bottles?
Can I re-use caps?
How do I get labels off?
Can I prime with table (cane) sugar?
Are some bottles difficult to cap?

Yeast culturing
Is it possible to re-use my yeast?
What is yeast cake re-use?
What is yeast washing?
What are yeast slants?
What are yeast plates?
What are yeast stabs?
What is yeast freezing?
What are yeast suspensions?
Won't my yeast mutate if I keep repitching it?

Frugal brewing
How can I cap my beers more frugally?
How can I collect beer bottles more frugally?
Are there any items which even frugal brewers should invest in?

Equipment
Where can I get lab glassware?
What are the best deals on pressure cookers?

Questions from non-brewers

Is it legal to brew beer at home?
Yes, thanks to Pres. Carter the federal law was altered to allow sane levels of brewing for home consumption. A few states still ban it at the state level (Utah has recently legalized homebrewing).
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Is it hard to make beer?
In a very real sense, beer wants to make itself and the brewer is there to guide the process. How hard it is depends on how much you want to control. It is easy to make good beer; it is harder to make exactly what you want or to make certain styles.
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If it can be hard, why do it?
Because it is good, clean, geeky fun.
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Is it cheaper to make your own beer?
Cheaper than what? It will probably be cheaper than craft beers, but more than mass-produced beers like Budweiser that use inexpensive adjuncts like rice and corn. If you really only like mass-produced beers than homebrewing would probably just irritate you.
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What kinds of beers are harder to brew?
Beers that are very delicate (like American beer), beer that takes special equipment or processes (lagers), or that are indigenous to a specific physical setting (lambics). High-gravity (high-alcohol) are also problematic because it is hard on the yeast and uses a large amount of grains which require more spacious equipment.
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How much beer do you make at one time?
5 gallons is the traditional amount. This is about 2.5 cases.
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Dang. How much beer do you drink?
A few a week. About 1 a day on the weekends and maybe one every other day on weekdays.
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How long does it take from start to finish?
A good rule of thumb is about 6 weeks. So you will always keep beer in various states of completion so you don't run out.
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Dang! Why so long?
You can drink it in a couple of weeks (ie, the alcohol will be there) but the beer really hasn't aged or carbonated properly. It will mellow out and improve with age. One traditional method is 1-2-3: 1 week in primary (a bucket), 2 weeks in secondary (carboy), and 3 weeks in the bottle. I generally do a 2-3 (two weeks in primary, three weeks in the bottle).
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How do you put the caps on the bottles?
There is a special device called a "capper" (surprise!) that puts new caps on the bottle. You use new caps, and can't reuse caps. Twist-off bottles are generally not used, but you can do it if you want.
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Is all beer bitter?
Most beers have hops, which are the primary bittering agent. I tend to underhop my beers and prefer them that way. Other folks like style-correct balance, others like to go insane with the hops. That's one of the great things about homebrewing.
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Can I use [exotic ingredient] in my beer?
You can use what you want; it's your beer. Now, some things work better than others. Tossing a 5gal batch because it is vile is an expensive lesson to learn. Google "homebrew recipe [exotic ingredient]" before you get all wild with your ingredients. Then do what you want to do anyhow.
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Sanitation

What does "no-rinse sanitizer" mean?
No-rinse means the mixture is carefully diluted to the point where it will sanitize your materials but does not have to be rinsed off. These wet-contact sanitizers are applied and drained before use. Measure carefully.
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What if I rinse my no-rinse sanitizer off?
Don't do that. Seriously, it's called "no-rinse" for a reason.
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Can I use bleach as a no-rinse sanitizer?
Yes, although there are problems associated with bleach+water as a sanitizer. The pH is quite high and above pH8 the bleach doesn't sanitize well. It also leaves a strong odor at many recommended dilutions (a la JOHB).
If you are careful with your measurements and procedures you can use the 1ozBWV method to reduce the amount of bleach needed, drop the pH to a bug-killing range, and achieve bleach based sanitization in a no-rinse concentration.
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Can I use iodophor as no-rinse?
Yes, works great. No foam, but iodophor is relatively unstable over time. It will probably lose it's light tea color (and effectiveness) in about 8hrs after mixing. It may discolor some items that soak in it. 3ml/gal (15ml/5gal)is the no-rinse dilution.
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Can I use StarSan as no-rinse?
Yes, don't fear the foam. Much more stable in distilled water, so many people mix it up with distilled and keep it indefinitely. The pH needs to be somewhere under ph3 to stay effective. 1oz or 30ml in 5gal of water is no rinse dilution. This means the 1/4 oz marker in the bottles with self-dispensers is for 1.25 gallons of water.
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Do I have to make 5gal of sanitizer?
No, unless you are making the 1ozBWV solution above you probably don't want more than a gallon or two. One of the most effective ways to use sanitizer is in a spraybottle.
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Why should I use a syringe to measure undiluted sanitizer?
Because many brewers use too much sanitizer, wasting money and resulting in dilutions that are not approved for no-rinse applications. Using too little means you aren't getting enough to properly sanitize.
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Recipe

Will table sugar make my beer cidery?
This is something of an urban legend. The addition of table sugar to the recipe in relatively small amounts does not, by itself, promote off flavors. For example: you have a recipe with 7# of dry malt extract (DME, 308 gravity points) and add in 1# of table sugar (46 gravity points). . The fermentables are overwhelmingly malt-based (only 13% of the fermentables) and so it will taste like beer with a somewhat augmented alcohol level. Now consider a "kit and kilo" that combines 3.3 liquid malt extract (LME, 119 gravity points) with 2.2# of table sugar (101 gravity points). In this latter case the non-malt fermentables are 46% of the total! That's not going to taste like any beer you would recognize. Table sugar generally doesn't belong in beer but some Belgian styles do use sucrose (sometimes inverted). Table sugar gets a bad rap because of all the crappy recipes that use it. It works great for priming.
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So how do I increase the alcohol level?
You can increase it all you want and however you want but the beer will not be correct for style and probably won't taste good. This kind of cheap alcohol is commonly referred to, rather unkindly, as prison hooch. I would encourage you not to make it. If that is what you want then go get some cheap 40oz malt liquor; it will require less money, work, and time.
The best way to get more alcohol is to brew a higher-gravity recipe with lots of malt sugars.
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How fermentable are sugars?
Per pound:

.
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Should I use DME or LME?
In my opinion Dry Malt Extract (DME) wins; it has higher fermentability per pound so costs less to ship for any given recipe, is easier to handle and measure, and is available in very light colors, and appears to be more shelf-stable. Having said that, LME may be less expensive and may be a better deal if you can find it fresh. If the cost difference between the two is significant to you then you might want to consider all grain (AG) brewing where the malt costs go way down.
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Is AG brewing for me?
You might be an AG (all-grain) brewer if:


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Fermenting

Can I use those 5-gallon water bottles as fermenters?
The best answer is that #1 and #2 recyclable bottles should be great for primary or secondary vessels. Others, particularly #7s, may be 02 permeable at best and may leach chemicals into your beer at worst. If you chance it with a #7 I'd use it for short-term primary fermentations.
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Is a 5gal primary big enough?
Yes, although you will lose some amount from blowoff. Remember to affix your blowoff tube for the first few days at least. You can add in some Fermcap if you want to limit or eliminate blowoff.
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Bottling

Can I re-use twist-off bottles?
Yes, with some caveats. Twist-off bottles (TOBs hereafter) are not intended for re-use and so are generally somewhat thinner and differently-shaped, particularly in the crown area the bench capper needs to hold the bottle. For this reason you may find they are harder to work with and may break easier during capping and opening. Some brewers report they needed a bench capper to cap consistently with minimal breakage. If you wipe your bottles down after filling, remember to wipe the cap in a clockwise direction that would tighten rather than loosen a twistoff cap. Use your bottle opener with some care; I suspect that the people who are breaking bottles when opening are catching a thread or other ridge with the opener when opening them. Maybe just twist them off? TOBs are great for giving away samples to people who can't be trained to clean and return bottles.
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Can I re-use caps?
It might be possible, but they are very cheap and tend to get bent while opening. I wouldn't do it.
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How do I get labels off?
Start with the right bottles. German weizen-style .5L bottles and some Japanese bottles have labels that just float off after a short soak. Normal bottles benefit from a soak in water, or water with bleach, ammonia, or oxyclean. Remember to rinse afterwards.
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Can I prime with table (cane) sugar?
Yes. You will likely want to use about 5-9% less table sugar by weight than dextrose (corn sugar) due to the higher water content of dextrose by weight compared to table sugar.. Note that since table sugar might take slightly longer to carbonate (ie, the full three weeks). This is due to the yeast using invertase to break sucrose down to glucose and fructose, both of which it can use directly. You are allowing your beer to condition for 3wks at 70F before drinking, right?
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Are some bottles difficult to cap?
Yes, there are recappable bottles that are difficult to cap with a wing capper. This is due to how the wing capper works. At the top of recappable bottles there is a crown with a top lip; this top flange is where the bottle cap crimps on. The bottom part of this crown is a flanged part wider than the neck where the capper grabs on when you are crimping the cap on. In a wing capper scenario when you are pushing down the levers it is effectively pulling the bottle up into the cap using that flange for leverage. If the flange is hard to engage or grip then the wing capper can suddenly slip, ride up, fall off, etc. Sometimes this action is sudden and can result in toppling or breaking the bottle.
Bottles reported to be difficult to wing cap include: Corona, Amstel, Pilsener Urquell.
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Yeast culturing

Is it possible to re-use my yeast?
There are several different methods briefly described below. In my opinion these approaches can be broken down into

  1. recycling yeast after use: yeast cake reuse, yeast washing
  2. culturing pure strains before use: slanting, plating, stabbing, freezing, or suspending yeasts, starting from a tube/vial or other pure source.

Recycling is easier, and culturing will allow you to keep a pure supply. Most culturing scenarios require a yeast starter and sterile (not sanitary) conditions that require and autoclave or pressure cooker. Pure cultures benefit mightily from use of a stirplate. Culturing involves liquid yeasts; dry yeasts are so inexpensive that re-use (other than cake re-use) may not be worth the effort.
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What is yeast cake re-use?
Cake re-use is the simplest of all yeast re-use methods. Basically you rack the beer off your primary (whether for bottling or for secondary fermentation) and you dump a similar or heavier/darker worth right on top of the old yeast cake. Be forewarned: the resulting fermentation can take off very fast due to the large number of yeast cells.
Pro: easy, fast. No starter needed.
Con: cannot pitch a lighter beer on the old cake or it will pick up flavors from the previous inhabitant. If your old batch is off or contaminated your new batch is, too. Probably overpitching, leading to cleaner, less estery flavors (esters are desirable in many styles).
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What is yeast washing?
Yeast washing is similar to cake re-use but removes the cake from the primary and decants it in sanitized containers.
Pro: gets the yeast isolated away from trub and krausen. Can results in multiple containers of reusable yeast. Not limited to going heavier/darker with the next batch. Washed yeast can last longer than a fresh yeast cake.
Con: more opportunities for infection. More work. Sterility recommended, starter required.
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What are yeast slants?
Slants are pure yeast cultures streaked onto a (literally) slanted wort/agar solid medium.
Pro: culture tubes are small and take up little space in the refrigerator. Pure cultures can last for months. Infection is visibly identifiable.
Con: extra work, sterility/starter required, strict procedures, slants have to recultured (usually on agar plates/petri dishes) every few months to ensure viability.
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What are yeast plates?
Plates are petri dishes with some the agar media poured in the bottom. They are generally used for reculturing or viability test rather than long-term storage.
Pro: spacious area to work in. Can do quadrant streaking to isolate single-cell colonies.
Con: easily contaminated, although the area is so large you can likely visually isolate yeast and replate it. Condensation can be hard to manage, and when there is no condensation the agar medium can quickly dry out. Should to be sealed with parafilm, electrical tape, or other water barrier. Usually has to be recultured in weeks. Sterility/starter/refrigeration required.
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What are yeast stabs?
Stabs are slants, as above, but instead of streaking the surface of the medium the culture is stabbed into/under the surface of the medium.
Pro: longer storage times compared to slants.
Con: harder to harvest, harder to observe growth. Sterility/starter/refrigeration required.
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What is yeast freezing?
Normally, liquid yeast cultures cannot be frozen because the water crystals rupture the cell walls. It is possible to cover with or suspend in a glycerine+water solution to get the long-term storage benefits of freezing temps without crystal formation.
Pro: longer-term storage than slants or stabs.
Con: Messy. Requires frost-free freezer or a cooler-in-freezer setup. Sterility/starter/refrigeration required.
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What are yeast suspensions?
Yeast suspensions are pure yeast cultures devoid of nutrition, floating in sterile, distilled water.
Pro: very simple, the media is exceptionally fast, cheap, and easy to prepare. Potential for very long storage of pure yeast cultures at room temps.
Con: largely unknown in the homebrewing world. Untested. Replating/sterility/starter required.
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Won't my yeast mutate if I keep repitching it?
Apparently some strains are stable . Check out this article where yeast was repitched 98x in the course of a year wherein neither of the test strains drifted. "Although some colony morphology variation was observed between fresh and old ale yeast cultures, there were no detectable genetic changes or alterations in fermentation characteristics to either yeast strain over the course of serial repitching. It is suggested that although some brewing yeast strains are susceptible to genetic drift, others are more resilient and can remain stable over extended periods of time."
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Frugal brewing

How can I cap my beers more frugally?
Buy over-runs, which are misprints or extras. They will have someone else's logo on them, but you can save some money that way. Also, if you bottle in 16oz or .5L bottles (or champagne bottles) you will use fewer bottle caps.
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How can I collect beer bottles more frugally?
Let your friends know you need good bottles. Reward those that bring you clean bottles.
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Are there any items which even frugal brewers should invest in?


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Equipment

Where can I get lab glassware?
Play it cool and smart and you can get some great deals on used lab glassware on eBay. Or you can buy it new from a discounter like Basic Science Supplies.
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What are the best deals on pressure cookers?
Pressure cookers are a "poor man's autoclave" and will change the way you think about sanitation. I find the best deals to be on Amazon. Look for the "super saver" shipping; it's free but slow. On a heavy item like a big cooker it can save you big bucks. I prefer the old-fashioned "rattle-top" spitting weights to the more delicate gauges. Remember, 15mins@15# for sea level applications.
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