Blitz-Brewing
As much as I'm loving home brewing already there is a draw back. When I'm excited about something, I get thinking. And when I get thinking I can't sleep. So here I am, 2am and wide awake. Tried sleeping twice. Failed. So I figured I would write up another post on the topic. This time covering my approach to home brewing. A term I'm calling blitz-brewing.
I mentioned already that one of the motivations (aside from brewing things in general) was a cost vs. enjoyment factor. As I got into craft beer more and more I started drinking more frequently as well. That sounds bad, but prior I was only having a few beers a month at most. Now I drink closer to one a night. In fact, contrary to how it sounds, I have even less interest in getting drunk. It dulls my ability to taste the beer. But, more to the point, it meant the amount of money I was spending on beer went through the roof. Doubly so once my wife started enjoying craft beers as well.
So, the dilemma is this. Home brewing is neither free, nor immediate. So, if you're in the same boat as me, you have 3 options. Home brewing is certainly much cheaper than buying beer from a craft brewer or even from a store. And substantially so. But most estimates put it at 3+ weeks from brew day until you should really be considering drinking it. Even more for stronger beers and certain styles.
Luckily for me, I had a primary fermenter already, airlocks, auto-siphon, hydrometer, etc... from my mead making. But the ingredients (and sanitizer which I was running low on) and bottles still meant my first batch cost me $90. Almost half was bottles and those are re-usable. But it also means my second batch will cost about the same. I'll want to get it in bottles before this batch is done because I don't want a perpetual cycle of waiting for batches to finish. And to that end, my third batch as well will probably cost the same.
For other people, initial costs will be more, especially for the first batch. Early on, most people won't need multiple batches in fermentation at a time. With just a 1-2 weeks for many kit and extract beers it is really just the carbonating and conditioning time that hurts.
What this all means for a person like me is figuring out how to tackle this to make it a sustainable thing. I mentioned earlier that I had 3 options; The slow approach, the indifferent approach and the lightning approach.
The slow approach consists of buying and using equipment as slowly as possible and waiting out the aging and everything. You'll still likely need an a second set of bottles depending on how many you have, how quickly you go through them and batch sizes. This is a good way to start if you aren't sure if you'll stick with it. But it also means buying beer for 3+ weeks while you wait for yours to finish and possibly creating shortages that cause you to buy even after the first batch. Letting the beer age is critical to this approach though. If you're putting yourself in this scenario and drinking it before its ready you'll find it really easy to abandon.
I don't like this approach for me personally because I've already been brewing other things for years. I know I can stick with it. I already have a bunch of the equipment and investing more money into other peoples beer than I need too runs contrary to my objectives. I'll need several catastrophic failures in a row to deter me.
The indifferent approach (or the ultra casual approach) isn't really an approach at all. It is more of a mentality built around the most minimal investment possible. 1 set of everything. Maybe it means drinking it early. It definitely means interspersing buying beer with making beer. If you want to keep with it as such a casual hobby I think it means letting it age. Perhaps waiting as much as 4-6 weeks. If you're going casual anyway, might as well make sure it is good right? Again, not for me.
Which brings us to blitz-brewing. This approach is for those serious about more or less completely eliminating purchased beer. To start, my primary fermenter never spends more than a few days empty. This means, as mentioned earlier, lots of bottles. Enough for at least 3 batches and expecting it to grow over time. This approach will see the most amount of money dumped into home brewing in the shortest period of time, but it will also produce the quickest results in cutting your retail expenses. And it allows me to feel less bad about drinking beer that isn't done aging (or even carbonating).
Even if you wait it out for that first batch to age, this is still the approach to take to cut that retail dependency which is going to be much more expensive in the long run. It is a lot harder to pay the larger lump sums initially (for me at least) but the reality is, I've only just started the second batch and I'm close to breaking even vs. what I would have spent at the stores. $90 for first kit and bottles, $40 for second kit = $130. A pint of craft beer each is $10 a night. At 10 days in I'm only 3 days from breaking even. Granted, then I'll buy bottles and another kit and start the cycle again, but once the bottles are out of the equation, even at a batch a week which I won't maintain long I'd be saving money.
What all does it entail? Well, as mentioned, mainly just keeping your primary fermenter stocked until you have a stockpile of aged beer. Even with just one fermenter and my drinking my batches early, I figure within 4-5 weeks I'll reach this point. If you aren't drinking your beers before they're aged you should be good at the 3-4 week mark (unless you drink more than 5 gallons of beer between starting each batch, in which case you may need two fermenters going... but then you're also going to be saving money a LOT faster as well if you drink that much).
Once you hit that point, you can scale back production to match your rate of consumption. And at that point you shouldn't need any more equipment either.
To illustrate. I make 5 gallon batches which I think is most common. This gives me 40+ 500ml bottles. Which between my wife and I should take an average of 3 weeks to drink. I'm doing kits primarily at the moment to get started which take a week or less to get into bottles. Since I'm impatient, I only let carbonation go for 3 days before I started drinking, but for the sake of ease we'll assume I started drinking as soon as I bottled, at 1 week. I move a bottle or two to the fridge every day, leaving the remainder carbonating/aging.
Side note: while most might view this as a waste or just terrible impatience there is more to it than that. As someone with a history of brewing and an interest in it. It actually gives me a good insight into how beer ages and carbonates over time. Which in the future might help me identify a bad beer vs one which simply needs to sit longer as well as giving me a better idea of how much longer it might need.
By the time I finish my first batch, it should have just gotten to the drinkable stage. Meanwhile, my second batch will have been bottled for 2 weeks already which is really the bare minimum. By the time I finish that one, the 3rd batch will have aged for 4 weeks. Presto... as long as production keeps up with consumption, by this point all of my beer will have aged a decent amount of time before cracking it open. So, 4 weeks into the experiment I'll be finishing off my first batch and starting on the second which will already have aged as long as the kit specified. By the 5th week, the bottles I'll be drinking will be bottled for 3 weeks and every bottle after that will be 4+ weeks.
I'll probably keep production at those levels until for the 4th or 5th batch. I don't want to get too far ahead but I also like having variety. So, it will be a tad more costly on bottles than it needs be. But after that I should only need to buy new ones as I lose them.
I have a few more weeks of sub-par beer ahead of me as I'm just in the midst of week #2. But there you have it. Blitz-brewing. I think for most people this might be something they would start after the first batch if it went well and are interested in continuing it. That aggressive schedule with the fermenter is key though. Push it out by even a week on average and you're dipping much more quickly into your reserves which will push out the amount of time before you reach the stage where you have a full batched of properly aged beer waiting for you as finish a batch.
I mentioned already that one of the motivations (aside from brewing things in general) was a cost vs. enjoyment factor. As I got into craft beer more and more I started drinking more frequently as well. That sounds bad, but prior I was only having a few beers a month at most. Now I drink closer to one a night. In fact, contrary to how it sounds, I have even less interest in getting drunk. It dulls my ability to taste the beer. But, more to the point, it meant the amount of money I was spending on beer went through the roof. Doubly so once my wife started enjoying craft beers as well.
So, the dilemma is this. Home brewing is neither free, nor immediate. So, if you're in the same boat as me, you have 3 options. Home brewing is certainly much cheaper than buying beer from a craft brewer or even from a store. And substantially so. But most estimates put it at 3+ weeks from brew day until you should really be considering drinking it. Even more for stronger beers and certain styles.
Luckily for me, I had a primary fermenter already, airlocks, auto-siphon, hydrometer, etc... from my mead making. But the ingredients (and sanitizer which I was running low on) and bottles still meant my first batch cost me $90. Almost half was bottles and those are re-usable. But it also means my second batch will cost about the same. I'll want to get it in bottles before this batch is done because I don't want a perpetual cycle of waiting for batches to finish. And to that end, my third batch as well will probably cost the same.
For other people, initial costs will be more, especially for the first batch. Early on, most people won't need multiple batches in fermentation at a time. With just a 1-2 weeks for many kit and extract beers it is really just the carbonating and conditioning time that hurts.
What this all means for a person like me is figuring out how to tackle this to make it a sustainable thing. I mentioned earlier that I had 3 options; The slow approach, the indifferent approach and the lightning approach.
The slow approach consists of buying and using equipment as slowly as possible and waiting out the aging and everything. You'll still likely need an a second set of bottles depending on how many you have, how quickly you go through them and batch sizes. This is a good way to start if you aren't sure if you'll stick with it. But it also means buying beer for 3+ weeks while you wait for yours to finish and possibly creating shortages that cause you to buy even after the first batch. Letting the beer age is critical to this approach though. If you're putting yourself in this scenario and drinking it before its ready you'll find it really easy to abandon.
I don't like this approach for me personally because I've already been brewing other things for years. I know I can stick with it. I already have a bunch of the equipment and investing more money into other peoples beer than I need too runs contrary to my objectives. I'll need several catastrophic failures in a row to deter me.
The indifferent approach (or the ultra casual approach) isn't really an approach at all. It is more of a mentality built around the most minimal investment possible. 1 set of everything. Maybe it means drinking it early. It definitely means interspersing buying beer with making beer. If you want to keep with it as such a casual hobby I think it means letting it age. Perhaps waiting as much as 4-6 weeks. If you're going casual anyway, might as well make sure it is good right? Again, not for me.
Which brings us to blitz-brewing. This approach is for those serious about more or less completely eliminating purchased beer. To start, my primary fermenter never spends more than a few days empty. This means, as mentioned earlier, lots of bottles. Enough for at least 3 batches and expecting it to grow over time. This approach will see the most amount of money dumped into home brewing in the shortest period of time, but it will also produce the quickest results in cutting your retail expenses. And it allows me to feel less bad about drinking beer that isn't done aging (or even carbonating).
Even if you wait it out for that first batch to age, this is still the approach to take to cut that retail dependency which is going to be much more expensive in the long run. It is a lot harder to pay the larger lump sums initially (for me at least) but the reality is, I've only just started the second batch and I'm close to breaking even vs. what I would have spent at the stores. $90 for first kit and bottles, $40 for second kit = $130. A pint of craft beer each is $10 a night. At 10 days in I'm only 3 days from breaking even. Granted, then I'll buy bottles and another kit and start the cycle again, but once the bottles are out of the equation, even at a batch a week which I won't maintain long I'd be saving money.
What all does it entail? Well, as mentioned, mainly just keeping your primary fermenter stocked until you have a stockpile of aged beer. Even with just one fermenter and my drinking my batches early, I figure within 4-5 weeks I'll reach this point. If you aren't drinking your beers before they're aged you should be good at the 3-4 week mark (unless you drink more than 5 gallons of beer between starting each batch, in which case you may need two fermenters going... but then you're also going to be saving money a LOT faster as well if you drink that much).
Once you hit that point, you can scale back production to match your rate of consumption. And at that point you shouldn't need any more equipment either.
To illustrate. I make 5 gallon batches which I think is most common. This gives me 40+ 500ml bottles. Which between my wife and I should take an average of 3 weeks to drink. I'm doing kits primarily at the moment to get started which take a week or less to get into bottles. Since I'm impatient, I only let carbonation go for 3 days before I started drinking, but for the sake of ease we'll assume I started drinking as soon as I bottled, at 1 week. I move a bottle or two to the fridge every day, leaving the remainder carbonating/aging.
Side note: while most might view this as a waste or just terrible impatience there is more to it than that. As someone with a history of brewing and an interest in it. It actually gives me a good insight into how beer ages and carbonates over time. Which in the future might help me identify a bad beer vs one which simply needs to sit longer as well as giving me a better idea of how much longer it might need.
By the time I finish my first batch, it should have just gotten to the drinkable stage. Meanwhile, my second batch will have been bottled for 2 weeks already which is really the bare minimum. By the time I finish that one, the 3rd batch will have aged for 4 weeks. Presto... as long as production keeps up with consumption, by this point all of my beer will have aged a decent amount of time before cracking it open. So, 4 weeks into the experiment I'll be finishing off my first batch and starting on the second which will already have aged as long as the kit specified. By the 5th week, the bottles I'll be drinking will be bottled for 3 weeks and every bottle after that will be 4+ weeks.
I'll probably keep production at those levels until for the 4th or 5th batch. I don't want to get too far ahead but I also like having variety. So, it will be a tad more costly on bottles than it needs be. But after that I should only need to buy new ones as I lose them.
I have a few more weeks of sub-par beer ahead of me as I'm just in the midst of week #2. But there you have it. Blitz-brewing. I think for most people this might be something they would start after the first batch if it went well and are interested in continuing it. That aggressive schedule with the fermenter is key though. Push it out by even a week on average and you're dipping much more quickly into your reserves which will push out the amount of time before you reach the stage where you have a full batched of properly aged beer waiting for you as finish a batch.
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