home brew in vienna

Check out http://www.lichtenthalerbraeu.at/ for the closest thing I've found to American craft beer here in Austria.

I homebrew here in Vienna, and can give you loads of tips and advice.

I don't trust biererei because I'm not sure that they take care of their ingredients. They leave bags of hops and yeast just sitting out on shelves. I'm not sure how fresh the malt is either. Plus they can't give any solid information about the SRM or EBC of their malts. Since Biererei is partnered with Holzeis, I've never ordered from them either. They've sullied the name for me.

Check out these three pages:
http://www.brouwland.com/en/
http://www.hobbybrauerversand.de/
http://amihopfen.com/

Are you looking to do all grain or extract? Your best bet for affordable fermentation buckets might be to go with the ones from brouwland.
You can also find nice stainless pots from this store on ebay:
http://www.ebay.de/sch/catering-portal/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

If you're looking to go all-grain, I can point you towards instructions on how to convert one of their insulated "thermoports" into a mash-tun, but that is a financial investment.

Oh, and you might also be interested in one of the starter kits out of the UK.
http://www.hopandgrape.co.uk/public/catalog.asp?catid=GET20262137
http://www.thehomebrewcompany.co.uk/beer-wine-equipment-c-2.html

A lot of people in the UK use plastic buckets outfitted with heating elements as their boil kettle, and it seems to work out well for them. They are relatively affordable.

If you are going to start brewing, start soon. After around April it will be too hot here to maintain fermentation temperatures unless you have a dedicated fermentation fridge.

 

...and start saving brown bottles now.

 

I suppose that you can keep green bottles too, but hops skunk easier in green bottles. You can cap the wine bottles, but they use 29mm caps whereas beer bottles use 26mm caps.

I was really tempted to buy those glasballon fermenters when I first started, but there were a few things that held me back. First, they are expensive. A 20l glass fermenter costs 33EUR while a 30l plastic bucket costs about 10EUR. Second, I wasn't sure how I was going to clean them out without buying a special brush and that was going to cost even more money. BUT if you do shell out the bucks for them, you'll have less of a chance of an infection.

I built my own set up too, but there is nothing wrong with the bundles on those webpages I linked to. They might even be a little cheaper and you'll use all of those parts for a very long time.

You are going to need:

• A plastic bottling bucket (Which can also be used as a primary fermenter)
• Another bucket for secondary fermentation
• An autosyphon
  
• A bottle capper and caps
  
• A hydrometer or refractometer
• A thermometer
  
• A bottle brush for cleaning
• Sanitizer (Star San or Chempro OXI work well)
• A pot for boiling
• I might be forgetting something

My set-up is for all-grain and I dumped a lot of money into it, so I'm not really sure if it would be helpful for you if I listed all of the parts that I use. But I can tell you that I have all of that stuff listed above and then some more things.

Another couple of things to consider would be a chiller and a filter for the boiling pot.
I'm not sure if you need the filter if you're doing extract so long as you put your hops in mesh bags before adding them to the boil. I've also been reading that most people in Australia don't chill their beer after boiling, and they aren't experiencing any problems with their beer. It is important that your beer is chilled down to fermentation temps before you pitch your yeast, but they claim that it isn't a race to cool the stuff down and that you can just let it sit and chill naturally for a few hours before you add the yeast.

I use a plate chiller, but I kind of wish I had a copper coil chiller instead because I'm always worried about it getting clogged up with hop pellet particles.

I suggest that you check out this video if you are interested in doing extract brewing.

If you follow this guy's methods, you'll be making some good beer at a low investment cost.

There is also this book:
http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html

Let me know if you have any more questions!

 

Copper rolls are pretty expensive here. I don't really know why. I have an unused roll which I got from the UK, but I'm saving that because I'd like to build a heat exchanger sometime in the future. The plate chiller has been working so far, but I always have that fear of it blocking up.

I have the 70l Thermoport for my mash tun, and I use a false bottom from MattMill.
( http://www.hobbybrauerversand.de/MattMill-Laeuterblech-447-mm-zB-70-Liter-Thermoport_1 )
I'm not sure I'm 100% happy with the false bottom as I don't think it seals up perfectly with the side of the tank. It's working ok, but sometimes I wonder if it could be working better. I'd suggest taking a look into the false bottoms from the UK. Check out the ones that have silicon tube around the perimeter to make a firm seal.

I went with the 70l version because I wanted to be able to use the tap on the side of the tank. It worked because the MattMill false bottom can be jacked up to a level above the tap hole, but I found that it was raising the grain so far up from the bottom that it was pushing all of my grain up to the surface of the water. I ended up installing a bottom drain after the second-or-so brew. Now I wish I'd just gone with the 80l version since it's not that much more expensive.

Here's how:
http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/home_brew_faq-equipment-mashing-ss-thermopot-mash-tun_1.htm

Factor in around 20 Euros for parts to install a bottom drain.

For my first BK, I converted a 27l einkochautomat which I found on www.willhaben.at .

I started doing larger batches and after a few boil overs I upgraded to this one:
http://www.hopandgrape.co.uk/public/detailv1.asp?itemcode=STA20252653
and I had them put a second heating element on it.

I use a corona mill to mill my grains. It's not ideal, but it works for now.

I also have a fridge which I've added an stc-1000 controller to and I use it to control fermentation temperatures.
The fridge was 150 EUR on www.willhaben.at and I spent another 30 euros or so adding the stc-1000 controller.

Really it can be quite expensive to go all-grain here. It's a big decision to make. I think I'd suggest getting a fermentation fridge before going all grain as well, because it really does seem to make a difference in flavor.

Shipping should be considered when making your orders. Your best shipping deals will come from Brouwland and http://www.hobbybrauerversand.de/ . Shipping out of the UK can get expensive quick, but it seems like some of the equipment itself is cheaper.

 

Oh, and I didn't answer your question... I've made stouts and pale ales, but I'm going to try a Cascadian dark and an American wheat soon. I'm just waiting for this year's hop harvest to come in the mail.

Another thing to consider when shopping for buckets or carboys is oxidation. You want to have as little head space as possible after you've transferred to secondary so that the o2 doesn't ruin your beer. Make sure that your 2nd vessel is sized really close to your target brew length. Your primary fermentation vessel will still need a lot of head space so that it can accommodate the krausen. This is why many people ferment in a large bucket and then transfer to a smaller glass carboy for their secondary. Considering this, maybe that glass carboy from Amazon might be a good purchase.

 

Polish Homebrew Porn

German Homebrew Porn

UK Homebrew Porn
(change the search term from boil kettle to whatever else you want to look at)

More UK Homebrew Porn

 

Yep, I had the cascadian dark. It was pretty easy to get tipsy off of that stuff.

BIAB seems like it could be a good idea. I've never tried it personally, but it looks logical and should make good beer. I think it's quite popular with the Australlians. I don't know a whole lot about it, so I can't really offer any tips.

I think that two liters of head space should be fine. As it settles, the wort will gass off a bit of co2 and push the 02 out of the carboy.

You'll be fine without the fridge for now, but I would suggest dumping money into one before making the investment into thermoport mash tuns, etc. I've only used mine for cooling so far, but I'm going to add a heater to it before my next brew. I feel like my recent beer tastes a bit cleaner than the beer I brewed without the fridge.

 

Here is a link to a forum thread on BIAB in the UK
http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=35233

I imagine that you could have a lot of that equipment shipped to Austria for a fair price.

 

yep, I use beersmith and it is invaluable. When I first started reading about brewing, I started to memorize all of the equations for calculating estimated gravity, strike temperatures and grist ratios etc, and I was really proud of myself because it felt like I was really learning something scientific. Then I downloaded beersmith and realized that I was an idiot and that I was just wasting my time pretending to be a chemist. I would highly recommend the program. They have a setting for BIAB, so you could use it for that if you went that direction. (which I'm starting to think might be wise)

 

I can't watch the video right now as that would wake up the wife, but I'm sure I must have seen this one before. I've somehow managed to watch all of the BrewingTV episodes at least once. I can't remember any specifics about what they do in this one, but it's probably solid technique if it's coming from them.

3gal is a fine idea. Just make sure that you have the vessels to match that brew length. Check these searches to see if anything appeals to you:
http://www.willhaben.at/iad/kaufen-und-verkaufen/marktplatz?keyword=korbflaschen&x=0&y=0&sort=1

http://www.willhaben.at/iad/kaufen-und-verkaufen/marktplatz?keyword=Ballonflasche&x=37&y=9&sort=1

As for recipes, I wouldn't suggest trying to put something together yourself just yet. Try to follow some known recipes for a while first so that you can get to know your ingredients. I made this mistake early on and have some really crappy beer that is still sitting around waiting to be poured out. I think you're right to want to find simple recipes, too. I've learned the most from my single hop recipes. I don't know BIAB, so I can't really suggest anything specific. I can say that I have had a lot of luck with the recipes I've found over on www.homebrewtalk.com. Beersmith also comes with some recipes which look credible, but I've never tried any of them.

As for falconer's flight, I think that is a blend of a bunch of hops and I think it's a one-off so you won't really be able to build off of it in the future. I might be wrong about this.

I supposed that if I was pushed to make a comment on recipes, I would suggest that you try to do something that is mostly pale malt for your IPA for now. A small part of the grain bill should be something else lightish like carapils or biscuit. One thing BA is infamous for is it's collective hatred of crystal malts in an IPA. Many people in turn hate BA for this, but that is all about personal preference.

US-05 is a good yeast. I use that most of the time.