How Long?

As you start to brew more and more, you will find out what is right and wrong for you. What is "right and wrong" for me might be "wrong and right" for someone else. We all have different brewing methods and conditions. But, welcome aboard and enjoy the ride.

Of your examples, I believe a Pilsner will take the longest. I have yet to brew one b/c I'm not too sure my fermentation tempertures can dip that low quite yet. A stout can be relatively quick, depending on what kind of stout. A low ABV brown ale will possibly be the quickest. If you will be bottle conditioning I would expect to wait 2-4 weeks just for carbonating the bottles, 2 weeks in primary, 2-4 weeks in bottles. Cheers!

 

If you are bottling, you can be drinking your own beer in 4-6 weeks unless it is a lager. No doubt that others will give examples of how to complete it faster, but one good trait to bring to homebrewing is patience.

 

Most ales of a moderate gravity: IPA, Pale, Stout, Brown, Porter, Belgians, ESB, etc, should be 2-3 weeks to ferment, then another 2-3 weeks to carbonate. Lower gravity can be only a week to ferment and 2 weeks to carbonate. Higher gravity beers like Barleywine, Scottish Wee Heavy, Imperial Stouts, Belgian Trippel, Quad, BSDA, etc, cam take longer, some where in the 6 weeks to 6 months range to ferment and bulk age before bottling. Standard gravity lagers like Pils will be 3-4 weeks to ferment and another 4-6 weeks to lager, plus another 2-3 weeks to carbonate. Higher gravity lagers like a Dopplebock is in the 6-8 weeks to ferment plus 4-6 months to lager before bottling. Sours will be in the neighborhood of 1-3 years to ferment before packaging.

 

I would not count on sooner than one month from brewday till your first beer is ready to pop a test bottle. It needs two or more weeks in the fermenter, then two or more weeks in the bottle. This is for a reasonable ABV, non-complicated beer.

You will have greater success if you do two things before you attempt to begin homebrewing:

1. use the KISS method of brewing.
2. read how to brew by palmer or the joy of home brewing by papazain before you even try to start

Then you will need equipment. Don't skimp. Thanksgiving is almost upon us. Right after that, buy a turkey fryer. Makes for a great beer making setup. Get a basic starter kit, less the boil pot (because that's what the turkey fryer is for). Make sure you have an AUTO-siphon, plus the normal standard items in a starter kit. Plenty of those online. Oh, and a wort chiller.

Think about fermentation temperature control. If you have a steadily cool basement that's 64 degrees year round, you're golden for making ales. If you live in the south and don't have air conditioning, you're almost completely screwed for brewing. Most ales need to ferment at less than 70F ambient room temperature (they will be a bit hotter than that due to exothermic reactions in fermentation). 70F is about the upper limit I could honestly say would be likely to produce pretty good beer. I use a freezer with a Johnson controller and keep the temperature at about 64F, and it makes great beer. I live in Tx, so I could not brew without this.

Start with simple recipes. NOT imperial stout, XXXXXXXIPA, belgian quadrupels barrel aged with boysenberry essence, etc etc. Brew a pale ale, brown ale, hef, wheat beer, IPA, or other moderate ABV, simple recipe.

Read all you can, learn all you can about brewing and fermentation. You don't operate a shotgun without knowing which end to aim away from face, right? Don't try to brew till you've done your homework.

 

It might seem like a long time away, but 11/2 is teach a friend to brew day. You should be able to find a local brew club that is hosting an event on that day to teach others to brew. Until then go the the local Goodwill store and find the home brewing books (usually at the end of the food section with wine, cocktails, beer), and read up.

 

The most common newbie brewer scenario: you'll brew your first beer, bottle a couple weeks later, drink the first beer a week after that, and it will be decent. You will be pleased. You will drink all the remaining beers quickly. A few weeks later, you will notice that you have one left, in the back of the fridge. You'll open it, taste it, and realize that it tastes much better than all the other ones you drank. You will then regret having drank all the other ones too quickly.

 

Moral of the story: when you think the beer is ready to be bottled... wait another 2+ weeks. And when you think the beer is ready to be consumed... wait another 2+ weeks.

 

Ha, so true. I have 1 bottle of my Milk Stout, the first ever brew I made in November 2010... I still need to drink that beer.

 

It doesn´t matter what beer you brew,the important thing is you brew it with your father,that has no price !!!!!!

 

You can use the sunroom as the brewery, but you probably don't want to ferment there.
However, Best bet is an old fridge, or better yet, old freezer that you hook up with a temperature control unit. There is a sensor inside that will turn the fridge on and off depending on the temp you select.
You can find a chest freezer at Home Depot for a couple hundred bucks new, (just have to make sure it's deep enough) or troll the local craigslist and want ads for a used one. People are often getting rid of them for a song.

 

Basically, this. I got one freezer brand new on sale for $170 that hold two 5 gallon fermentation buckets (actually one is eight gallons, but is shorter than the standard 6.5 gallon one, and can't have a standard airlock on top, so I use a different method. So two 6.5 gallon buckets would NOT work. keep that in mind, you need to measure). I also have a freezer that I got used which will hold one ten gallon bucket (actually it's about 14 gallons, but meant for a ten gallon batch, and it will only hold ONE of them). A johnson controller turns a freezer into a fridge, and cost for the analog model (which is fine, BTW), is perhaps 65 bucks or so.

Georgia is probably too hot for brewing most of the year unless you keep the house colder than a casino.

 

For a more specific answer to your question about how long:

1. Allow an entire day for the brewing process. Although the boil process only lasts for an hour or so, the time to gather and clean equipment, hook it up, crush your grain, wait for mash or mini-mash, wait for the water to reach a boil, clean up, etc. you've used an entire morning and afternoon.
2. Fermentation for an ale is usually 7-10 days but it's best to allow two weeks, and some could be longer. A lager will take 6-8 weeks to ferment under colder conditions.
3. Bottling kills an entire day due to the washing and sanitizing of two cases of bottles. I don't keg, but it probably is a little less time.
4. Bottle conditioning is usually 10 days, although you can get some CO2 in the bottle after 7 days if all goes well.

So don't be in a hurry because you can't do this in any sort of fast-track process.

 

Humm, thanks for making me feel like a super-achiever. It takes me 2 hours tops to bottle 50 beers. I have no idea how it could possibly take you a whole day. Do you smoke pot, by chance?

 

Maybe I should.

But it takes a while to get everything together, and then I'm just super cautious about hand-washing the bottles, bottling bucket, etc. and then double sanitizing everything before starting the actual bottling.

 

I have a stock pile of clean and de-labeled bottles from all my past batches. Open, pour, rinse well with hot water, put it away. Overnight oxy soak (removes any labels from new bottles) gets rid of anything. Jet bottle rinser on the tap. StarSan rinse (getting a vinator for quicker sanitizing). Bottled in only a couple hours. I also do an Oxy soak for the bottling bucket after I'm done then store it hanging upside down from the rafters so I don't have to clean it again before my next batch. I can bottle 2 batches worth in under 3 hours.

 

Most of us would go by the motto, Don't Drink til Done. Until the beer is chilled and the yeast it pitched, most of us won't have any beer. Once the yeast is pitched and the beer is put away where you ferment it, then have a beer while you finish cleaning. This arises from having forgotten steps, or been too lax in cleaning and sanitation due to the alcohol in your system. Definitely don't want to move a large glass vessel full of your beer after having a few.

 

I think "most" is a broad generalization. In fact, it may be worth putting up a poll. I've had a few with every batch that I've ever made, and I think many here do. It is a way of putting the spirit of homebrew back into the new batch.
It's just beer. Forgetting a step, having a momentary lapse of sanitation, being late with a hop addition--not the end of the world. That said, OP should be aware that there are very real safety risks when brewing beer and care is needed throughout most of the process to avoid injury. You do not want to dump 5 gallons of sweet wort at 205 degrees down your legs. One rule of thumb that I would be behind wholeheartedly is 'no children in the brewery'. Period. Things happen too quickly with the little rats.
Other than that, discretion of the brewer and knowing your limits is what matters.