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@oni_dels said:
so, i'm finally gonna start brewing with hops and malts (not a syrup-y substance). i have a very basic setup, 23l basket and 23l (that's 5gal) carby, both food grade plastic. i was thinking of boiling outside with a burner and a big kettle.

also being on a 3rd floor apt, i can't really control temperature, so i know lagers and belgian ales are out of the question.
one of my friend's been brewing for a while now and he suggest i do english ale or stout. i was thinking of getting Goldings, but cascade is very tempting.

i don't know much about what to do really. i've been reading about it for a while now, but i'd like inputs.

edit: also, i was told to get this book,, which i just did.

1) awesome.

2) go to your city's public water website and get a water report. Compare it to the table HERE to figure out what type of beers are best suited to your water without any modifications. I'd start with something that you can just do without any water modification.

3) temps will also hinder what you can do. Lagering in an apartment will be tough, but you could do it with a tub of salted ice water that you monitor regularly. I'd personally stick to some sort of Ale, or Belgian because its easier to keep something constantly warm than cold.

4) all-grain brewing takes a fair bit more volume to work with. Mashing requires you to put your full volume of grain with most of your water at one time, so you'll want something in the area of 8 gallons to do this in.

5) if you aren't on a tight budget, consider electric brew in a bag systems.

Let me know if you have any questions.

@georgeh said:
If you like Belgians or lagers, you can make those with varying levels of ingenuity. I made my first lager by putting it in a Rubbermaid cooler filled with water, then swapped out 4 frozen 1/2 liter bottles every 12 hours. It kept it cool enough.

I did something similar. I've only been doing 1 gallon batches, so I haven't invested in any bulky equipment like a dedicated lagering fridge. For this recipe (used this calculator), I did the primary with the carboy sitting in a water bath with frozen water bottles. It got a bit warmer than I'd like, but worked well enough. Then I racked into the secondary and put the carboy in a cooler with frozen bottles changed once or twice a day:

If you haven't brewed before with specialty grains and hops, I would recommend getting that process down before trying to design your own recipes. But that's because I'm a planner and so if you want to throw some stuff in a pot and see what happens, then do that. Your homebrew shop can hook you up with a recipe and ingredients for whatever style you're thinking of.

Doing a partial mash is a great way to go to get started. You get to experience the alchemy part of brewing without having to mess with lautering.

The Oktoberfest recipe above was the result of a random urge one day to make a lager without proper equipment, or having ever done a partial mash by myself. I just went down to my local HBS, grabbed some liquid Oktoberfest yeast, some hops that sounded German, a pound of DME, and some grains that smelled like grandma's house. That's the caramel malt in the oversized tea bag:

It all turned out okay! Eventually, anyway -

I thought the fermentation quit early, and the taste after being in secondary for awhile still wasn't good. It was oily, almost savory. I've frequently read advice that if it doesn't taste right, it may just need more time. Sometimes much more time. So I bottled it, stuck it in the corner, and forgot about it for a couple months. Until I heard an explosion one night:

The fermentation definitely started again. I stuck all the bottles in the fridge to hopefully knock the yeast down, and double-bagged all the bottles in case they blew. I tried a bottle after they chilled, and it was a solid, decent Oktoberfest despite my ghetto technique! Now my only regret (besides the bottle bomb cleanup) was that I only had a few bottles since it was a gallon batch.

That book should answer most of your questions. If you have more after going through it let us know and I'm sure someone will have the answers for you. Don't worry about boiling grains (you steep them, then take them out before boiling) and be open to using some syrup or powder in your recipes for now.

@oni_dels‌ what kind of questions do you have? Have you read How to Brew? (the web version is outdated, but it contains most of what you need to know)

I think you should brew a beer that you like, so if you like English ales or stouts then go with that. If you like Belgians or lagers, you can make those with varying levels of ingenuity. I made my first lager by putting it in a Rubbermaid cooler filled with water, then swapped out 4 frozen 1/2 liter bottles every 12 hours. It kept it cool enough.

If you haven't brewed before with specialty grains and hops, I would recommend getting that process down before trying to design your own recipes. But that's because I'm a planner and so if you want to throw some stuff in a pot and see what happens, then do that. Your homebrew shop can hook you up with a recipe and ingredients for whatever style you're thinking of.

If you get a turkey-fryer to do a full boil outside you'll also need a wort chiller to cool it down after, so put that in your budget. And you'll still want to use some malt extract (the syrup-y substance or a powder) unless you want to jump right into all-grain brewing. You can get light, unhopped malt extract that can act as a base for your beer without limiting your creativity too much.