Setting Up the Homebrewery Part 2

Homebrewery Location
If you're like most homebrewers you probably have to consider where you are going to do your mashing/boiling/fermenting, where to store all this equipment, and lastly take into consideration any others living with you (yes your wife...me thinks most husbands would be elated if their wives were making beer, however my small sample of one finds the converse not always true). The mashing and boiling can be done on the kitchen stove, but if you can get it out of the house i.e. the garage, patio, maybe a really well ventilated basement, do it. Making beer can be messy. Crushed grain is dusty, mashing and sparging can be messy, and boiling is steamy with the looming threat of boil overs on your kitchen stove. Since we are also making a living drink highly susceptible to bacterial and wild yeast infection, the brewing location should ideally be as clean as possible. Garages and basements are not always the most sanitary of environments, but keeping the clutter down and maybe a good sweep/mop/hosedown once in awhile should be helpful. Should also be mentioned that most of us getting into homebrewing for the first time are rightfully knocked over the head to be clean when brewing. Brewing beer requires sanitized equipment and care in handling the cooled wort all the way to the bottling step so the yeast we introduce to the wort can do their job effectively without the threat of an infection. I mop down my basement floor after every brew, clean and even spray Star-San on my cleaned equipment...I'm a bit OCD when it comes to clean, but I digress.

I chose my basement for everything but the boiling of wort. I boil out in the garage with the garage door open (even in the dead of winter). Those burners are pretty intense and I can imagine throw off a large amount of dangerous CO (maybe that's while I'm lightheaded during the boil or maybe its the beer I'm drinking. I kid, I kid...kind of). My basement is relatively dry, clean, has the added benefit of a slop sink (huge for cleaning equipment), and most importantly remains at a stable temperature during the winter of 49-59F and 60-70F in the summer. Ithaca is cold except for two months out of the year (if you like sun, do not move here:). The temperature of the environment you intend to ferment in plays a big role in what you can brew effectively. Since fermentation buckets up in the main part of the house are not feasible, I mostly ferment in the basement. I bring them up once in awhile to warm depending on what I'm brewing but mostly stick to the basement.

There are temperature controlling methods for fermentation- heat blankets to warm, ice baths or controlled refrigerator to cool- but I want to keep it simple and brew to the environment instead of transform it (yet). This is a bit limiting then for what type of beers I can brew. Ale or top fermenting yeasts need warmer temps than lager or bottom fermenting strains.  I need yeast strains which work well in ~50-60F in the majority of the year and ones in the 60-70F for the summer months.Yeast are truly an amazing microbe worthy of more than my simplification here, but for this blogs purposes I'm going with the KISS motto.

These handy charts from Lug Wrench Brewing for the two major suppliers of liquid yeast to home brewers, Wyeast and White Labs, really narrows down my choices. It looks like I can be comfortable brewing almost all the ales in the summer months with maybe the exception of some of the Belgian strains (red shading) and most of the lager strains, German Ale, Scotch Ale, Kolsch, and the California Common types for the rest of the year (green shading).

The one last bit regarding location is the one ingredient not thought of much but makes up >90% of the final beer, or what I like to call water...