Home Brewers?

Anyone tinker with home brewing out there?  It's something I've been wanting to take up for a while now and thought this might be a good place to exchange techniques, equipment recommendations and recipes.

I've had good experiences with wine, and bad experiences with beer.

I suspect with beer brewing the key is to bypass the kits and go straight to wort preparation from the raw ingredients yourself.  I have yet to test this theory though.

As for liqueurs I got a fantastic bottle of homemade kahlua a couple of years ago for Christmas and have been meaning to throw some of my vodka surplus at trying something similar myself, but just haven't gotten around to it.

I've done quite a bit of home brewing, it's a lot of fun.  Although I'm currently taking a break until I can get a full grain setup built.  

I have a great home brewing story:

I brewed a stout, put it in a 5 gallon carboy with an air lock for primary fermentation. They say to put somewhere cool and dark, so I stuck it in my closet. In the middle of the night, I woke up to the sound of a bang. I immediately was aware of a hissing sound, like that of escaping gas. Fearing a natural gas leak, I got out of bed to investigate and put my foot into liquid. Now... I'm really perplexed so I turn on the light and discover the floor is black (should be hard wood). I go to the closet and find the air lock got plugged with the powdered hops (never use powdered hops) had plugged the air lock, pressure built up, and enough pressure built up and was released to shoot stout all over the TOP of my closet and evacuate ALL liquid. It was tuff getting dressed for work the next day...

Drinking Hacker-Pschorr at this very moment and proud of it.

Hey Cheese - you really in to cheese or is that name in reference to your sense of humor? If the former please note I'm a huge fan: goat cheese, sheep cheese, stinky cheese, mild cheese... bring it on.

Very cool -- I'd love to hear more about your craft.  Do you do any brewing for recreation, or is it strictly a paying gig?

Hey, anybody got a line on where to buy malt, either whole grain or syrup, at an affordable price? When you break it down, brewing your own beer costs about as much as buying it. Being recently unemployed I'd sure like to continue drinking quality beer and would love to go the home brew route, but there's no cost savings. What do you think?

Off topic, but what's a '78 SL ? I'm guessing a Harley? Do you have a picture?

I brew all the time.  I have a 10 gallon all-grain system and 25 gallons woth of keg space.  Draft homebrew is so satisfying and is a wonderful place to age barley wines for extended periods with a sanitary way to taste it as it matures.  I also brewed professionally with Smuttynose in NH and Dogfish Head in DE, but now I am strictly a hobbyist.  I switched careers because brewing for production just was not as creatively satisfying as brewing at home.  Now I am a terrestrial ecologist.

Very cool -- I'd love to hear about some of your results.  It's a hobby I'd really like to take up (properly - no kits, thanks) but other responsibilities have kept me from starting.  Perhaps in the next year or so.

Here is a recipe for a Dortmunder (basically a mellow pils) that I thought 

came out really great.  You gotta have a cool (~45degF) place to lager 

this batch. 

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Habeck Dort Export
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General
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                    Category: Light Lager
                 Subcategory: Dortmunder Export
                 Recipe Type: All Grain
                  Batch Size: 6 gal.
               Volume Boiled: 7.5 gal.
             Mash Efficiency: 68 %
         Total Grain/Extract: 13.00 lbs.
                  Total Hops: 3.0 oz.
       Calories (12 fl. oz.): 201.3
                Cost to Brew: $46.65 (USD)
Cost per Bottle (12 fl. oz.): $0.73 (USD)

Ingredients
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            9 lbs. Belgian Pils
            3 lbs. German Light Munich
            1 lbs. Dextrine Malt
             1 oz. Tettnanger (Pellets, 4.7 %AA) boiled 60 minutes.
          1.25 oz. Tettnanger (Pellets, 4.7 %AA) boiled 15 minutes.
           .75 oz. Tettnanger (Whole, 4.7 %AA) boiled 2 minutes.
            Yeast: White Labs WLP820 Octoberfest/Märzen

Notes
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Vital Statistics
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  Original Gravity: 1.051
  Terminal Gravity: 1.012
             Color: 6.45 SRM
        Bitterness: 26.8 IBU
 Alcohol (%volume): 5.1 %

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Results prepared by BeerTools.com
http://www.beertools.com/

So I've started brewing. Have a kit on the go right now (IPA, surprise, surprise), but just pulled the supplies together to make a mash/lauter tun out of a 5 gallon water cooler and intend to take a run at an all grain batch next. I'd love to do a nice wheat or even a Belgian white beer for the summer, but all of the recipes I've seen so far have too many rests for the combo cooler mash/lauter tun set up.

Equipment build out underway.  Will post some photos when done.