bigrich
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| posted on 27/8/13 at 12:28 PM |
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home brewing
Any brewers out there? was thinking of giving it a go again, did some about 25 years ago which was ok as i remember. Anyone got any recomendations for
lager/pilsner type brews and good suppliers of supplies etc
.JPG)
A pint for the gent and a white wine/fruit based drink for the lady. Those are the rules
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Mr Whippy
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| posted on 27/8/13 at 12:30 PM |
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I have been very interested in this idea too, beer seems quite easy and looks quite entertaining
I suspect quite a few attempts may end up feeding the giant crocodiles though
[Edited on 27/8/13 by Mr Whippy]
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Not Anumber
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| posted on 27/8/13 at 01:14 PM |
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I regularly brew but mostly stick to bitter, IPA and porter. Having tried many different kits over the years I would personally reccommend the higher
end kits - the ones that don't rely on you having to add a huge amount of sugar.
When i started off i went for the lower end kits such as Boots and Tom Caxton- as i'd convinced myself that home brewing should be as cheap as
possible.
This thinking didnt always work out though as I often ended up with brews of variable quality. Ive since come to the conculsion that it's worth
paying a bit extra to get decent results.
Apart from this change of thinking the item that probably made the most difference was buying a brewing heater. This looks like a glass tube with a
mains lead and just drops into the fermentation bin. It is thermostatically controlled and though it hardly uses any electricity it works to keep the
brew at a consistent temperature night and day which tangibly helps the process.
A criticism of using a barrel instead of bottles is the beer can start to go off when the barrel drops to atmospheric pressure. Other than drinking
the beer quickly at this point before the flavour starts to be affected the practical solution is to use a modified cap with a gas valve - a 2 second
blast of CO2 from a small CO2 bottle when the barrel is down to about 1/3rd full works wonders and keeps the beer drinkable for much longer.
My favourites at present (with 100% sucess rate) are Woodfordes (as in the Norfolk based brewery) and Festival. Both make a variety of different
kits.
Always sterilise the fermentation bin and any equipment such as syphone tubes, big spoon, thermometer etc that will be put into it during brewing plus
the bottles or barrel.
Equally important is to rinse everything after sterilising.
Always use finings in a barrel. It drags the sediment th#o the bottom of the barrel to keep the beer clear. Though all decent home brew shops will
sell this with the kit this wont be the case if you are buying from Ebay or a supermarket so make sure you get a packet.
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GeoffT
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| posted on 27/8/13 at 01:17 PM |
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Used to brew my own beer many years ago, could never quite get on with the malt extract flavour you always seem to get with the kits.
Then started using the full brewing process which is a lot more involved but I was then producing some nice ales, just as good as any pub offerings.
Eventually though, started to get an "off" flavour in my brews which I could never seem to eradicate, despite sterilising everything many
times, at this point pretty much gave up with it.
I'd also be interested in what the modern kits are like, and whether they still suffer from the unpleasant (for me) malt extract taste, quite
fancy having another go myself....
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DIY Si
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| posted on 27/8/13 at 01:40 PM |
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Whilst I've not done any for a few months now, I regularly brew my own from the kits you can get. I typically spend £20-25 on a 48 pint kit as I
couldn't be bothered with all the making it from scratch approach. I get my stuff from here.
Making the stuff is really easy once you have the suggested gear sterilised. It takes a few days for the initial brewing stage and then I choose to
barrel rather than bottle my beer as I don't have the space for the bottles in the house. A barrel can just sit on any spare bit of shelf
though. I also tend to leave mine in the barrel to have a good long secondary fermentation, sometimes as much as 6 months. But then I prefer the
darker heavier ales and porters.
Do not be afraid to experiment after a few goes either. My best to date was a dark Xmas ale with oak chips that had been soaked in home steeped cherry
brandy, with a good glug of the brandy thrown in too. It smelt lovely and 4-5 pints was enough to make a family Xmas pass in a suitable blur. 
“Let your plans be dark and as impenetratable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
My new blog: http://spritecave.blogspot.co.uk/
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johnemms
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| posted on 27/8/13 at 01:52 PM |
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No1. Buy the KingKeg Tap..
A cheap tap will probably start to leak once the barrel starts to pressurize 
(from experience)..
Own chassis & Build - First time pass!!
"7's" aren't really "cars", they are 'experiences"
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Mr Whippy
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| posted on 27/8/13 at 02:41 PM |
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How long does beer last once bottled? Some of the kits seem to be very large amounts, I may get very fat trying to drink it quickly before it went
off
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Peteff
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| posted on 27/8/13 at 03:49 PM |
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I used to do a lot of home brew but I was drinking far too much of it for my own good so I stopped doing it. I used Boots, Muntons, Geordie or
whatever took my fancy at the shop and can't say I ever had a bad kit just down to personal taste. I used top tap barrels which need pressuring
to get the beer out but the top clears first so you get to drink it sooner.
yours, Pete
I went into the RSPCA office the other day. It was so small you could hardly swing a cat in there.
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whitstella
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| posted on 27/8/13 at 04:33 PM |
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hi
I have been brewing now for about 12 months I started with the kits then very quickly went to extract (liquid malt extract) and this method gave me a
better beer. the 8 or so kits I did all 2 can kits cost between £15- 25 and the best 1 was the woodfordes wherry which I got from wilkos on offer for
£15 I think. I have tried all the 3 methods of storing beer first plastic kegs all fine until you get a leek from the cap and as said before you will
need to inject the keg with co2 via a s30 valve. bottles - only did 1 batch far too time consuming for me I used the swing top bottles which made
things faster but then on the Cornelius kegs which are a stainless steel keg and hold about 18 litres. no looking back now but everybody moves to
stainless over time. and im tryin all grain brewing next weekend the method called biab (boil in a bag) this method takes more time than kits and
extract but is said to be better. give it ago things have moved on since you stared.
steve
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Fred W B
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| posted on 27/8/13 at 06:37 PM |
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Some previous discussion
here
and
here2
and
here 3
among others.
I remembered this being discussed before, when I searched for "beer" the site returned over 4000 threads, "brewing" returned
81 threads, seems we talk about beer a lot
[Edited on 27/8/13 by Fred W B]
You can do it quickly. You can do it cheap. You can do it right. – Pick any two.
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Proby
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| posted on 27/8/13 at 06:49 PM |
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I brew from kits pretty regular. Better brew range is pretty good for the money, brewferm pilsner is a nice drink. My favourite easy drinking lager
style is Coopers Mexican. I have elderflower cider and blueberry cider in kegs. I bottle all my lagers/ales. Kits are much better quality now than
years ago!
Visit GraphicMonster
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BenB
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| posted on 27/8/13 at 06:57 PM |
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All grain is the way forward. I've just almost finished building a double barrel temperature controlled fermentation chamber / kegerator which
will double my output. I'm a bitter man myself... although my Fermentation chamber will be quite handy if I ever go all continental and start
lagering beers. Cheers!
ps I'd stay well away from any kit which recommends adding sugar and if possible go for an unhopped malt extract (even if it means using DME)
and add proper hops (even if they're hop pellets) to get the flavour. Hopped malt extract isn't the best.....
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T66
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| posted on 27/8/13 at 07:22 PM |
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I brewed my own 20 years ago too, and gave up when I started drinking it before it was ready.......
Now Im older and fatter I love the idea of a 50 pint barrel somewhere cold, but my personal keg will only get bigger.
I watch from afar
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steve m
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| posted on 27/8/13 at 07:33 PM |
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"I brewed my own 20 years ago too, and gave up when I started drinking it before it was ready.......!
+1
Thats was probably spelt wrong, or had some grammer, that the "grammer police have to have a moan at
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hobbsy
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| posted on 27/8/13 at 09:43 PM |
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I'm going to ask maybe a daft question now as I've never home brewed but would this all go wrong / off quickly if the ambient temp was
always between about 25 and 30 deg C?
Can't buy ale here full stop 
This could be a solution
I'm back in the UK for a few weeks in less than a week so I could stock up on kit but it's got to be relatively compact as got to fit in a
suitcase.
Unbreakable is good.
Not sure how easily I could get my hands on CO2 bottles as so much stuff here is bottled lager, very little comes on tap.
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AndyGT
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| posted on 28/8/13 at 05:52 AM |
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how do you homebrew? what kit do you need? I am trully fascinated...
nothing is impossible
everything is possible
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