OK to cut a long story short my mates have an annual beer making competition (for a laugh) and I have always missed it for various reasons.

This year I am attending and need some advice on making a decent homebrew – that may even taste good!

Any suggestions where to start? Bearing in mind I am in a London flat (everyone else is in the country!)

Roughly speaking, three basic levels in homebrewing – Kit, Extract & All Grain. Increasing in complexity, time commitment, skill, investment of equipment, space. Kit brews are dead easy. You really just need the sapce for a 5 gallon bin and 40 500ml bottles. These days very good results with kits and extract brewing, due to quality of ingredients and kits available. You’ll get a basic equipment for kit brewing for £30-£40 I think. For improved kit brewing, you could buy a kit, but ditch the dried yeast, and use a liquid yeast, and maybe boil with some extra hops, ask your shop for advise on what to go for. Also, if going for a kit, get the two can kind, not the one can plus sugar kind. All are technically possible in a wee flat. I did lots of extract brewing in a tiny edinburgh flat, with some very satisfactory results (my best brew wasn’t picked out in a blind tasting with some mates up against 5 commercial craft beers). Hoping to move to all grain soon now that I have house and garage. Anyway, this book will see you right from beginner all the way through once you get the bug.

Use an extract recipe; but make it as a 1 gallon batch (small enough to do a full boil on the hob; as long as you can live with the smell ;)) – that way you’ll get good control over the hop additions; which I feel (I’m probably wrong but hey) is generally the issue with kit beers.

Stick to something relatively simple for your first go (If you like weissbier then you can come up with a relatively decent* one with nothing more than some Dried Wheat Extract and Hellertau Hops; just make sure you use a decent yeast and use a 10gal brewing bucket for a 5gal batch – learnt that the hard way !)

I can dig out the recipe for that when I get back from work if it’s of interest ?

*look away now purist types

Top tips:

Relax.*

Sanitization – pay anal attention to sanitisation.

But relax*

Use a thermomenter to find the temprature and variance thereof in your flat. A stable 20-24 degrees is good for an ale. You really need a fridge for lager. Off flavours kick in if the yeast doesn’t like the tepratures it has to ferment in, so if you k ow what you’ve got to deal with, you can pick a style/yeast to suit.

But don’t worry relax.*

Regardless of what the instructions say on your chosen yeast, make a yeast starter. Google will tell you how.

But hey, just relax.*

*

I’ve done a few kits, sanitisation and conditioning seem to be the keys.

Might get into hops etc if I ever grow up and have a garage.

Cheers guys – that has started em in the right direction.

How many weeks do I need to *brew* the said completion is start of Sept.

[sanitisation hijack]

How do you sanitise the primary fully? I end up putting a few litres of solution in and sloshing it about for a bit – but it claims you should have contact time of 5-10 minutes. Do you just completely fill the fermenting bin to the brim to achieve this?

[/sanitisation hijack]

The sooner you start, the better it will taste. Min 8 weeks I’d say, get going.

coopers. and aquarium heater. and being clean.

that’s it. piece of pish.

im on my 4th or 5th brew now, all been proper quaffable.

heater means they brew out properly and quickly and has made the most difference out of everything i have tried to improve the brews…

Water, Sanitation, Aeration of the Wort and a constant temperature when you are fermenting, ideally not too warm – bang in the middle of the recommend temp (normally 21 deg c)

Water

If nothing else, treat all the water you used to a crushed up campden tablet, but I would suggest that you go and buy a dozen bottles of Tesco value water, which is pretty good for brewing, especially as the mashing (where they created the can contents) will have been done with the right water (i.e. mineral content) for the style. Changing to Tesco water made the biggest difference to my beer, especially as I do all-grain.

Sanitation

Wash everything with as hot water and soda crystals, as hot as you can, wear rubber gloves, this will kill most things.

Then a no rinse sanitiser is the easiest, home brew shops should have something. Mix it up in the right concentration in a spray bottle (new, clean) and spray everything with it, shake out excess and you’re done, plenty of contact time if it’s there as you warm up the water with which to dissolve the content of the can in.

Aeration

Yeast likes oxygenated wort, once you have mixed the can contents, boiling water and remaining water, use a sanitised plastic paddle or spoon and give it a vigourous thrashing for a couple of minutes.

Stable temp

Find somewhere where the temp doesn’t change much, a cupboard under the stairs is a good bet but seeing as you live in a flat that’s not possible, high temps = fruity flavours, low can equal blander beers (lager is fermented cold…), but messing the yeast around can result in all sorts of nasty tangs.

Basically I probably wouldn’t start a beer off if the temp is due to rise if you’ve got no way to keep it down to reasonable levels.

Regardless of what the instructions say on your chosen yeast, make a yeast starter.

No, not if you are using dried yeast, which you will be, rehydrate the yeast following the instructions.

Hope that helps!

One last thing – place the can in some hot water for half an hour before opening it, will make the contents much runnier and easier to get out.

The relax advice is good, it’s a great hobby.

Thanks guys

One issue I think I have is my flat sits at about 26C sometimes warmer now that summer is sorta here 24/7…

Is there anything that will work better in the warm?

Just buy a pressure vessel with a CO2 what sit and then pour in a few gallon of really nice beer from the offy. More expensive but way simpler.

My first brew tasted like home brew. Crystal clear though.

On my second now, not dared to open one yet as I’m hoping it gets better and only bottled it 4 weeks ago.

Be careful, as a serial homebrewer I seem have built a 100ltr stainless setup in my downstairs wetroom ! My wife has given up and we’re producing a decent amount every couple of weeks. Things I have found are
1) Water as said before as beer is indeed water based
2) Good yeast, try using a smack pack yeast as they are a wee bit better at higher temps (Wyeast popular)
3) Cleanliness is king, make sure everything is clean, you are clean and anything that touches your wort after boil is super clean. Clean your bottles twice, boil your caps.
And enjoy it, i love the process of brewing and the science. The drinking is an additional pleasure.

Plenty of good advice in these Howtos.
http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=30&sid=9f8b019f216f143fc872ab5052e29526
Ian

Lots of good advice on here, particularly sanitation, fermenting temps and brewing water.

You can probably get away with dechlorinated tap water (ie. crush a Campden tablet into it). I struggled with my early kit beers tasting rank, switching to supermarket water improved it no end. Not sure why but you may wish to consider this if you haven’t got the time to experiment.

Anyway here’s my latest for inspiration…

It’s a single hopped all grain brew and is about 5 weeks old (1 week in the fermenter, 4 in the barrel).

That looks nice Haze 🙂

One way to keep the temp down is to hang a big towel over and around the fermenter with one end in a bucket of water, then put a fan blowing over it.

The water will soak up into the towel and the evaporation of the water will cool the fermentor.

Of course you need somewhere to sit all this stuff for a week. Preferably not in full light either.

My first ever homebrew was made in similar temps and tasted horrible, I now have a (freegle) fridge controlled by a thermometer to keep the fermenter at a steady temp.

The alternative might be to get a pressure barrel and find a local brewery that sells 36 pint polypins, get them to fill up the barrel and your mates will be well impressed 🙂

There’s a thread on Jim’s about this, a quick scan suggests lots of varying experience, my own first brew failure could have been down to the water or sanitation anyway.

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=51739

On reflection I would use Tesco value water, really good sanitation and go for it, if it tastes crap then it probably was the temp.

If you’re going to use a kit I’d recommend
MUNTONS GOLD OLD ENGLISH BITTER
very easy and delicious

Cheers Nick, I’ve been toying with converting an old fridge for a while but haven’t got around to it yet.

I ferment in the house where the temps are a little more stable, would be nice to be able to use the garage all year round.

Could also double up as somewhere to keep a keg cool over summer.

Cheers guys – I have ordered all the bits and bobs for a wheat beer brew – I will keep you updates on how it goes!

Thanks so much for your help 🙂