I’m thinking about moving up from 2-can extract kits to all grain brewing, but the “basic” equipment seems to come in at about £200. Any hints & tips?

Brew in a Bag method? Taken off in Oz, and starting to over here. Less equipment needed so less outlay at the start, especially if just switching over to all-grain.

I have to admit I’ve not come across that one – any links?

I was doing partial mashes for a bit, but haven’t brewed in over a year 🙁 [That was mainly down to space, but I’ve just moved to a house with garage so brewing is back on the agenda :)] Straightforward, and seemed a good intermediate step prior to all grain. Don’t need much in the way of new equipment either.

Beersmith info

BIA Brewer

BIAB part of Jims Beer Kit Forum

Haven’t tried it myself yet, though would like to. Seems a hell of a lot less faffy than full all-grain; much simpler, less equipment, more relaxed, Aussie style.

cheers guys 🙂

£200?

No, as long as you don’t mind a bit of work, i.e.

Make a mash tun from a cool box and some copper bits, probably £35 at most

Make a boiler from plastic 6 gallon bucket and a couple of tesco value kettles, £20

Buy or make an immersion chiller £40

Be aware that it takes about 3x as long to make beer from the base ingredients and that it isn’t much cheaper (unless you brew regularly and buy in bulk) than kits.

I’ve made about 20 all grain brews (800 pints), I would say 1/3 have been amazing, and maybe 1/3 have been poured down the sink, the rest has been good.

Water is much more important in the mashing process than with brewing from kits, you might want to learn about water treatment or buy tesco value water to brew with.

A lot of people stay with kits for good reason, all grain is fun if you’ve got the time and work hard with

Jimsbeerkit is a good place for more advice

I am pretty sure my kit from Hop and Grape was less than £100 for a 60l set up

I do all grain all the time, 90l per brew, but I have a LOT of gear, which makes it easier. Most of it was custom made in stainless steel, so it’ll last a lifetime and the beer is as good or better than commercial scale brewers beer.

I don’t think it is worth it if you’re not doing it in bigger batches, it is very time consuming to do correctly with the all the boiling and stand times etc. Don’t take the time and you’ll waste what time you did spend as it’ll never turn out right.

sound advice there, thanks

Just bump this to ask another question – does anyone brew using an electric hob?

I was just planning on getting the brews going again in my new place – then realised the kitchen has an electric hob. I can’t stand these in general for cooking, and can’t see them being much better for brewing. Maybe worth buying a propane burner for the garage or something? I wouldn’t be brewing big scale mind, just 25-30L batches.

I just use a kettle type element inside my big brew boiler, so I can’t see any reason why an electric hob wouldn’t work. It would probably take quite some time to achieve a boil mind….

Need to tidy my utility room soon and get a brew on.

just bottled a St Peter’s Golden Ale from a kit, if that’s as good as it’s supposed to be, I’ll probably stick to kits

As an aside , why not buy hopped wort from a local micro and ferment it yourself.
Good way to get a more bespoke product without going full grain brews.
Should cost £2 a gallon or so , as no excise as its non alcoholic .
Burco boiler is the home brewers best friend .

interesting idea

Great idea, wonder how many micros would flog the wort….

Genuine question. Is it possible to brew your own beer and not have it taste like homebrew ? I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been invited to taste someones h/brew and although differn’t they all have an unmistakable h/brew undertaste. Not always unpleasant but not as nice as commercial brews.

Yes, spend a fortune on the right gear and buy real hops and grain!

Wouldn’t think any micro would flog the wort. Why when they can turn it into beer? Also, it’d start picking up infection as soon as it hit your bucket.

Yes Spey ,
PAA your bucket , or get it ‘hot’ from the phe transfer main
Why flog it ?
Coz you can make it for tuppence , and sell it for pounds.

Give me a ring , leave me a 5 gall bucket ( clean ) and i will sterlise it and fill it for you .
Give you some hops and yeast if you ask nicely 😉

taxi25 – after a few years off I’ve been brewing since about March, good quality wine kits come out as good as or better than commercial wines, for < £2 a bottle; in my experience/opinion, beer depends on two or three factors –

1)barrel or bottle.
2)cheap kit, expensive kit or all-grain
3)cleanliness

Every brew I’ve ever barrelled has ended up tasting of, yes, homebrew.

Every brew I’ve ever bottled has ended up tasting almost as good as commercial beer, provided you give it a few weeks to mature AND remember there’s some sediment in the bottle – pour it gently into the glass, and definitely don’t pour it ALL in.

Cheaper kits will IME never taste as good as the more expensive kits – for example, a John Bull or Geordie kit at £12 will not taste as good as say a Brupaks kit at twice the price.

Some breweries are now producing two-can kits for you to brew their beer at home – as mentioned above, I’m currently conditioning a St Peters’ Golden Ale. I’ll report back in a couple of weeks on that one.

There is also available from http://www.hamstead-brewing-centre.co.uk (and also from Abbey Home Brew in Leeds) a “design a beer” – buy two cans of concentrated wort of your choice in a range graded from 1 to 6 (1 = wheat beer, 6 = extra dark for stouts) plus “teabags” containing hops, various malts, torrefied wheat, barley, and a suitable yeast, and off you go. They claim it’s an intermediate step between two-can kits and all-grain, without the hassle of all-grain.

I’ve tried one of their suggested recipes – “German Lager”:
2x 1.5kg cans of “no2” wort; 1x no1 and 1x no3 grain ‘teabags’; 1x Hallertau hops teabag, plus a lager yeast.
It’s maturing nicely now, but it’s far too dark to be called a lager – pale ale at best. But they’re blaming that on the supplier of the wort being a little inaccurate with their gradings. Also, I’m told that lager yeast turns itself into ale yeast if it goes above 15degC – which being summer, it predictably did do. If this happens I’m told it won’t give the crisp fresh taste you associate with lager.

It is nice though.

If you can find a kit or kits that work well for you, stick to them. If you haven’t found the right kit yet, keep looking.
I haven’t tried all-grain yet as I don’t have the equipment or the space for it, but maybe some day…

and finally, cleanliness – it really is next to godliness 😉

Also, I’m told that lager yeast turns itself into ale yeast if it goes above 15degC – which being summer, it predictably did do. If this happens I’m told it won’t give the crisp fresh taste you associate with lager.

Utter tosh .

A bottom fermenting Lager Yeast of the strain Sacchromyces Carlsbergenis cannot dramatically alter its DNA and become Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

More likely , Carlsbergenis will start to produce poly thenols , higher alcohols and esters above 14’C . It will also work very fast , strip the wort of nutrients and proteins and then start to autolyse . Loads of funny flavours going on .

Lager yeast = slow , cool fermentations C 10’c , approx 10 days , will not fine well with Isinglass . Needs cooling to approx 1’c for flocculation and post fermenation maturation . Bottom fermenting and will not produce a yeast head

Ale yeast. Top fermenting , fast feremntations approx 60hr . 20 – 24’c
Yeast crop rises to the top and forms head or crust . Fine very well with Isinglass . 10’c hold for maturation / floculation approx 4 days

well I did say “I’m told” – i didn’t say I believed it exactly 😉

taxi25 – after a few years off I’ve been brewing since about March, good quality wine kits come out as good as or better than commercial wines, for < £2 a bottle; in my experience/opinion, beer depends on two or three factors –

1)barrel or bottle.
2)cheap kit, expensive kit or all-grain
3)cleanliness

Every brew I’ve ever barrelled has ended up tasting of, yes, homebrew. What commercial wines are you drinking John? I’ve not tasted a home-made red wine that was in the same solar system as a commercial one tbh. Had some sweet wines and some sparkling ones that were good though. Sort of puts me off wine-making when matching blossom hill is out of your league.
Had plenty of epic homebrew ales – very much within the grasp of the amateur but have to agree that it’s all got the home-brewed taste. Nothing wrong with this of course. Hats off to anyone who can brew something really light and not have a diy hallmark.

various sub-£10 wines from your typical supermarket. e.g. Invino Cabernet Sauvignon from Asda for about £6.50 – I prefer my own brew reds to that one. I’m a yorkshireman, I won’t spend more than £7 on a bottle of wine, so that’s my benchmark.

The kits I use are typically “California Connoisseur” or “Beaverdale Wines”. Mrs_d is particularly partial to the Beaverdale Semillon Chardonnay so I’ll be putting another batch on tomorrow

Yes Spey ,
PAA your bucket , or get it ‘hot’ from the phe transfer main
Why flog it ?
Coz you can make it for tuppence , and sell it for pounds.

Give me a ring , leave me a 5 gall bucket ( clean ) and i will sterlise it and fill it for you .
Give you some hops and yeast if you ask nicely

You head brewer or something!? Where’s your brewery? I’ll be right over with two firkins, that’ll save me hours! How much for 18gallons?

You head brewer or something!?

Yes. Actually.
http://www.itchenvalley.com/Team.html#1
here i am inside a 1000 gallom FV

Nice one! *hi-fives brewer buddy!* I make whisky here –

If I’m ever in Hampshire I’ll be sure to come round for a tour!

I’ve not had any shop bought wines under £10 a bottle that taste as good as Beaverdale or California Conniseur homebrew kits
Plenty of choices as well
Beaverdale
California Conniseur

yeah, they’re much improved on the home wine kits of old