[Closed] homebrew - I've been busy

this thread is useless without tasters 😉

Fantastic, what kit do you use to brew the beer?

😯 😀

I'm really impressed. Been given some demijohns and airlocks and want to try although doubt I would be making that kind of quantity!

it's quite simple really if you go with a commercial kit.

For beer you need:
1x 5 gallon fermenting bucket with lid
a big plastic spoon that's long enough to reach the bottom of the bucket
a beer kit. basic kits from Geordie, John Bull etc produce adequate results but need extra sugar, usually 1kg of granulated common or garden sugar; higher end kits recommend using "spraymalt" or "brewing enhancer" , while some kits need no extra sugar.
Most kits, basic or otherwise, produce about 40 pints, less what you lose in the sediment. To make it stronger, don't add more sugar, use less water instead

For wine you need:
2 demijohns (or plastic 5 litre water containers)
airlocks & rubber bungs for each demijohn
a funnel
a suitable kit and possibly extra sugar (as above)

For both you will also need:
a siphon kit
some bottles (or, in the case of beer, a pressure barrel)
sterilising powder. Best to get brew-specific stuff, I doubt using Milton would produce very nice results

Beer takes about 1-2 weeks to brew; wine about 3 weeks. Wine requires more effort in clearing, but usually everything you need is in the kit.

When the beer has finished brewing, raise the bucket to worktop height & leave for a couple of days to settle; then siphon into bottles or a pressure barrel
When the wine has finished fermenting, siphon into the second demijohn & add the finings, preservative etc; clean out the first demijohn ready for the next batch 😉 then when it's fully clear, siphon into clean bottles.

Labels make the presentation so much better & can be downloaded from t'net & printed at will. Stick em onto the bottles with Pritt (other glue sticks are available) or even milk

BUT REMEMBER THIS
Cleanliness is next to Godliness.

Fail to clean your equipment and/or bottles and you will have 40 pints of vinegar on your hands

I've opened one of the Linthwaite Light bottles, it's not quite ready but I've had worse beer in pubs 🙂

my boss' missus makes cider of more use in a car than for drinking

Nice ale, but what's the wine like John?

I like brewing ale, because it's not too difficult to produce stuff that's competitive with the commercial product. If you're good, you can probably do (a lot) better.
Wine, though, just seems like a big ask. All the homebrewed stuff I've tasted is light years off the real thing, not even the same drink. Can you knock up something reasonable with experience?

I got a mouthful of the wine as I siphoned it into bottles, seems pretty good, as good as a £4-5 wine from your local supermarket. The kit I used was a £12 job so not the cheapest available, but it does promise single variety grape (or in my case, twin variety, Semillon & Chardonnay), harvested from a commercial vineyard in California. It says it's ready to drink now but will improve if left to mature for a couple of months

cleanliness... etc

Waiting for the blackberries to come out, I have a nice recipe for Blackberry Wine:

2kg blackberries
1kg sugar
1 kettle full of boiled water

mash them all together in a 5gall bucket; add another 3 litres of cold water. Mash some more. leave two days, mash some more. repeat for a week

Strain off the juice from the pulp into a demijohn.
Add a suitable wine yeast.
pop an airlock on & leave in a warm place to ferment.
treat as any other wine kit from then on

All the equipment, kits, yeast, sugars, help, advice etc can be got from your local homebrew shop. I live in BD17, there are at least 6 homebrew shops within a reasonable drive of where I live

Thanks John, If I had a large bucket for mixing I presume I can syphon off into the demi-johns with air locks that I have although if I bought a mixing bucket with a lid from Wilko [which is where I have been advised to get the rest of my starter kit] although I presume saying that a fermenting barrel isn't that much more anyway and I may as well have some wine going while doing the beer. Also is there any harm in using magners bottles as opposed to buying others? Seems to make sense and then all I need to do is get a topper.

EDIT: the beer I'm looking at is Woodford Wherry, had it a while ago and quite liked it

Sorry to hi-jack your thread here...

Damn - just remembered I have a Coopers Sparkling kit I got for xmas....

... 4 years ago 😳

the wort should be ok but you might need some new yeast.

Taff

demijohns are for wine, they only hold 1 gallon; beer tends to come in 5-gallon kits (or rather, a kit that will make 5 gallons, not quite the same). Woodford Wherry is on my list of things to try.

For simple beer kits you need a [url= http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/acatalog/25_ltr_Fermenting_Bin_Lid.html ]5-gallon bucket/fermenting vessel with lid[/url] simply because of the volume you're working with. When primary fermentation has finished you siphon it off into a pressure barrel (keg) or bottles. From my experience so far this year, bottles are far preferable

If using glass bottles, if they're screw-cap they'll be fine as long as you (1) clean them properly and (2) fasten on the cap as tight as you can. If crown-cork bottles, you can buy your own crown caps & machine, or you can buy press-on plastic caps. They do the same job but presentation isn't as good

I've been trying the Coopers PET 500ml bottles, they seem to do the trick nicely and they're reusable, both cap and bottle.

Consider this as well - these PET bottles are £12 or less for 24 bottles, I've been typically getting 39 bottles out of a kit, so you need less than two boxes for a full kit.

A basic pressure barrel will cost about £30 (higher end barrels can cost over £50, and don't get me started on the "Cornelius" vessels)and will possibly need a new cap with pressure valve, and also a CO2 cylinder or mini-gas-bulbs. CO2 cylinder is about £25, but refills are about a fiver; 8g CO2 bulbs come in packs of 10 for about a fiver, but don't go as far

Remember if you bottle the beer, don't disturb it too much as you pour, unless you like the taste of yeast 😉

by the way

wine kits also come in the 5-gallon variety. For this you will need a 5-gallon ferminting bucket, preferably with an airlock; another of these vessels, or 5x demijohns with airlocks, to siphon into when fermentation has finished; 25-30 70cl wine bottles; corks and corker if not screw-cap bottles; some nice labels & foil "capsules" for presentation

This week I have bottled 28 bottles of Beaverdale Sav Blanc
1ltr of home made Sloe gin
Bottled 5 ltr of elderflower cordial ( ok non alcholic)

brewing at the mo
23ltr beverdale Shiraz
20 ltr Coopers ginger beer
36 ltr elderflower champagne

yep its a busy week
Ta for the vote on the Coopers european lager I have a can in the cupboard I must put on that will be tomorrow 😀

My SemChard is a Beaverdale kit. Looking forward to trying it, but I'm really looking forward to the Merlot

FYI we currently pay 14p for a brown / amber glass 500ml NRB.
You will of course neeed a crowner , but if your local home brew shop sells them pay back time would be 100 bottles .
You need to find a local brewery who bottles and buy some glass from them.

That's a good price for glass bottles. Might need to see local breweries Saltaire, Taylors & Copper Dragon...

Get in touch with your local landlord and ask if they'll let you have their empty Magners bottles. They're 1pt bottles and good for homebrew, the pub just chucks out the empties so might be glad to have someone take a load off their hands.

Thinking of venturing into the murky world of homebrew so a couple of questions to the experts:

1) I am basically lazy so was going to buy a complete starter kit. This one seems to have everything I need for a price I can afford. ( http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/acatalog/Coopers_5_gallons_English_Bitter_Starter_kit.html) Anything different you would recommend?

2) How long does the beer last once bottled?

I am thinking of keeping a stash of bottles from each brew I make using different blends so that I can do back to back tasting. It will take me a week or so to drink each batch and adding in the brewing time it could be up to 6 months between the newest and oldest beer. Will the first beer survive/improve over this time?

1) yes, that looks fine. I'm not sure what "Carbonation Drops" are, but it sounds like they're for carbonating the beer in the bottle; a level teaspoon of sugar added to the bottle after the beer will do the same job. You'll need some steriliser though

2) er... haven't got that far yet; the oldest bottles I have are a batch of Coopers European Lager bottled early May, and they've just matured enough to be drinkable now. The longer you leave it in the bottle to mature, the better it'll be, up to a point. I'd imagine 6 months should be ok, although as I said, I haven't got that far yet. Ask me in October 😉

From experience, I wouldn't bother with a keg. Unless I the kit I put in my keg wasn't a particularly good one

Agree about kegs. They seem far more vulnerable to not being cleaned fully and then you lose the whole lot. I think they are just from the olden days before cheap bottles were available.

Quite fancy making some beer myself. Rogue in Oregon do kits to reproduce some of their ales.

If you've not made it from the raw ingredients it doesn't count 😀

I've just about started running out of wines made from the local hedgerows.

The carb drops are as you mention, drop one into a bottle before filling with beer. The drop dissolves and the yeasties present in the beer gobble the sugars up and produce CO2 which carbonated the beer inside the sealed bottle. Pretty much the same thing as adding some sugar to each bottle.

So anyone making there own cider then , any tips ?

I'm just brewing a Young Harvest bitter at the moment. I used a keg before and the results were a bit pants, so i'm going to try bottles this time. Could i re use my empties ( ale bottles eg, badger, youngs etc..) to put the brew in? I have a bottle capper and caps to seal them with?

yes , if you fully clean them out . then sterilise them with Milton fluid , or a very dilute bleach .
trick is to stop the fermentaion with 2 - 3 degrees of fermentables available for secondary fermentaion in the bottle.
so you need 1009 - 1010 gravity ,
and a low yeast count , just visable to the naked eye
we repitch 1 heaped teaspoon of notts ale yeast into 180 galls for bca's

yes, absolutely. just make sure you clean them properly.

siphon the beer from the brewing vessel into the bottles, leaving about 2cm from the top, and THEN add a level teaspoon of sugar before capping.
I've been told that if you put the sugar in the bottle first, it'll foam up as you add the beer. Nothing wrong with that per se, it'll just take longer as you have to go back to each bottle to top up as the foam disperses.
Dark green or brown bottles are better than clear, apparently

Thanks guys, I'm feeling excited about the forecoming beer, more so than trying a new ale at the local. Must the homemade element to it.

then sterilise them with Milton fluid

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

do not use milton fluid it leaves a taste behind use a proper steriliser instead