Homebrew

[johnnytheboy]

Well amongst the hedgerow alcholic beverages I'm marinating in the kitchen I was thinking of doing some bottle of beer.

I have never done it before and had a pile of questions to ask.

Is it any good?
Do i need to buy any equipment?
Can I bottle it in wine bottles?
How do I clean old wine bottles?
Anything i need to know?

 

[Miyagi]

PM Gregorach. He's the man to help with this I hear.

 

[nickliv]

Well amongst the hedgerow alcholic beverages I'm marinating in the kitchen I was thinking of doing some bottle of beer.

I have never done it before and had a pile of questions to ask.

Is it any good?

It can be excellent


Do i need to buy any equipment?

A fermenting vessel, cleaner, brewers yeast, hygrometer


Can I bottle it in wine bottles?

Not unless you like picking glass out of your face. They won't take the pressure, and will blow up. Or blow the cork out.


How do I clean old wine bottles?

Don't (See above) Use clean 2 litre PET bottles. They'll take heaps and heaps of pressure. To clean them, you can use the sterilising solution, or Milton.
Anything i need to know?

Keep everything clean. And I do mean clean. Start with a kit, the Coopers ones are pretty reliable.

Jimsbeerkit.co.uk is a fair place to pop up and ask questions

 

[British Red]

Hi Johnny,

There are a vast number of ways to make home made beer. The best way to start is a kit - and then move on later to all grain brewing if you want to start from scratch.

No, wine bottles are not suitable, beer is fizzy and this created ppressure that will force the cork out - unless you mean screw tops? They could work, but I would suggest using old "pop" bottles if desparate. My own favourite is the clip top "Grolsch" bottles but I only have about a hundred so I also use brown pint bottles and have a crowning gun to put crown bottle caps back on. I also use kegs which are, frankly, a lot less faff to clean and sterilise.

There are very good kits available from the likes of "St Peters Ale" which make very good beer indeed with little skill required.

You will need a brewing vessel (big bucket), sterilising liquid (plain bleach). siphon (plastic pipe), beer kit, 23 litres worth of bottles and some time.


Good starter kits of equipment are available from many homebrew shops.

If you want to let us know the type of beer you like, I can post some links?

Red

 

[johnnytheboy]

BR i knew either you would know about this, I like Pale Ale type beers for drinking and seriously heavy beers for thawing out after some wildfowling. Pale Ale might be the first choice or something similar.

So whats the general process? and time frome from start to drinkable beer? in time for xmas?

 

[British Red]

Oh hell yeah.

The beer brewing process is, boil 6 pints of water, put in brewing vessel, dump in contents of can (looks like treacle), top up to 23 litres with tap water. Add yeast.

About 4-8 days to brew.

Add a little bit of sugar to each bottle, top up with brewed beer (the little bit of sugar makes the beer fizzy), cap, leave for a month. Jobe done. Gets better if you can leave longer for say 3 months, but its fine after four weeks.



Really tough huh?

Red

 

[British Red]

Here you go mate

£41.99

http://www.brewuk.co.uk/store/beginners-kits/beer/premium-starter-kit.html

Add pop bottles and bleach and you are good to go for 40 pints. Seems a lot but that is all the equipment. Subsequent kits will range from £8 to £20 for real top end stuff

Red

 

[R.Lewis]

A kit is a good start. As for storing the brew 2litre pop (coke etc) bottles are great as can take very high pressure before bursting. I usually nearly fill them and squeeze them in slightly, when bottle gets 'fat' its got a good fizz...

Cleanliness is essential. If you have a wilkinsons store near you they have all the kit to get you started, noticed Tesco have started stocking too.

 

[johnnytheboy]

I seen one of those buckets in this house i bought, i'm going for a look, for sure i wouldnt have chucked it out!!!!

 

[gregorach]

Well, I see BR has already dealt with this one... All I'd say is that unless you have a burning need to bottle it, it's worth considering getting a pressure barrel. I reckon you get a better pint, and it does away with the hassle of cleaning and sterilising 40 pints worth of bottles, which is a right old pain in the backside at the best of times.

 

[R.Lewis]

My pressure barrel annoys me! It won't stop dripping, I lose about three pints per barrel from drippage (is that a word!!!). I always bottle my cider in pop bottles, find quality control better.

 

[gregorach]

What sort of tap has it got? If it's one of the standard lever taps, it'll tend to drip if you push it right back, but it should be fine if you leave it at 90 degrees to the axis, if that makes sense. I've got three budget barrels with lever taps, been using them for years, with no problems at all. If the worst comes to the worst, a new tap is only a couple of quid.

Clear (or green / blue) bottles aren't ideal for beer because the bittering compounds from the hops aren't photo-stable. Even a fairly short exposure to strong light can cause "skunking" - so called because the resultant compound (3-methylbut-2-ene-1-thiol) very similar to the mercaptans in skunk musk. You can use them, but keep them in the dark. Brown bottles are better in this regard.

You just can't get a proper head on a pint from a bottle, IMO. The best pint I get is from my top-tap King Keg that I've re-fitted with a professional Dalex flip-tap. I haven't got the space for proper hand pumps...

 

[Paul_B]

Even Boots used to stock brew kits but I haven't looked for years. A room mate in Uni halls used to brew his own. He even managed to obtain a fridge which he hooked up in one of the toilet cubicles to keep his stock chilled prior to a big ****-up with all invited. He had a large bucket in a spare wardrobe and he sterilized his bottles in an old bath that noone used. He had a good production line going at one point. Of course I reckon we'd both have been kicked uot if we had been caught but luckily he got on well with the cleaners as he was always recovering from a hangover when they came round so they didn't shop him. Anyway he used to make a good barley wine, stout, bitter, a pale ale and a dark ale too. Still remember a hot sunny day with 40 bottles of stout, bitter and ale to get through plus something like 16 bottles of barley wine. Well I don't really but I do remember waking up on a lawn as it was gettiing dark.

 

[Paul_B]

My Dad had a brown plastic (fake barrel shaped) keg. I always thought it was for cider since we used to live in Somerset (at least I did until just over 3 years old). I wonder if it is suitable for beer?

 

[gregorach]

Boots hasn't stocked homebrew kit in donkey's... Your barrel will almost certainly be suitable for beer, but if it hasn't been used in a long time, you'll probably need to replace the seals.

 

[Paul_B]

I suspect it has been thrown but I do remember it was used to take home cider from local farms once. Somerset is a wonderful county for that.

How easy is it to make cider? As easy as beer?

 

[Lurch]

Cornie kegs are the shizzle for home brew beer. Pricey but easy to clean and use.
This is my set up. Left to right on the bench we have Hot Liquor Tank, Mash Tun and boiler - all home built.
Underneath the bench are some of my kegs.

 

[British Red]

I suspect it has been thrown but I do remember it was used to take home cider from local farms once. Somerset is a wonderful county for that.

How easy is it to make cider? As easy as beer?

Chop apples
Press juice
Strain Juice
Leave to ferment
Drink

That hard!

 

[gregorach]

Cornie kegs are the shizzle for home brew beer. Pricey but easy to clean and use.
This is my set up. Left to right on the bench we have Hot Liquor Tank, Mash Tun and boiler - all home built.
Underneath the bench are some of my kegs.

Ok, where's the "green with envy" smiley then? Ah, if only I had the space... I've been hankering after one of those shiny mash tuns for a while now. Cornies too, but I have trouble justifying it to myself since my existing barrels work just fine. I need to finish the attemperator rig on my fermenter first though, and then build my long-awaited temperature controlled incubator for yeast propagation...

 

[Lurch]

I've a heat exchange recirculatory mash system controlled by PID just about to go 'live' too...