Homebrew thread

[Milo]

I can find information on here on how to make ice cream, pizzas and the best ever braised red cabbage...but not much about the more serious pursuit of home brewing. 

 

So - feel free to share your experiences, both good and bad, of dabbling in the homebrew world. And if you are a brewer, share recipes and tips and tricks.  

 

And for those who have though about it, but not yet taken the plunge, maybe a chance to ask questions and sample the goodies (location depending, obvs). 

 

I've been doing it for about 6 years. I started with pots and pans and then progressed a little. I do full mash brews and hybrid brews, using LME when I can't be arsed with a 5 hour brew day. 

 

Things I haven't done as I'm not hugely interested are sour beers and lagers (although I was at a brewery recently in the States that did some delicious sour beers, so I may have to revise my negativity towards making them). 

 

Things I haven't done but would like to try include making a decent stout, playing around with water profiles and experimenting with different types of yeast (I'm a bit reluctant to bugger up an entire brew by faffing around with experimental yeasts, so usually just stick to a couple of tried and tested ones).

 

As well as brewing for myself, I also do some stuff for parties and the occasional festival. There's a small collective of home brewers where I live that very occasionally meet up to sample commercial beer and work on a reverse engineering strategy on how to brew the ones we like. With mixed results, it must be said! Always sociable evenings and always very good fun. 

 

 

Current equipment is:

 

Grainfather 

A couple of SS conical fermenters

Corny kegs and tower set up

Water boiler  

A man cave to enjoy it all in      

 

 

[Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot]

My kiss the alderman, retail park and not now madam won awards. 

[Milo]

10 minutes ago, Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot said:

My kiss the alderman, retail park and not now madam won awards. 

Impressive. 
 

 

And do you do your own dentistry? 

[Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot]

1 minute ago, Milo said:

Impressive. 
 

 

And do you do your own dentistry? 

Not exclusively. 

[Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot]

But seriously it's always interested me and now I have the space for it (got a cellar but needs damproofing and converting) it's something I am looking in to, but not the first clue on how to get started. 

[Milo]

7 minutes ago, Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot said:

But seriously it's always interested me and now I have the space for it (got a cellar but needs damproofing and converting) it's something I am looking in to, but not the first clue on how to get started. 

Cellar sounds perfect. I’d recommend looking on eBay or similar for a starter brewing kit. 
 

You’ll need a fermenter and a keg (or bottles, but they’re more of a faff), a kit to get you started and a few other things like a keg brush and steriliser and airlock. 
 

And a few big pots and pans to get started with. 
 

Full mash is where you do everything from scratch, so you buy the grain and hops and boil it all up. 
 

Some of the kits make it easier by providing liquid malt extract (LME) which cuts out some of the mash stage. Which is a better option to start off with. 
 

Hop additions go in at different times during the boil to do different things (bitterness/aroma) and then cool it and pop it into the fermenter with some yeast. 
 

After a week or so you can add it to the keg and then a week or so later you can drink it! 
 

 

[tom27111]

How have I only just seen this?

 

I'm flattered by the red cabbage mention. You are talking about mine, right?

 

I quite like making cider. It's just so easy. You don't have to worry about carbonating it and you can just do it in a massive bucket.

 

Not made any for years, but always say I want to do it again.

 

Loads of pure apple juice, some champagne yeast and some brewing sugar to make a really strong scrumpy!

 

Made an absolutely banging one once, boiled off about 3 litres of Vimto cordial, cooled it, then added it to the ingredients above.

 

It rocked up a few weeks later at about 8.5% and tasted divine.

 

Dangerous stuff though!