Home brewing kits ....

danza said:
Cheers for the info. :)

I've ordered a cheapo aquarium heater with thermostat control for next time at least. The office is witout doubt the warmest/best part of the house to ferment in, but it's getting a bit cramped with a brewing bin in here!

I'll leave it longer as you say. If temps do fall too much, I can stick it in a warm tub of water with this heater in (if it arrives in time). I think the main trouble I'll have is with maintaining warmth, as even though the office is usually warm, temps will drop at night by quite a lot. I'll wrap it with the sleeping bag to give it every chance and keep an eye on it.
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Same here. I just sterilised the heater and dropped it in the beer/wine :)
 
Right, here's my lashup. been running since Friday, and the brew has been fermenting away nicely for 7 days. I'll be leaving it until next week end or thereabouts as advised to help clear the wort.

GENTLEMEN, BEHOLD (!):

Beermatic01.jpg


Brewing temps have ranged from 18-21 accoring to the super inaccurate thermometer I bought from Wilkos, but it'll do until I pick something better up next time. I've really winged this TBH. I couldn't be arsed to take the OG, but I'm not worried. I've been pretty stringent with sterilisation though, so hopefully it'll come out okay, although I CBA to fit an airlock (I have loads) but hopefully nothing grim has crawled inside. My next brew will entail more research, will likely be something strong and Belgian style and I'll buy proper brewing sugar stuff for maximum win.
 
Last Saturday I syphoned my beer from my brewing bin into a barrel and began the secondary fermentation at ~20C (4 days). On Wednesday I removed the barrel from my heating system. The kit instructions say to leave to clarify/condition for 3-4 weeks if a pressure barrel is used.

What temperature should the beer be kept at during this time? It says to keep cool in the intructions, but nothing more specific than that.
 
As cool as possible... even down to a couple of degrees; you could even keep it outside at this time of year.

I just keep mine in an unheated room, so perhaps about 14C.
 
Just had a read through and its got me wanting a go.

Looking at something a little different to what i'd normally drink so thinking of starting with a cider kit.

First link I clicked was the BrewUK one so going on they're stuff

Custom 40 Pint Cider Microbrewery
Equipment
--1 x Starter Equipment Set + Fermenting Bin £19.15
Cider kits
--1 x Magnum Strawberry Cider £11.91
Choose Bottles
--1 x PET Bottles 1 Litre Clear Carton (24) + Caps £12.33

Other than 1.3kg of sugar anything else I'll need to get started. Will normal sugar be fine to use or am I better off using Brewing & Winemaking sugar?
 
The bottles are cheaper to get at Tesco (or other supermarkets probably, with stuff in them, 2 Litres of water is 17p, so you can use the water and reuse the bottle so ~£2 for 12 and you've got the water you can use too. Or if you need 1 litre bottles they do flavoured sparkling water in bottles for 33p so ~£8 for 24 and you can drink it first if you want, or just tip it away it's still cheaper. It's what I did, saved myself £10 :)
 
In that case does this lot sound better

25 Litre Fermentation Vessel and lid (Full Colour-Graduated)
VWP Cleanser 400 grm
Starter Equipment Set
Kit contains:
* Trial Jar
* paddle
* Syphon
* Steriliser
* Hydrometer
Magnum Strawberry Cider

Comes to £40 so around £15 saved and I'll just bottle it into old 2 litre coke bottles that are throughly cleaned

Do I need a fermentation lock? If so could you point me in the right direction.
 
Well my first homebrew has been conditioning in the barrel for almost 4 weeks, and I started drinking it last week (3 weeks conditioned). It's really improved in the last week and is pretty palatable. Quite chuffed with it TBH, and I'm definitely hooked. I plan on buying another pressure barrel, a carbonation kit (this beer is pretty flat TBH, but not too bad for it), a couple of decent belgian beer kits and some proper brewing sugay/spraymalt/whatever to give it a proper go next time.

Anyway, here's the result of my first effort (looks pretty generic, but still we have to start somewhere):

JohnBullBeer01.jpg


Cheers!
 
It'll get better.

I bought a Wherry kit for a week of camping party :) Ok.. and a 5L of summer lightning party keg.

To late tonight but I shall be making it up tomorrow night!
 
Has anyone ever added more malt in, after a brew? I'm thinking about adding some good chocolate malt into a strawberry wheat beer to give it that slight edge but not sure on the best way to do it. Make a concentrated wort, and just pour it into the FV is what I'm thinking. Will repitch yeast also.
 
I've never made beer before, but I did try my hand at making ginger wine not too long ago. Quite easy to make. All you need is some yu lade essence, water, suger and brandy.

Basically you just add the water, essence and suger together, bring it to the boil and then add the brandy. Before it cools you ladel it out into glass bottles and then leave them in a cool, dark place to mature for a couple of weeks.

Just tried some last night. Very tasty! Certainly fills you with warmth :)
 
Ahleckz said:
Has anyone ever added more malt in, after a brew? I'm thinking about adding some good chocolate malt into a strawberry wheat beer to give it that slight edge but not sure on the best way to do it. Make a concentrated wort, and just pour it into the FV is what I'm thinking. Will repitch yeast also.
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Usually the the water is steeped in the malt and then boiled with the hops. At the end of boiling it's cooled rapidly (called the break). The cooled wort is then placed into the fermenter and yeast added.

Attempting to bypass this (especially the boil and the break) isn't going to be pretty as the break removes a lot of the proteins etc. You'll probably end up with cloudy beer that tastes slightly odd but apart from that (as long as it's boiled to sterilise the new wort then cooled before it's added to the existing fermentation).
 
frozennova said:
In that case does this lot sound better
Do I need a fermentation lock? If so could you point me in the right direction.
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I've not needed a lock, just leave a crack and the CO2 will sit on the top of the fermenting liquid. You'll want to bottle quickly after fermentation has finished.

I tend to use a CO2 cartridge in the keg before moving the beer to it. The CO2 then sits at the bottom and the beer has minimal time in contact with oxygenated air.
 
Trust me, I know the process fine but was just wondering if anyone has any experience of missing out certain steps. I'm going to bottle a 2/3 of the batch, and then just make a new wort and throw that in and see what happens. All about experimentation eh?
 
Hehe I've had a horrendous brew once (too much oak in it!). All grain, that basically was so bad that .. well I threw most of it away apart from bottling a few. Attempted to drink some after 6 months and it was bad... then earlier this year I found the last remaining bottle (must be a few years old).. the stuff was stunning - perfect subtle oaking with hops and malt flavour..
 
Well sod it, I just made a simple wort. Then rapidly chilled it and strained it into a FV. Racked half of my raspberry wheat beer from another FV into it, and just gave it a good ol' shake. I don't have any yeast (school boy error not checking before beginning the brew!) so repitching will have to wait until tomorrow but it might be OK.

Bottled the other half of the wheat beer, and looks very good. Going to be awesome for summer BBQs!
 
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