Home brewing kits ....

The cold won't kill the yeast, it just slows right down. As soon as it warms up again it fires back into life. A colder slower brew is better anyway, apparently, because it produces fewer impurities.
 
Where can I buy maltodextrin from?
Also do wilkinson usually have glass demijohns in stock? It's not close and would need to borrow a car. Probably just easier to buy online.

Edit- 4 demijohns, airlocks, bungs & 5kilo of maltodextrin orderd online.
 
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Ok. The two Wilkinsons I use keep demijohns if you need any more, but the smaller one only keeps about 2 on the shelf. The postage is usually a bit much to justify me getting them online.
 
Got a Tesco near you? They are selling Demijohns nowadays.

Young's sell Maltodextrin named as 'Body Bru'. Worth checking your local HBS.
 
Is there a good 'beginners guide to homebrewing' style book that covers off all the key areas of beer and cider making, with some handy tips and ideas or anything? I fancy reading up to get some ideas for the future.
 
Ahleckz said:
Young's sell Maltodextrin named as 'Body Bru'. Worth checking your local HBS.
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Trouble is that's mixed with sugar. Ordered pure stuff from a body building shop. Getting conflicting info from google though. Anything from 0-3% fermentable which is a pretty big issue. Anyone know. Or is is it experimenting time.
 
Does anyone have a recipe for alcoholic iced tea?? or I was thinking of trying to do something coffee flavoured?? I don`t want it uber strong but I`ve just had a fun afternoon making two ciders and I have a 3rd demijohn that I wanted to use too :D (praying Ahleckz and johnny69 see this :D)
 
I've seen tea wine. Just make a sweet tea and ferment away. Stopping the ferment if you want to keep some sweetness is the problem.
 
The_blue said:
I've seen tea wine. Just make a sweet tea and ferment away. Stopping the ferment if you want to keep some sweetness is the problem.
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as long as you don't want it fizzy that's easy. you can get stuff that's stops fermentation. you can either do this before it eats all the sugar, or let it eat it all, kill it, then add more sugar.

there's tables to work out how much sugar you need for x%.
I would start by trying some tea recipes out, most are like 4 teabags per litre bring to boil and steep for 1hour, then add shed loads of sugar.
Once you found a recipe you like, work out how much sugar you need for the percent you need. Mix it up and ferment it, kill the yeast then top back up with sugar and go from there.

Im doing something similar with rot beer, but i want it fizzy which makes it harder. i feel theres going to be lots of experimenting.
 
well my first brew is finished it 2nd fermentation and now waiting for it to settle for a few wks tastes ok.
 
Mrs Seakitchen said:
Does anyone have a recipe for alcoholic iced tea?? or I was thinking of trying to do something coffee flavoured?? I don`t want it uber strong but I`ve just had a fun afternoon making two ciders and I have a 3rd demijohn that I wanted to use too :D (praying Ahleckz and johnny69 see this :D)
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You rang? :D

I haven't tried tea or coffee but it's technically possible. I think I read that lighter teas like Jasmine can make a kind of champagne, a bit like using elderflower. I'm not sure how coffee would come out. Something to bear in mind is that yeast also breaks down other substances as well as sugar and I have a feeling it would probably break down the coffee, either the flavour or the colour. The yeast will also make the brew taste a bit winey, which might clash with the coffee flavour.

What you could do is make a brew from just sugar, water and yeast nutrient and add the flavour and sweetener in at the end. The way you'd do that is use a rough calculation that 100g of sugar adds about 1% alcohol to a gallon, brew it up, stop the brew with Campden and sorbate, add a load of activated charcoal which removes the 'yeasty' taste. Then clear it with finings and add coffee and sugar. If you brew it up to 18-20% you'll have something like Tia Maria if you flavour it enough. This is how the old liqueur brewkits from Boots used to do it :)
 
You'll need to add something to thicken it up though, coffee flavoured alcoholic water doesn't sound particularly great.

Throw some glucose or wheat flour into the mix which should thicken the brew up and give you a slightly better reflection of Tia Maria.

Obviously, rack some out of the FV and try it in a testing jar first increase it totally messes up your brew.

I've added a strongly brewed cup of tea to my brews to add tannin but never tried to make alcoholic tea.
 
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Woot finally arrived.
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I'm away mOnday to Friday for the next two weeks so I'm thinking if I pitch on Sunday night it should be finished by Friday and then can bottle when I get home.
I still can't find definitively how much maltodextrin ferments found 0-5% which is a big difference.
 
Jonny69 said:
I quite like Lidl cloudy apple juice. It makes a nice appley cloudy cider. Prince's apple juice also makes a nice one. Economy juices have come out very acidy in my experience.

I just use Young's wine yeast. If you just brew the juice out with yeast it pops out at about 5%. Adding 100g of sugar to a gallon adds about 1% of alcohol, so add as much as you like. I've done mine up to about 11% and you can't taste the alcohol. 150g is a good start and your cider will have a bit of kick. Add a mug of strong brewed black tea from two teabags to add a bit of tannin.

I usually let it brew out which takes about 3 weeks at this time of the year, rack it into a clean demijohn, shake the fizz out of it and let it clear by itself. You can add campden and sorbate to halt the yeast, then you can sweeten it up with sugar and keep it in bottles. I tend to keep it in the demijohn and sweeten it as I go :)
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I've started off a batch (my first) off last night using this recipe. Quick question though... How do you know when it's ready to move to another demijohn as it's always going to be cloudy? Or have I misunderstood?
 
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