Home brewing kits ....

Kanifee said:
How does everyone keep there brews at the correct temps? my house is pretty erratic for temperatures and the nights are still pretty chilly.

Looking around it seems a fish tank heater would be the easiest and cheapest solution. There is one on the high street for £10, 100w, but all the pictures i find of them show the temp gauge starting at 20 degrees, i was under the impression 18 was the ideal number so are these appropriate?
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21-27 for my coopers cerveza. Mine held that heat for 2 days and is down to around 18c now. It's still going but I figure it will take twice as along to finish as an estimate.

Next time I do one with lower household temps (next winter) I will do what someone else on here did and put the FV in another bucket and heat the water around the bucket with a fish tank heater :)

If i'd thought about it better I would have started it in an upstairs room as that's usually a couple of degrees hotter in my house.
 
jak731 said:
Current setup, brewing some stout (Edme dry extra + 1kg of molasses sugar):


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Got the idea of putting the bucket in a water box from this thread. Used a dremmel and glue gun to fit the bung and airlock to the lid. Bubbling like made atm :D
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Jak731, can you tell me what Wattage your heater is? I've been looking at doing this myself and I've seen 25w haeters that claim to be suitable for 25 liters.

Do you know what size your's is?
 
Kanifee said:
How does everyone keep there brews at the correct temps? my house is pretty erratic for temperatures and the nights are still pretty chilly.

Looking around it seems a fish tank heater would be the easiest and cheapest solution. There is one on the high street for £10, 100w, but all the pictures i find of them show the temp gauge starting at 20 degrees, i was under the impression 18 was the ideal number so are these appropriate?
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I don't bother, I just let it get on with it in its own time. It's getting warmer now so the brews will take less time :D
 
Yeah I wouldn't worry to much about it. It's not going to ruin your brew, it will just change the time it takes for things to finish fermenting (unless you brew somewhere really cold, perhaps)?
 
Apparently it's better if it brews slowly in the cool. I don't really know the hows or whys though. Very fast brews can generate impurities like aldehydes though, which will give you a headache. Typically if you leave the brew after it has finished fermenting, the yeast breaks down those impurities, so when you ferment and artificially halt it with Campden and sorbate, you leave the impurities intact and you'll get a bit more of a hangover from your hooch.
 
If I remember to actually get my arse in gear, I'll be staring off another kit tomorrow. My last kit was Brewfern Diablo that I brewed with golden syrup. Cracking stuff, and better than Leffe Blonde (similar taste, but with more body and was about 8.5%). The new kit is a cheapo bitter from Wilkos, so I'm not expecting too much!

Almost got enough kit to have two barrels on the go, apart from being one CO2 injection kit down.
 
My kit is sitting waiting to go, I found a note upon opening explaining they had changed the 700ml bottles for 40x 50cl bottles.

Plan is to brew up as instructions say, then split to three batch, I'm going to dry hop one with 2 varieties of hops leave one plain and then use one of the two hops on the last. The be enhancer states around 4.5% abv, how can I get this to around 4.8? Will adding say 200g of suger to the brew help or do I run the risk of spoiling the brew?
 
danza said:
If I remember to actually get my arse in gear, I'll be staring off another kit tomorrow. My last kit was Brewfern Diablo that I brewed with golden syrup. Cracking stuff, and better than Leffe Blonde (similar taste, but with more body and was about 8.5%). The new kit is a cheapo bitter from Wilkos, so I'm not expecting too much!

Almost got enough kit to have two barrels on the go, apart from being one CO2 injection kit down.
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I'm a cider drinker usually, but I am partial to a bit of Leffe. Is there any other kit required for a lager or beer over a cider? I've currently got a fermenting bin and all the kit to bottle it in glass bottles with crown caps. What's a co2 injection kit?
 
The CO2 injection kit is used for pressure barrels. Bottling obviously just relies upon the CO2 created during secondary fermentation in the bottle when you pop a little sugar in before sealing them up. Without an injection kit to create a positive head of pressure behind the beer when in a barrel causes it to suck in air when you dispense a pint, which spoils the remaining beer. That and you get bugger all head.

You probably have all you need to make a beer kit. My kit includes:

- Fermenting bin
- Racking syphon
- Hydrometer
- Thermometer
- CO2 injection kit
- Pressure barrel
- Water heater
- Water vessel

You only need the items in bold really if you have a bottling kit. The water heater is just used to heat the water around the fermenting bin to ensure it's kept at ~19°C constant. In this weather you probably don't need it. You don't need a hydrometer, but I find mine very useful to confirm ABV and that primary fermentation is over.

The Brewferm kit I mentioned only makes up 9 litres, so when I did mine I used two kits at once. I couldn't be arsed to faff about with candi sugar which it works best with, and made do with golden syrup. It still tasted very good. It comes out of the barrel quite sweet unless left a couple of months, but will condition better in bottles anyway. I tried to make it last until it had conditioned properly, but it just tasted too damn good to wait!
 
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Cheers danza! I'm using sugar in the bottles to add CO2. I don't have a thermometer, but I don't have any way to regulate the temperature either, so its not worth worrying about. My brews just sit quietly in the corner of my living room, which sits at a fairly stable temperature all day (well insulated flat).

I might grab a couple of kits and double up like you. Any other suggestions for something Leffe like? Or something Hoegaarden like too. Basically things with an interesting flavour that aren't anything like the standard fizzy pee lagers you get in this country.
 
Just a quick update, i sterilized and set everything up yesterday and pitched my yeast and am glad to say everything appears to be going great, brew is going like the clappers and and temps are steady around 21/22c.

I have officially started my journey into the craft of home brewing :D

I have read on the net that it is a good idea to leave it in the fermneter a few days to finish of getting rid of waist etc from the yeast? this avoids cidery odors etc? if it is finished fermenting in five days and i give it an extra three days in there will it be ok to then bottle 10-15 bottles and then thrown in some hops to dry hop or am i best doing the hopping now will either effect secondary fermentation?
 
currently have 14 demi's of various wines on the go and 2 of turbo cider
and will get another batch of coopers wheat beer going this weekend

managed to get 2 wine racks (hold 50 bottles) lots of airlocks, two 25 litre fermenting tubs, two 25 litre barrels and "45" demis for the grand total of £52 on ebay :D

not long til elderflower picking time too
 
moogie said:
currently have 14 demi's of various wines on the go and 2 of turbo cider
and will get another batch of coopers wheat beer going this weekend

managed to get 2 wine racks (hold 50 bottles) lots of airlocks, two 25 litre fermenting tubs, two 25 litre barrels and "45" demis for the grand total of £52 on ebay :D

not long til elderflower picking time too
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Jesus! Are you producing it by the tanker! :D
 
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