Home brewing kits ....

You can GinG, but I don't imagine it will be particularly tasty. Cooking apples are pretty acidic, you're best to juice one and see what it's like. You can add chalk to remove some acidity but it will only go so far. I'd personally add some normal apple juice into the mix to counteract it somewhat and have a more rounded drink.

All you need to do is juice the apples (pressing would be the best bet), put them into something where it'll ferment, add yeast and a bit of sugar. A cup of strongly brewed tea would also be advisable to get some (the?) tannins.

IT'S LAGER NOT LARGER!
 
Ahleckz said:
You can GinG, but I don't imagine it will be particularly tasty. Cooking apples are pretty acidic, you're best to juice one and see what it's like. You can add chalk to remove some acidity but it will only go so far. I'd personally add some normal apple juice into the mix to counteract it somewhat and have a more rounded drink.

All you need to do is juice the apples (pressing would be the best bet), put them into something where it'll ferment, add yeast and a bit of sugar. A cup of strongly brewed tea would also be advisable to get some (the?) tannins.

IT'S LAGER NOT LARGER!
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Sorry I know it is lager no idea why I spelt it that way!!

I have plenty or brewing sugar, and possibly some yeast so will see how tart the apples are. Is yeast an important ingredient as I thought you could possibly do without it?
 
Yeast turns sugar into alcohol. So, unless you want nonalcoholic cider it's pretty important. ;)

Depending where your apples came from though, there could be natural yeast on them. However, I wouldn't assume that's true and just go and buy some.
 
On the free carbonating front. I'm assuming you want a yeast free or sweet beer.
Typically you want to kill the yeast with a camden tablet then pass it through a fine filter this will remove the yeast and prevent future fermentation. You can now sweeten the brew if needed.

Force carbonate in a cornelius keg, get the beer cold as it will absorb more CO2, then agitate it to dissolve the gas and repeat.
Widget World a supplier of CO2 regulators for cornie kegs also come with a system for carbonating regular PET bottles. They have special bottle top which you can attach the regulator to. I haven't tried it but there is no reason why it shouldn't work.
 
Ohh thanks, will certainly have look at the pet bottle system. That sounds ideal.

It's for root beer, so very sugary.
First batch is almost ready for bottling, will be using yeast to carbonate. But be so much easier force carbonating. Not even sure how this vodka yeast will cope with second fermentation as obviously it's not designed for it. And the alcholo content is to strong to add a bit of normal yeast. I recon its around 10-12% maybe to strong but hey Ho!

Edit - sweet looks great
£20 for the device, £18 for bottle slightly cheaper for refill and 99p for the caps

Any idea how many 1 liter bottles a co2 cylinder would last.
 
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Put my first christmas brew in the primary yesterday, and starting to regret not just binning the bucket and getting a new one.

Left it for far too long with the dregs of a primary wheat beer fermentation -- so much so that it literally smells like the grim reaper is creeping up behind you. Cleaned it out thoroughly (which was much easier with decent barrel cleaner than I thought) and got the new brew on, but even though it's sitting in the corner of the kitchen you can still smell the horror as it bubbles away.

Hope it doesn't permeate the beer from the plastic otherwise this batch is ruined. Oh well, only a week to go before I sample a bit to see!
 
I'm bored, and fancy brewing something today. However, I can't be bothered going to my LBS so it'll have to be something I can make with supermarket stuff. Obviously I have yeast, and sugar but no ingredients.

What shall I brew, OcUK?!
 
Help please!

I started my latest home brew (a 1 tin of Coopers Real Ale kit) 6 days ago. I forgot to add the 1kg of sugar (beerkit enhancer) to the fermenting vessel. So the only thing in there is yeast & the malt extract. I'm such an idiot.

My question is, would it be ok to add it now? If so, how long should I leave it for before I keg it?

Or should I just ditch it and start again?
 
Pity, I'd have said the yeasties had 1.5kg of hopped malt extract to munch on and multiply. Adding sugar might have been fairly quick as the yeast would be in much greater numbers.
Oh well, good luck with the next one.
 
I did think there might be a slim chance, but from reading other parts of the 'net it seemed a bit of a close call whether it would all reactivate ok.

I thought better to start again, so I put a Young's Harvest Mild on last night. It smells good already.
 
I would have added the sugar (as a simple syrup), pitched yeast and heated it up slightly. I can't see why it wouldn't have worked.
 
Just for the record, yeast doesn't die very quickly, it sits at the bottom dormant for quite some time and there is usually quite a bit floating around in the drink still active even once it's cleared. You'd have been fine to sling the sugar in.
 
Ah well - I was 50/50 all day thinking about it, and had pretty much decided to ditch it... I've had quite a few small mistakes with my last few brews, so didn't want to get all the way to bottling stage and find it was another failure.

I am now logging everything on a daily basis (smell, temp, gravity, taste etc.) and creating a 'lessons learned' list!

I wish I'd watched more youtube videos before starting out - reading the instructions alone is not always ideal.
 
caff, leave it alone! Each time you're opening the FV you're risking introducing containments. The risk is, admittedly, low but it is present. Just leave it alone and let it do it's thing. Check it weekly if you want but daily is overkill.
Though I appreciate that it's hard as you're excited.
 
You're right I am nervous about it but I appreciate that - I'll leave it alone.

I'll test it next week, perhaps 7 days after putting in.

Does the 'head' drop to the bottom indicate it's finished doing its thing?
 
Jonny69 said:
Just for the record, yeast doesn't die very quickly, it sits at the bottom dormant for quite some time and there is usually quite a bit floating around in the drink still active even once it's cleared. You'd have been fine to sling the sugar in.
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Was it really worth wasting a £6 brew kit enhancer to find out as it will have cooled considerably from what it should be pitched at. I doubt the yeast that was left would be enough to create anything other than a nice clear glass of **** :D

After a day or so fair enough but these coopers kits are made to get the job done after 6 days and he'd left it that long before adding any sugar.

Maybe as an experiment it might have been fun to try it but not as a first brew.

:)
 
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