How to brew your own beer

Mr Jack said:
Well, yeah, sparging would be a step up; but it's a big step up in time, space and equipment costs.
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Bring it on :cool: (the equipment below cost me just over £100)

brewery01tr1.jpg
 
I'm now priming my bottles! Not long to go now! Though priming 80 former budweiser bottles is no fun at all! Now all I need to do is go deerhunting, cook and skin it, grow a big bushy beard and I will be man +1!
 
elroberto said:
I'm now priming my bottles! Not long to go now! Though priming 80 former budweiser bottles is no fun at all! Now all I need to do is go deerhunting, cook and skin it, grow a big bushy beard and I will be man +1!
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Yeah I was going to bottle all of mine, decided it would be too much work in the end! I bottled 6 and the 28 pints I kegged in budget pressure barrel, just another 2-3 weeks and it'll be ready to drink.

In the meantime I have my next brew planned, a Leffe Blonde clone :cool:, which I should be able to make for about 67p a pint
 
Great guide thanks - myself and some mates are going to have a small brewing competition

I'm trying to find a local walk-in shop in the NW London area that sells these 'all in one kits' - but I can't seem to find anything. I'm not sure I'm searching the right websites?

And does anyone have any pics of their finished brews?! :)
 
caff said:
Great guide thanks - myself and some mates are going to have a small brewing competition

I'm trying to find a local walk-in shop in the NW London area that sells these 'all in one kits' - but I can't seem to find anything. I'm not sure I'm searching the right websites?

And does anyone have any pics of their finished brews?! :)
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In case you missed my guide here you go (same method used by large breweries all over the world)

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17935929&highlight=all+grain

Kit Beer is to All Grain as Microwave meals are to Corden Bleu cooking with a glass of the finest red wine on the side
 
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It has a kettle type element with a thermostat built in, you can mash or boil, purpose built thing bought from a home brew shop, not your normal plastic brewing bucket. The element only screws in by a thread or 2 due to the thickness of the "plastic" bucket, obviously the element/thermostat unit was not designed for this thickness of bucket. Stand well back & don't jar it when in use.
 
Grahame said:
Guys, I have been brewing for about 6 months and I suggest you visit http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/ and have a good look around the threads there.
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Good site that - God only knows how I missed it first time I read the thread.

The barrel of Mild is coming to its end, so our thoughts are turning to other stuff over the winter. Next up is a litre of sloe gin and a litre of blackberry gin (never tried it using blackberries before, but the mother-in-law assures me it can be done).

The wines I mentioned in my earlier post are due another racking, which, bearing in mind we're talking about a total of six demijohns, will be no small task! Good job I managed to buy 25 of the things off eBay a couple of years ago ... mind you, the grape wine looks fantastic - a real deep red colour - looking forward to a crafty sip of that, purely for testing purposes of course *cough* :D

I am sorely tempted to give Mister Jack's method a go in the new year - I make wine with ingredients but for beer we've used kits up to now, mainly for speed & simplicity and have been pleased or in some cases delighted with the results! If the extract method can produce a result that is better still, then all I can say is "God bless my liver - it knows nothing of the punishment coming its way ..."
 
A question:

My kit came with a 1kg bag of glucose powder, but my instructions don't mention using this until siphoning into the keg.

However, surely I'm supposed to add glucose when making the fermentation mix? I created the fermentation mix last night, should I add some glucose powder now, if so how much?
 
I'm not a kit person, but I'm guessing that could be for priming the keg.

This is where secondary fermentation takes place (as yeast is still in suspension) and the beer carbonates.

The carbonation is a result of the yeast gobbling up the sugars.

If it is for the priming then the recommended amount of priming sugar is something like 1gram per half pint
 
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*danger mouse narration* Can this thread rival Siliconslave's espresso thread? Who will produce the heaviest beer? ...

I'd be tempted to try this.. but next up is Chilli growing.

Doset Naga Ale! 5.5%, 1,000,000SKU :D
 
I think my homebrew gear cost me about £300 in total.

At one point I had;
10 gallon boiler with 2x3kw elements and a hopfilter
10 gallon fermenter bucket
2x 6 gallon buckets
2x beer spheres
Solid copper suspension wort chiller
lots of tubes and pipes with the legendary Hozelock connectors.


... and then I gave it all away on Freecycle to some lucky sod.
 
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