How to brew your own beer

[Llamaman]

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?

You need about 3kg-4kg of malt extract to make a 5-gallon barrel of beer. Adding sugar is unnecessary, but you may choose to do so to make a stronger, drier beer.

Sugar can also be added at the barelling stage. This is called priming sugar, and is designed to give the yeast a little more food to produce some CO2 to give the beer a bit of condition (fizz). Strictly, it's not necessary - a good beer made from top-quality malt should need no priming, but it can be useful if your beer is a little flat.
A kg of priming sugar won't create beer. You'll have a beer-pop. I hope you have safety release valves on your barrel!

 

[molinari]

I'm thinking of buying one of the Muntons Premiun Gold kits for my future father-in-law for Christmas. I'm guessing the kit includes the ingredients, but what other equipment do I need to get for him so he can start making the beer???

 

[PaulStat]

I'm thinking of buying one of the Muntons Premiun Gold kits for my future father-in-law for Christmas. I'm guessing the kit includes the ingredients, but what other equipment do I need to get for him so he can start making the beer???

Fermenting bucket, siphon tubing, steriliser, kegs/bottles, hyrdometer, thermometer. That's about it for kit brewing.

If you are bottling you'll need a capper and the caps

 

[PaulStat]

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.

wish that had been me you'd given it to

 

[molinari]

Fermenting bucket, siphon tubing, steriliser, kegs/bottles, hyrdometer, thermometer. That's about it for kit brewing.

If you are bottling you'll need a capper and the caps

Thanks. Do you think this would be the best thing to get to start with??

 

[PaulStat]

Yup that's the sort of thing, one thing you might want to consider is buying a lid for that barrel which will allow you to inject CO2 into the barrel allowing you to keep the beer for longer, as you draw beer through the tap if there's too much air in the headspace of the barrel the flow can be really slow and even worse it will draw air in through the tap and give the beer a funky taste.

Once he's got the hang of kits, point him in the direction of the thread in my sig

 

[caff]

Ok - an update (and more advice needed thanks!)

Fermentation has been going for 7 days now - the surface has stopped frothing and the hydrometer reading is 1.20.

My pack says the hydrometer should read 1.14

Should I wait a little longer, or do you think its ready to bottle?

 

[NickK]

I'm sorely tempted to try this. The purpose would be for a new years party then brewing after would be for myself and the odd party.

I was thinking of the Starter kit above but I think there's a few bits that would annoy me about it - I'd be open to advice/comments:

I'd be tempted to go for the Brewmaster barrel simply because using it after means possibly just me drinking it and hence CO2 would give me more time to drink it.

Additionally I would get a heater belt such as this brew belt as the brewing would be in the house (and it's not the warmest house).

 

[LOAM]

Ok - an update (and more advice needed thanks!)

Fermentation has been going for 7 days now - the surface has stopped frothing and the hydrometer reading is 1.20.

My pack says the hydrometer should read 1.14

Should I wait a little longer, or do you think its ready to bottle?

Its still to high imho, is it still producing CO2 or has the yeast head completely collapsed ?

maybe cause its colder at the moment but i would leave it a few more days or rouse it with sanitised padle.

read this though, http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3523

LOAM

 

[elroberto]

Well, I've drunk about half now, it's not quite gassy enough in the bottles though. Any idea's why that be as flat lager's not the greatest thing in the world to drink.

 

[PaulStat]

Well, I've drunk about half now, it's not quite gassy enough in the bottles though. Any idea's why that be as flat lager's not the greatest thing in the world to drink.

Did you prime your bottles with some sugar? If not that'll be the reason why

 

[caff]

Its still to high imho, is it still producing CO2 or has the yeast head completely collapsed ?

maybe cause its colder at the moment but i would leave it a few more days or rouse it with sanitised padle.

read this though, http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3523

LOAM

Thanks for the advice

When you say yeast head - you mean the froth on top of the beer? If so yep it's flattened down. I suspect I didn't 'whisk' it to introduce air as much as I should have when I originally started fermenting. And the room it's been in has been a little colder than the rest of the house, which I imagine hasn't helped...

I'll move it to a warmer room and rouse it like you say, and give it another couple of days to see if that helps.

 

[PaulStat]

Ok - an update (and more advice needed thanks!)

Fermentation has been going for 7 days now - the surface has stopped frothing and the hydrometer reading is 1.20.

My pack says the hydrometer should read 1.14

Should I wait a little longer, or do you think its ready to bottle?

Measure it again in 48 hours if it's the same reading you might be all right. You have to be wary though as if you bottle it whilst it's still fermenting you could end up with a bottle bomb

 

[caff]

Did you prime your bottles with some sugar? If not that'll be the reason why

Can you give me an idea of how to prime the bottles, or the fermenting mix, with glucose powder?

 

[PaulStat]

I'm sorely tempted to try this. The purpose would be for a new years party then brewing after would be for myself and the odd party.

I was thinking of the Starter kit above but I think there's a few bits that would annoy me about it - I'd be open to advice/comments:

I'd be tempted to go for the Brewmaster barrel simply because using it after means possibly just me drinking it and hence CO2 would give me more time to drink it.

Additionally I would get a heater belt such as this brew belt as the brewing would be in the house (and it's not the warmest house).

Nothing wrong with that starter kit, you can buy a new cap for the barrel that will allow you to inject CO2 using CO2 bulbs

Brew belt would be a good idea if you can't control the temp of the room seperately. I'm considering getting one myself as having beer fermenting on a carpet aint the best of ideas

 

[PaulStat]

Can you give me an idea of how to prime the bottles, or the fermenting mix, with glucose powder?

It depends how many bottles you plan to do tbh. If your doing 30+ then it would be an idea to use a bottling bucket, basically from what I understand you transfer your beer from the fermenter to another bucket (MAKE SURE THERE'S NO SPLASHING ON TRANSFER) to get it off of the yeast.

Then measure out your sugar, 1/2 tsp per pint. Boil about 1 pint of water and dissolve the sugar into it. Cool the water down to about 20C, then add the water to the beer, stir with a sanitised spoon. Leave to settle for a while

Then bottle away.

I only ever bottle half a dozen or so as bottling is a huuuuge pain in the arse. The rest goes into my barrel. Because I do so few I santise my bottles and caps thoroughly, rinse them out thoroughly then add 1/2 teaspoon sugar straight to the bottle, and then transfer the beer to each bottle and then cap them.

Oh and use standard run of the mill table sugar (sucrose)

 

[PaulStat]

Thanks for the advice

When you say yeast head - you mean the froth on top of the beer? If so yep it's flattened down. I suspect I didn't 'whisk' it to introduce air as much as I should have when I originally started fermenting. And the room it's been in has been a little colder than the rest of the house, which I imagine hasn't helped...

I'll move it to a warmer room and rouse it like you say, and give it another couple of days to see if that helps.

Yup, ideally you need to have the room in the region of 18-23C.

Once you've finished with your kit, and you're fed up of that homebrew twang. Check out the link in my sig hehe

 

[caff]

I only ever bottle half a dozen or so as bottling is a huuuuge pain in the arse. The rest goes into my barrel. Because I do so few I santise my bottles and caps thoroughly, rinse them out thoroughly then add 1/2 teaspoon sugar straight to the bottle, and then transfer the beer to each bottle and then cap them

Ok - I think I'll do the same as you re: simply adding some sugar to the bottle directly. I have around 20 - 24 bottles to do from my estimates, which shouldn't take so long. Should I give the bottle a gentle shake just to get the sugar spread throughout?

Also (yet another question -sorry) I have some finings with the pack, do I need to use these if I'm bottling, or is it only needed for a keg?

 

[caff]

Once you've finished with your kit, and you're fed up of that homebrew twang. Check out the link in my sig hehe

Yep that's the next level - but getting this under my belt should help me understand the chemistry a bit first! It is exciting watching it happen, I just hope I don't screw it up and that my end product has some alcohol content and some flavour!

 

[PaulStat]

Should I give the bottle a gentle shake just to get the sugar spread throughout?

Yup can't hurt

Also (yet another question -sorry) I have some finings with the pack, do I need to use these if I'm bottling, or is it only needed for a keg?

Not for bottles no, you have to leave bottles for longer before you drink them 6 weeks +, actually the longer the better. Because you're leaving them so long they have plenty of time to clear