Home brewing anyone doing it?

rjbell

rjbell

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I've always been a cider drinker and up to now have let the whole craft beer craze pass be by until last weekend. I was at a child's party and the host offered me a can of brewdog dead pony club and wow It was a revelation.

This week I've been thinking about home brewing. My father in law has mentioned it in the past, it might be a good bonding exercise ;).

Anyone doing it?
 
I got the kit a while back to do wines and beers, just haven't got round to giving it a go.

Apparently it can be a smelly business.

Lots of shops have the bits and pieces available.
 
I still have vivid recollections of a friends parents home-brewing activity during my formative years! - the occasional triumph, plenty of dodgy stomachs, lots of hangovers and a lot of fun. I think the kits are ok its when you start going off piste that the problems start . I've got particularly bad recollections about a batch of Rhubarb wine that had some very bad results. Seriously though its a lot of fun
 
We do a lot of wine from fruits, I used to do a lot of beers and ales too but not for a while.
Marrow wine was quite good too!
 
I'm gearing up to start my second batch of beer in time for Xmas. My first go wasn't a huge success, so 2nd time lucky I hope!
 
eeyore said:
We do a lot of wine from fruits, I used to do a lot of beers and ales too but not for a while.
Marrow wine was quite good too!
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My dad used to make wine. Lovely coloured demijohns in a row with bubbling airlocks, and the results were often delicious!
 
viv1969 said:
My dad used to make wine. Lovely coloured demijohns in a row with bubbling airlocks, and the results were often delicious!
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We usually go a little over the top when we do wine, not uncommon to have 6 on the go
 
When we did rhubarb we pulled 20kg of the stuff in total... Most went to wine.
 
eeyore said:
When we did rhubarb we pulled 20kg of the stuff in total... Most went to wine.
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I was just talking to a colleague about the rhubarb triangle.
She didn't believe me and has gone off to Google. :lol:
(When I tell her about the licorice mines, she blow a fuse! :lol:
 
I tried home brewing a long time ago and the results were okay, as far as I can remember, but I was never very fond of beer and I probably wasn't the best judge! It was really just an experiment, and I more or less gave up drinking years ago so I've never repeated it.
 
Used to do quite a lot of homebrew beer - started simple with kits, then used malt extract in my own recipes, then into full mash from grain. Quite a long, involved process but fun if you're a beer nerd like me. I had a lot of free time when single... ;)

Beer is a very easy to drink to make - especially if you keep it simple. The most important thing is to be scrupulous with cleanliness.
Start simple with kits to build the basic skills and push on from there. Don't try and over complicate from the beginning - a 100% pale malt ale is hard to get wrong, but if you tried 100% chocolate malt it would be a different story. Until you've learnt enough theory to know what will work, stick to kits or recipes from a RELIABLE book (apparently lots contain untested recipes!).
CAMRA published a range of 'brew your own at home' books, and there's another I had that I've forgotten the title of - I'll look it up when I'm back at home.
 
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We've done a few wines/ciders. The elderberry wine and raspberry wine weren't particularly nice - which is unfortunate when you've got a good few gallons of it!
The apple wine and pear wine were really nice one year - and much more palletable than the cider/perry we did.

I've never tried brewing beer, but I'd like to try it sometime. But one of biggest issues we've had with our brewing to date is keeping it at a regular temperature and I think that may be even more important with beer.
 
Forgot we also do cider quite a lot... got a scratter and press last year.... thankfully our allotment has a fruitful apple tree on it :)

Elderflower champagne is good... tho watch our for it going pop. I store ours in a blast proof case now.
 
Started on beer aboutnthis time last year.... Just about to bottle my 9th kit. :) an American oaked rum ale. :)

All kits seem very good nowadays, general comments are that theyre much improved on those a decade ago.

I've done kits from woodfordes, festival, St peters, Young's, brewferm and have a milestones still to do. 2 can kits seem to be better for "quality" and at about £20 to £24 for 44 bottles you're at 50p a pop.

Follow instructions, keep it all clean, keep temp constant, (I have a 40 litre trug as a water bath, with a 50w fish tank heater on if its cold), keep an eye on specific gravity with a hydrometer, leave it alone, and they do benefit from 3 months conditioing after the 1-2 weeks in the airing cupboard they need to carbonate.

I've collected about 150 bottles and aim to have one ready to bottle at the same time I will have enough bottles to fill.
 
Ive done cider a few times (we have 3 large orchards at work and there's always more apples than the local community can take) - apple wine sounds interesting could try that this year.
 
big soft moose said:
Ive done cider a few times (we have 3 large orchards at work and there's always more apples than the local community can take) - apple wine sounds interesting could try that this year.
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I've had cider made with champagne yeast which was nice. Might be worth a look.
 
My dad use to make his own wine. I would love to give it a try but not got a clue where to start plus i would want to drink it before it was ready!
 
I never got home made beer to taste like the real stuff back in the day when I used to make my own, with the exception of a Theakstons Old Peculier taste alike, which I put down to not needing finings to clear it.

A lot of the newer micro breweries are the same. Their products are not on a par with the more established breweries such as Timothy Taylors, Theaksons, Sam Smiths, Black Sheep, Marstons, Hook Norton, Shepherd Neame etc. But maybe its just the flavours I like that are difficult to reproduce and of course the water is always critical and why the mega brewers always get it wrong, as they can't see that putting different water in there just doesn't work. Newcastle water instead of that from Masham failed miserably. You cant brew Boddies successfully away from Strangeways. But they continue to try with negative effect.

If you can achieve one that has the Brewdog taste, let me know, I will be first in the queue, although I am generally not on the craft beer bandwagon, prefer real to craft..
 
To get the Brewdog taste, you need to heavily hop the beer using fragrant US or NZ hops. Most kits are designed to be a more balanced beer with less hop character.
 
First batch of blackberry wine being processed today. 6kg of fruit in it. Sorry for the rubbish pictures :)
 

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I got into home brewing last year after trying a mates beer and elderflower champagne.

We have a home brew shop not far away in Aldershot and I got a starter kit with fermenting tub and pressure barrel. I have since gone onto using bottles but use the barrel to rack off.

The kits are very good having tried a few now. Also into wine kits with 30 bottles brewed in just 2 weeks.

The only downside is there is always a constant bubbling noise coming from the vats. But a massive saving as very cheap.
 
I do mine from kits, although I am going to do a elderberry this week, we have a lot of elder trees in the back hedge so seems a shame not to :)
We currently have on the go an elder flower wine and a Beaverdale Rioja, then a Blackrock cider for the g/f and boys (second one of these I have done and it's quite nice apparently) and a Woodfordes Admirals reserve.
And that makes me sound like a proper drinker, but we like to leave them sitting for several months before opening as they improve hugely.
 
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