Home Brewing (Complete Noob)

duotone

A few friends were wondering what to get me for my birthday later this month & the first thing I thought of was having a go at Home Brewing.  I think it would be fantastic to make a Hoegaarden style beer or a nice black lager or porter for a fraction of the cost of buying it in pubs.

Trouble is I know nothing about it...so this is where you lot come in!  Can anyone point me in the right direction? Should I begin with a starter kit like this? https://www.home-brew-online.com/starter-kits-c47/festival-micro-brewery-with-bottles-kit-pride-of-london-porter-p2604  or am I better off looking at something/somewhere else?

roundthebend

I've done brewing from kits for a few years. It's pretty easy and results can be good. I was advised what equipment to buy by an ex-forum member, coincidentally!

That kit looks like a good starting point. It's almost exactly what I got except I bought everything separately. The only thing I can think of extra is a second fermenting barrel and siphon. You do the fermenting in one, with the airlock lid, then you siphon into the other barrel with the bottling stick. This makes it easier to mix in your secondary fermenting sugar (gives the beer a fix in the bottle) and also helps avoid sediment in your bottles.

You can buy a Young's fermenting bucket for about £15.

Dodge

I bought one of these:

https://www.brewuk.co.uk/stove-toppers-small-batch-starter-kit.html

Really happy with it. It's small batch, which is a positive (smaller kit to store, less beer to drink if you're not in love with what you've made) and a negative (less beer to drink if you are in love with what you've made!). The glass demijohn is more robust than the plastic buckets you get with other kits too. Other than pots (which you need for any option), you're all set.

I love mine, it's generally always on the go. You can buy some of their pre-packed recipe kits and then tweak them when you're more confident with what you're doing.

DiscoStu

.

Wrong thread!

pintspiller

My beer was hit and miss. Wine wine always a hit.

VimFuego

pintspiller said:

My beer was hit and miss. Wine wine always a hit.

I've been brewing for about 15 years now and I've found beer much more susceptible to outside conditions, especially temperature. Beer brewed in winter I find to be much better, wine doesn't seem to be anywhere near as susceptible. 

Jetsam1

This is interesting. One thing I miss being over here is a decent bitter. Whether I would be capable of making anything decent is another matter. You can get some UK beer here but it is basically Youngs and it is very expensive......

So here the summer is often nearly 40 degrees and the winter can be -15 degrees. Is this maybe a bit too extreme for home beer brewing? I do have a nice cool cellar available. One issue would be that I would probably have to source ingredients and kits from the UK for the type of thing I would like.

But we are thinking about doing Palinka this year though. Now THAT is brutal! Home made fruit vodka!

vimfuego: Do you use kits or make up your own recipies from scratch? I am thinking that once the initial outlay on the equipment is spent it may be economical to do a brew a few times a year. How does homebrew keep? Is it drink straight away or do get a couple of weeks in a cellar maybe?

VimFuego

oh man, I'd love a dungeon, erm, I mean cellar for brewing. my brew shack gets the full force of the summer sun and gets so warm I don't bother making beer in the summer (it's fine for winter). I do a bit of both, kits are a lot less work, but I have all the grain brewing gear. 
And deffo keep it ideally a month before drinking.

Jetsam1

VimFuego said:

oh man, I'd love a dungeon, erm, I mean cellar for brewing. my brew shack gets the full force of the summer sun and gets so warm I don't bother making beer in the summer (it's fine for winter). I do a bit of both, kits are a lot less work, but I have all the grain brewing gear. 
And deffo keep it ideally a month before drinking.

Sounds interesting. It would be expensive for me to start but I know my Dad used to do a bit back in the 80s. ANd a lot of the kit you only need to buy once.

This is the first time I have had a cellar................ It is good. Part of a large outbuilding we need to do a little renovation on but being Hungarian built is absolutely freezing inside in the Summer. We have it full of jars of preserved fruit at the moment and when brought up to the house is easily cool enough for nice drinking beer.

The rules here are that you can make 50 litres of Palinka for you own use (that is a lot!!) and as much beer or wine as you like. I am not sure there really is a home brew thing for beer here as the local stuff is cheap. Really cheap. But it is all lager. Though a couple of the big brewers are starting to do beers that could at a pinch be sort of comparable with maybe a light ale.

Wine is pointless as commercially made wine is again very cheap.

Brief internet search. Looks like a rabbit hole you can get lost in quite, quite easily.............!!

Snap

I like the idea of this. My experience with winemaking was near fatal I reckon. Christ, it was rank, but didn't stop me drinking it, almost trying to convince myself it was alright. I was so ill, everytime.

the only worry with beer making is that you can give yourself terrible trots if you don't get it right

Jetsam1

Snap said:

I like the idea of this. My experience with winemaking was near fatal I reckon. Christ, it was rank, but didn't stop me drinking it, almost trying to convince myself it was alright. I was so ill, everytime.

the only worry with beer making is that you can give yourself terrible trots if you don't get it right

Follow the instructions as if they are the Word of God.

And hope whoever wrote them got them right!!

pintspiller

VimFuego said:

pintspiller said:

My beer was hit and miss. Wine wine always a hit.

I've been brewing for about 15 years now and I've found beer much more susceptible to outside conditions, especially temperature. Beer brewed in winter I find to be much better, wine doesn't seem to be anywhere near as susceptible. 

@VimFuego I only ever thought of beer brewing during summer. I used open brew buckets as suggested in my CAMRA book. I had often thought of using my big fermenters for wine with the airlocks but never did.

This was 25+ years ago and the wife would never let me have a go. Lol.

I used blackcurrants, elderberries and blackberries mostly for the wines and they usually hit the spot. I was accused of shitting in an aunty's bath once.

VimFuego

it may just be my experience, but I found the cooler conditions of winter made for better beer. I do the fermentation in the kitchen where it's a relatively constant temp (one tip I got from the brewing forums is to brew inside an old fridge, the insulation helps keep a constant temp) then barrel it and move it to an outhouse. It makes drinkable beer over the hotter months, but for me winter conditioned beer tastes much better.

EDIT: yeah, fruit wines like you mentioned are always good. I probably make about twice as much wine as beer now, it's a lot less hassle.

shrinkwrap

It's a long time ago but I made my own and it went down well. Start with a kit so you familiarise yourself and get most of the gear. After a kit or two I moved on to buying the malted grain and 'mashing' it in a plastic container where you have to keep it at an exact temperature for several hous to release the sugars - worked well with a temp controlled immersion heater. It's the only way if you want to experiement with taste and add your own hops.. fuggles or goldings, what's it to be.

I stopped but maybe I'll take up wine as it must be less effort!

hywelg

My beer is fantastic. Currently in keg

Espresso Stout
Chocolate Orange Stout (being.kept for Christmas)
Waimea Single hop IPA
Citra Mosaic IPA 
Mosaic Ekuanot IPA 


Start with a basic recipe using dried malt extract. Buy a decent book like Graham Wheelers. 

You can get started easily with a plastic bucket modified with two kettle elements from Tesco Value kettles and a tap as an outlet. Attach some SS hose braiding to the back of the tap in the boiler to filter out the hops. 

Buy a cooling coil, cheap enough off ebay. Ideally get a SS one but copper will do. 

Once you have a few brews under your belt you'll transition to all grain using a cool box as a mash tun and you'll get a cheap tall fridge and an Inkbird and a small aquarium heater as a fermentation fridge (to control form temps).

Bottling is for people with too much time on their hands.  Get a keg. Plastic to start you off, then Cornelius with a proper CO2 bottle. 

hywelg

VimFuego said:

oh man, I'd love a dungeon, erm, I mean cellar for brewing. my brew shack gets the full force of the summer sun and gets so warm I don't bother making beer in the summer (it's fine for winter). I do a bit of both, kits are a lot less work, but I have all the grain brewing gear. 
And deffo keep it ideally a month before drinking.

Get a cheap fridge and an Inkbird. 

And no you don't need to keep it a month. As soon as it's drinkable, it's drinkable. Doesn't even need to be clear.

abw1989

https://shop.mikkeller.dk/products/mikkeller-beer-geek-breakfast-stout-beer-making-kit-1

I was given one of these for Christmas last year. Easy to follow instructions and set up, just make sure you have a big enough pan! I ended up having to split it over two pans which made it a bit awkward. I'm just finishing off the last of the bottles now and I have to say it's a rather tasty tipple. 

Snap

aw, this thread has me thinking now...…:)

RedRabbit

I'm just getting back into brewing after a few years of not bothering.

I used to do those 40 pint kits (Woodford Wherry is a decent one) but I've decided to do small batches of all grain brews now instead.  I've bought a 10l stock pot to use the "brew in a bag" method (just a big mesh bag to put the grains in so they are easy to pull out after the mash).  First batch is quite happily fermenting away under my desk in the spare room - should be ready for bottling in a few days.  Going to start another batch over the weekend.  I've always used a general purpose yeast in the past but I've bought some british ale and american pale ale yeasts to try to see if there's much of a difference.  

I'm also going to get some fruit juice wines and cider on the go just because it works out pretty cheap and helps keep the cupboard stocked.  Some of them are actually quite nice.

tony99

Snap said:

aw, this thread has me thinking now...…:)

Don't do it. It's another of those fretboard threads that (just like GAS) convinces you that you really want something you just don't need!

I'm still trying to stop myself from buying fountain pens and Bonsai trees!

hywelg

Who the hell doesn't need beer?