Homebrew

Sarge

So she bought me an "amazing prezzie"  today a homebrew kit sans wort. 
My only experience of home brewing was as a student and we delved in far too early.... messy. 

So do we have any brewers here?  and can you recommend a good brand of wort to start off with? 
my favoured beers are light golden ales like Camerons Ahopolypse Now,  Hale ale,  Hop Monster etc. 

Also any do's and don'ts for a first timer? 

WezV

I have done a bit over the last few years and personally I struggle with  liquid extract kits... They all end up a bit cardboardy. I am also not great at light beers.

I make some nice stouts and porters though. I prefer dry malt extract and a partial mash. To brewing from a tin.

although I just did a German triple from a tin and added a pound of dark extract.... That ended up pretty damn nice.

so yeah, last few years I have done cheap kit to full grain with minimal equipment, and kinda settled in the middle.

I would encourage you to experiment. You can start with a kit and add extra things to come up with something a bit more special

WezV

Do:
sanitise everything
bottle the beer if you want to enjoy at it's best for longer
be patient with the conditioning stage

Don't:
give in because you get a bad batch

lustycourtier

Start with a simple lager or bitter. Sterilise twice, follow rules and first will be brew will be great. Then have fun with extra hops etc on next brew and work from there. Temprature and conditioning is important though. I have an IPA currently on go. It's a great hobby 

Sarge

Thanks for the insight @WezV. ;
to be honest I'm not really interested in home brewing but will do a couple to appease the good lady,  I  know I'll never make a beer better than I can buy at my local,  so I just want to make the best I can within my limits. 

monquixote

I love homebrew 

I just had to "brew link openssl --force" to get my rust compiler to find the header files for openSSL!

Sarge

monquixote said:

I love homebrew 

I just had to "brew link openssl --force" to get my rust compiler to find the header files for openSSL!

there's always one eh! 

ThePrettyDamned

I like it, but I've only used liquid from a tin. 

Sterilise. Then again. Then again. It's absolutely the hardest bit to do right. After that, it's pretty easy. 

I liked the woodforde wherry kit for a decent ale, and apparently it's an easy, forgiving one. I also did a nice cerveza - not like the corona piss, but actually a rather nice, gently sparkling beer. 

I tried a cider. It got me very drunk very fast but had a smell of sulphur about it. Presumably I didn't sterilise fully. 

Sarge

Thanks @ThePrettyDamned ;
which Cerveza was it?  that sounds like something I'd be happy guzzling. 
As for Corona being piss,  well it's the perfect drink in this weather and 24 bottles for £10 currently at my local offy.... that makes it the best drink available.... until it goes back up in price  

DiscoStu

Echo the above. Sterilise anything and everything that comes in contact with your brew. I use Star San food grade steriliser which doesn't need rinsed.

I do extract brewing but I have to say that the Woodforde's Wherry liquid tin kit I started with was very good indeed.

oaf

Keep things clean as others have said. The most crucial thing in my opinion is temperature control and good/healthy yeast. If in doubt ferment cooler not warmer! Bitters are more forgiving than lagers. Porters and stouts more forgiving than bitters. These temperatures aren't helpful unless you're making a Saison! I modified a fridge which now cools and heats and wouldn't brew without temperature control at the moment.

In my experience all grain brewing beats extract, which beats two can kits, which beats single can kits. A generalization, but you get the gist.

You can definitely brew something of (good) pub/commercial quality, but it may not be from a kit. Kits can still be very good though!

The nice thing about brewing is that it is lots of steps, all of which can be improved with a bit of care/work. When you add up those small tweaks you get a noticeable difference in the finished product.

Bottle and cap your beer, then leave it (upright) somewhere coolish and darkish. Don't overprime (add too much sugar to the bottle) and do leave it a good while, at least a month.

I love brewing, cheese making and curing meat: you can achieve fantastic results and get to enjoy something that you can't necessarily buy. You also (perhaps!) understand and value the food and its character more somehow.

eSully

I won't echo what's been said above, you got some great advice. I will add try to keep the temperature pretty constant while it's fermenting, Depending on the yeast this will be between 18 - 24/28 degrees. Rapid temperature change can cause the beer to have off flavours.

Apart from that, I only brew tin kits and I will say while you won't quiet get the quality of a decent pub/store bought beer you'll be quiet surprised at how good some of them can come out. I can recommend Woodfords Wherry as above and also John Bull IPA is a lovely kit.

roundthebend

Woodforde's Wherry is my regular brew. It's cheap to buy in Wilkos, easy to do, and results are usually very nice.

merlin

I have a Homebrew Electronics Germanium 44 if that's any help. 

Sarge

Excellent help fellas,  thanks! 

Troy

I had far more success when I made wine compared to beer.

Roland

Off and on, over the last 40 years, I've been making both beer and wine. I've had success with both. The good thing about beer is that is only takes a few weeks. Whereas wine needs a year. There's very little actual work involved. It's mainly about being patient. So if you have the space to make and store a new batch each month then you can have a continual supply.

It's not just about cheaper drinking. Making you own stuff is very satisfying.

Flavoured gin and vodka are also easy. This month we are picking soft fruit: raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb, black and red currants. Anything which isn't good enough to freeze or make jam with goes into the jar with gin and sugar, and comes out at Christmas.

nutbox

This is where you want to be buddy http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/index.php ,when I was brewing this is where I got all my help from.
if you really finding yourself addicted it can go out of control and the next thing you know you got a micro brewery on your hands lol

WezV

Also water, forgot about the water.
well worth buying cheap bottled water to use over the stuff that comes out the tap. it adds a few pennies to the cost but you will get a much cleaner brew

oaf

Alternatively throw in half a crushed Campden tablet per 5 gallons of water before/as you warm it up. A tablet is lighter than lugging several gallons of water!

I'd still say good temperature control and yeast are the big ones (unless you have very strange water!) but buying water/tablets might be an easier fix.

As I've said though it is lots of little steps/components so there's a ton of tweaks/improvements to be had (mash temp, water chemistry, loads of things around yeast and fermentation, racking, hops, etc)

Record what you do - grain bill, temperatures, boil times, hop additions then make tasting notes. It makes everything more repeatable and you'll forget otherwise!

Sarge

Brilliant, thanks!