Brewing your own beer

[ladysavage]

Ha! Amazing.

I've been wanting to try this for some time and I also have a recipe for Mead floating about.

This might just give me the tips to get started.

my old flatmate made Speed Mead for Renewal a few years back ( the name is reference to the time to make, not cos it's full of illicit drugs), will get the details for you if you want

[Evapilotone]

Sounds good. Cheers!

[mysterio]

Eva, i've made a few meads and theres not much to it. The key, I think, is to use a good quality honey, a decent white wine yeast and to use plenty of yeast nutrient. Not only that, but stagger the yeast nutrient throughout the fermentation to help the yeast along with such a high alcohol ferment. PM me if you want a good recipe.

GoddamnElectric i'm going to start working on an article soon but heres a quick clip of the brewhouse in action today, i'm fly sparging the grains getting ready to boil the wort.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YaJIb6zm2k"]YouTube - Fly Sparging[/ame]

[GoddamnElectric]

Wow
Now that is taking it very, very seriously. Looking forward to the finished article!

I've been finding that my beer tastes a LOT better now than when it was new. The aftertaste has rounded off and it's sort of 'settled down', in a way. Much, much nicer
I'm going to produce a Mexican Cerveza next time, starting in a couple of weeks when I've got a bit more free time. Going to call the new batch 'El Bandito'

[Pink punk]

Has anyone got a spare fermenting barrel kicking around? Mate of mine lost his in a recent water tank related incident. Willing to collect and pay a contribution. Think it was at 30 litre, was a Coopers kit.

[mysterio]

I'm going to produce a Mexican Cerveza next time, starting in a couple of weeks when I've got a bit more free time. Going to call the new batch 'El Bandito'

OK - remember the basic water treatment and temp control!

[GoddamnElectric]

Definitely - I'm going to dial back the boiling water/cold water ratio this time, and if it's looking a bit on the warm side it'll just have to sit until it cools off before the yeast goes in. I was a bit hasty in adding it last time, probably too excited

[Connor O'Bain]

saw this and thought it may be of some use in your home brewing endevours
http://www.instructables.com/id/Beer...e-Drying-Rack/

[GoddamnElectric]

I'm currently bottling the latest batch of homebrew - a mid-strength lager. Haven't named it yet, thinking about a recession/prohibition pun this time. Taking advantage of the naturally lower temperature at the moment, so this one has stuck at a very consistent 22c throughout. Hit a snag though - I've miscalculated and don't have enough bottles!
I'm considering going to buy a few big size beers tonight, and re-using the bottles tomorrow (after cleaning and sanitising) for the last few litres of beer. I've already re-used all the bottles I can find in the flat (wasn't many, I did a big glass recycling run at the start of the week), and I've got nearly 10 litres of beer still in the fermenter. Eep!

I've got a good feeling about this brew. It's coming out nice and clear, exactly the right colour and it smells pretty good. None of the harsh small the first batch had. Since then I've actually done a batch of bitter which came out really well, and inspired me to re-visit lager and do it justice. I've tweaked the recipe a little to make something a bit lighter, more geared towards a draught lager than previous. I've also sprung for glass bottles and wee capping tool (which is pretty cool), as I'm starting to take this more seriously now. As hobbies go, this is turning out to be a goodie

Right, to find more bottles! Must remember to buy another palette of them before doing another brew.

[GoddamnElectric]

Oh, also I've found a massive list of improvements to the basic Coopers kits which I'm really looking forward to trying. Glenbrew carries all of this stuff, and I've been along a few times just to get familiar with the stock and what's on offer.

This current batch has one basic improvement - I've replaced the brewing sugar with an enhancing mix instead, which should instantly improve the end product (I think it's because basic sugar just adds alcohol but no real taste, whereas an enhancing mix adds both sugar to get the ABV but also some malt elements to create a better flavour, with the sacrifice of 0.5 to 1% ABV as opposed to pure sugar). Next time I'll take it to the next level and go for a spray malt for flavour (with pure sugar added to get the desired ABV), and I'm going to buy a second fermenter to use as a dedicated secondary fermentation container. I've read a lot about using a second fermentation vessel before bottling (thus totally avoiding the risk of exploding bottles), and it seems that after changing ingredients to use higher quality, secondary fermentation in a dedicated vessel is next big thing to improve kit brews.

I'm really enjoying learning about this hobby, and of course drinking the end results! There's a lot more to it than meets the eye at first, but I like how you only need to get as complicated as you want to. If you just want to stick with basic kit brews and make cheap beer, you can do that. Afterwards you can swap out elements independently to improve the brew if you want to, all the way up to grain brewing if you've got the time and resources for it. Personally I don't, so I'm focusing on small changes to the process and ingredients to boost results

Report on the latest batch due in 2 weeks time!

[Connor O'Bain]

Jumping on the homebrew wagon, got some cider conditioning at the mo and sara and i are onto batch number 2. Apple and blackberry cider and a batch of mead. mead isnt bubbling yet which is concerning me somewhat, i did rush into it a bit tho so i may have mucked it up.

[lirazel]

Apple and blackberry cider

nope, apple and blackcurrant. cider & black