Homebrewing. Any experts?

[LusciousLucy]

PM ukdaasfan (or Ben in the real world) for tips if you need anymore. He brews all types these days and visits breweries for spare yeast, my FB feed is full of his beery antics.

[t8yman]

well Ive bottled the lager today, tasted nice (although obviously flat) and a little cloudy. im led to believe that the beer will clear during the conditioning in the bottle over the next 2 weeks or so. I got 37 x 500ml bottles out of it, all sat in my nice dark warm wardrobe for a couple of weeks before I chill it and sample the first proper brew. allowing for a 0.5% gain in the bottle, it will be 4.25% abv. I'm looking forard to it.

And also started my second. Ive gone for the woodfordes "Nelsons Revenge". its nice and dark, and a little heavier at OG than the previous brew.

Damn its a lot less "nervy" the second time round.......

[t8yman]

the lager became crystal clear in the wardrobe, but I now need to cold condition it in the fridge for a week, should be cracking one next tuesday.

nelsons revenge got bottled yesterday, and I put the ipa on to ferment. the NR is 4.75%abv.

also started a cheapo wine kit from tesco the other day, 6 bottles for £10, they also do a 30 bottle one for £20, but I wanted to start small. it bubbled like fuck for the first 48 hours, apparently I shouldnt have filled the demijohn right up until the violent frothing subsided, but it appears to be Ok now, blipping away nicely.

[t8yman]

well, lack of patience got the better of me, and I took the plunge on Saturday, I drank about 4 pints of this, my first brew. I Am going to leave the remaining bottles for a few weeks to improve, but it tasted nice, wasnt crystal clear (although that should come with conditioning in the bottle)

I tried a bottle of the Nelsons Revenge yesterday too, which tasted great, but isnt even remotely clear yet, and the IPA looks like it could be my shining glory, I'm bottling that tomorrow, but it just felt right from start to finish, failing a bottling disaster - I think its going to turn out fantastic.

The lager could be a little gassier, but as far as taste and head retention go, I'm quite impressed with myself.

[dondo]

My friend is just venturing into the home brew world as such and I was looking on getting him a good book to help him with it as it's his birthday soon- any recommendations?

[t8yman]

none im afraid, everything you need is on youtube etc...

[t8yman]

dunno if anyone is actually interested in me prattling on about my beer, but the nelsons revenge is sublime. after bottling it on 26/10, i had another bottle of it today just to check its progress! and it tastes fantastic. if i was served it on a pub, i would drink it all night. im gonna leave it another week or 2 before hammering it.

put on a strawberry cider today, heard mixed reports on the kit, but if it tastes good, I'll be a happy bunny, and so will Mrs t8y.

[thegremlin_1999]

dunno if anyone is actually interested in me prattling on about my beer, but the nelsons revenge is sublime. after bottling it on 26/10, i had another bottle of it today just to check its progress! and it tastes fantastic. if i was served it on a pub, i would drink it all night. im gonna leave it another week or 2 before hammering it.

put on a strawberry cider today, heard mixed reports on the kit, but if it tastes good, I'll be a happy bunny, and so will Mrs t8y.

Edited November 8, 2011 by thegremlin_1999

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I must admit I am more than a little bit intrigued by it all. Decided I am going to give it a bash in time for the kids return at Christmas. Like the look of the Nelsons.

[t8yman]

I must admit I am more than a little bit intrigued by it all. Decided I am going to give it a bash in time for the kids return at Christmas. Like the look of the Nelsons.

[t8yman]

Where do you store the Real Ale Brew which its brewing ? What sort of temp do you have to maintain ?

Fancy giving it ago but just wondering where I could store it...

[t8yman]

I will have to get the Thermometer around the house... Not sure any part of my house stays above 21...

[rabid]

you can buy heat mats, that you plug in and stand your FV on, they self regulate the temperature afaik.

bear in mind that to drastically change the temperature of 5 gallons of liquid takes a long long time.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

Found a home brew store a cup ride away. Bloody hell I was amazed. The guy was really helpful but more than anything it is the amount of kits available. Got my eye on a Christmas Ale at 7%, a lager and the nelsons. Just need to clear space in my study and shed at the weekend then I should be able to get cracking :-).

[t8yman]

any news rufus?

Ie had some great experiences so far, the best of which is getting beer at 20-50p a pint, where the taxman sees virtually fuck all of it!

had my first failed brew, which was a ginger beer - i think I may have not rinsed the equipment properly after sterilising - Ive eliminated all of the other causes.

my coopers IPA was loved by everyone that tried it. so much so that when we had friends round, they brought their own beer and later in the night were seen to be helping themselves to my IPA (even though they had their "own" beer left to drink)

the nelsons is lovely, but makes my farts stink fucking awful.

i pissed about with a lager kit by adding light spray malt instead of sugar - hoping for a lager with a creamy head- but ended up with an IPA/lager hybrid - its drinkable, but not a beer I would choose to drink over anything else. again - people at my house drank it out of their own choice on saturday.

the reason for my post today is to tell you I have put on a woodfords wherry about half an hour ago, - its one of the most popular/common kits in the country - a bitter/real ale. My next is gonna be another of the lager kits i made as my first brew, then another IPA or 2 - as its so popular.

what have I learnt over the last few months learning to brew?

patience young padawan.

leave a brew 2 more weeks than the kit states and it will be even better, longer and the quality improves again.

do 2 or 3 kits back to back, then you can afford patience - you will have 120 pints or so to tide you over!

[t8yman]

Impressive setup, you have thrown yourself at this with gusto!

your timetable is pretty much in line with what I do, although the 2 hydrometer readings thing is far more important than you appear to give credit, if the readings arent the same 2 days on the trot your brew hasnt finished primary fermentation. you could end up with explosions!

I'm guessing you are racking (transferring from FV to bottling (pressure barrel) aid?). pretty unneccesary tbh, if you get a coopers vessel, you can bottle straight from it, no racking required, therefore fewer opportunities for an infection in the brew.

and its drinkable after 1 week at the chill temp, but as I said - it improves.

Edited January 10, 2012 by t8yman

[t8yman]

plus - do yourself a favour and brew the coopers brewmaster IPA on this page, its immense

http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/acatalog/I.P.A_and_Mild_Beer_Kits.html

[t8yman]

I was talking with the wife saying next I want to do a IPA so cheers... Might well do that one next!

Edited January 10, 2012 by t8yman

[t8yman]

Also, carbonation doesn't change after a week in the bottle. Once secondary is done, and you then chill it, the carbonation doesn't change from then on.

But yeah I agree, once the novelty wears off, and you get the benefit of patience, rushing to drink it does you no favours!

Edited January 10, 2012 by t8yman

[t8yman]

I would respectfully suggest that you may be doing something wrong. My beer is as gassy at the end of week one as it is at the end of week 12. Its basic chemistry. Primary fermentation takes place in the FV, at room temp. You then bottle it, adding more sugar in order to induce secondary fermentation in the bottle (or pressure barrel), again at room temperature - this is when the carbonation occurs (caused by the remaining yeast consuming the remaining sugars, and the yeast farts out the co2), you then chill it, at which point the secondary fermentation stops (because what little yeast is left will go dormant below about 17 degrees, and stop farting out co2). Your brew then enters the "conditioning" stage, which is development of flavours, and clearing, which is basically the yeast and the proteins clumping together in the cold and dropping to the bottom of the bottle, during this stage - there should be no difference in the carbonation of the brew, as there is no production of co2 once the yeast drops below about 17 degrees.

that final stage is the reason that homebrew is often a little cloudier than commercially produced beer, as commercials often cold filter it to remove the proteins that clump together. Bigtime homebrewers sometimes "cold crash" which is a rapid cool, followed by a filtering process to catch the protein clumps.

[eFestivals]

There isn't much you can do wrong...

.... that's why, when my dad ran a homebrew shop, 9 out of 10 who came in needed advice cos things had gone wrong rather than to buy anything.

It's one of those things where the first few times it goes perfectly, then things tend to go wrong for some reason.... which is when most people tend to give it up.

Edited January 11, 2012 by eFestivals

[t8yman]

How can you say I am doing something wrong if I have a perfectly carbonated and drinkable beer

I am controlling my temps perfectly. Are you ? Maybe your actually doing something wrong

Edited January 11, 2012 by t8yman

[eFestivals]

Feel free to take quotes out of context...

It's not out of any context.

Things go wrong.

[eFestivals]

Anything of substance to offer ? No.... So please go shit stir elsewhere...

Yes.

I'm correcting your wrong idea that "There isn't much you can do wrong...".

Just because things might have gone well with your initial brews doesn't mean that things will continue to go well. The facts of amateur brewing gets to show that it's more likely that things will go wrong sometimes than things will always go right.

I'm giving you the advice of someone with 50+ years of brewing experience, and who has commercial beers being brewed to his recipes and processes.

If you think that your five minutes of experience over-rides the substance of that then please don't offer me one of your beers if we ever meet.

[windy_miller]

I'm looking forward to starting some homebrew once I've moved house and have some more room. I did some a few years ago and put it in old Newcastle Brown bottles. A few people didn't realize they weren't drinking Newky Brown

Has anyone tried brewing from scratch, i.e. using hops rather than the starter kits?