Making beer

[auditt]

motco said:

Here's one I brewed earlier...

That looks like a perfect clear beer

[princeperch]

sod it - I'm going to give this a bash.

http://www.wilkinsonplus.com/Home-Brewing/Geordie-...

yes it will no doubt taste bad, but for 20p a pint, who cares!

It says just add water and sugar - I don't need anything else other than a place to put it do I, one of these barrels to put it in?

[anonymous-user]

zcacogp said:

MonkeyMatt said:

added rose petals, elderflowers, and honey!

Sounds delicious, but how do you make sure that the petals and elderflowers don't contain bacteria that will grow in the beer and make it taste bad?


Oli.

I cant believe how good this has turned out! It tastes somewhere between Badger Golden Champion and St Austell Proper Job! Very nice indeed!

I hope my Elderflower and Wild Strawberry Champagne turns out as good!

[kiteless]

Scraggles said:

used to get several pounds of barley, mixed varietys and heat in water to 55C or so for a few hours to extract the sugars, or you can save a few hours and get a kit

heat that with the hops, or it might have hops already, so might just be a case of dissolving the syrup in hot water and pouring into fermenting bin for a week and adding yeast

remove the froth scum daily, decant into a barrel, ferment for a month, drain into a tub, clean keg, pour back, pressurize with co2 and drink within a month

easier than making wine, not got cherries locally

You may be surprised how many cherry trees there are about! We get all ours from an enterprise park five minutes drive away (the roads through the enterprise park are lined with cherry trees).

I still think, reading your post, that making beer is more complex. The rosehip we've just done was just simmering the dried rosehips for an hour, pouring the liquor into a bucket containing sugar and lemon rind, adding yeast, fermenting in the bucket, racking off into demijohns to ferment to a finish, finings, then bottle. Of course, it improves with age so you have to restrain yourself from imbibing too soon (although the gorse flower batch this year was delicious one week after bottling).

I do love the idea of a home-brewed IPA, though

[Bob the Planner]

Just started again after about 15 years as I can't get any decent beer at the bottle shops in Aus. A couple of kits and have reverted to malt extract, grain and hops which has made a much better brew. Have kept the alcohol content down to 4-5% so that it can be drunk with a BBQ (once the weather improves) or with a meal.

David Line's book from the 1980's gives a number of good recipies for both british ales and foriegn lagers. Definitely worth a laying your hands on it if you can find a copy

[princeperch]

I've used the cheapo Geordie brewing kits of late. The lager one turned out very well indeed. Very surprised at how good it tasted. Giving the bitter kit a whirl this weekend. At 9 quid a pop (plus a bag of sugar from the pound shop), you can't go wrong...