Home Brew

[PedroB]

I forgot to add to this thread a while back, I'm a brewer, both commercially and at home. If anyone wants any help with anything give me a shout. I also live in East Kent so if any of you are this way and want to do homebrew day, let me know.

[illmonkey]

PedroB said:

I forgot to add to this thread a while back, I'm a brewer, both commercially and at home. If anyone wants any help with anything give me a shout. I also live in East Kent so if any of you are this way and want to do homebrew day, let me know.

Care to share what you do commercially, something we may have drunk?

I enjoy doing it so much, my man brain already says I could start a brewery up. Trying to have 2 brews on the go at the minute.

[Jonboy_t]

Burgmeister said:

Thread resurrection time.

So i've spent most of my afternoon reading about homebrew beer and have bought all the necessary equipment including a St Peters Golden Ale kit thing.

If I have understood the process correctly I need to ensure I include the following steps within the wider process;

1) In the fermenting bin/vat I need to add brewing sugar at the beginning of the process.
2) Once fermenation is complete (about two weeks?) I then siphon filter the liquid out of the fermenting bin into another vessel before siphoning once more into bottles?
3) Do I need to add a small (half teaspoon) of sugar to each bottle for conditioning or can this be excluded becuase I added sugar at the beginning of the process?

Any advice will be gratefully appreciated and pics will follow once all the equipment arrives.

Pretty much bang on! Just be careful after you've put the sugar in the bottles. As well as conditioning, it can also restart some fermentation which gives off gasses and, when contained in a bottle, there is only really one way that can go! To stop it making a rather big boom, leave the bottles somewhere relatively warm (20degrees ish) for 2-3 days, then chill in a fridge, this will i) eat off enough sugar to lose the sweetness and not reflavour your beer and ii) give off enough gas to be containable but enough to carbonate the beer.

Also, fermentation is not an exact timing thing! Some yeasts can be done in 3 days, some take 2 weeks. It all depends on so many things, but to be safe, I generally wait until the bubbles stop coming up out of the airlock, then leave it two days, syphon into secondary and then leave it a few more days with a lid on (must be airtight at this point). You should be able to see the lid rising within 12-24 hours if fermentation is still happening.

Good luck!

[PedroB]

illmonkey said:

PedroB said:

I forgot to add to this thread a while back, I'm a brewer, both commercially and at home. If anyone wants any help with anything give me a shout. I also live in East Kent so if any of you are this way and want to do homebrew day, let me know.

Care to share what you do commercially, something we may have drunk?

I enjoy doing it so much, my man brain already says I could start a brewery up. Trying to have 2 brews on the go at the minute.

I have worked for a few breweries over the last few years in a brewing role. Mainly small local breweries but more recently larger, more automated breweries. The places I have worked you may know/have drunk beer from are Lovibonds in Henley-on-Thames, Hogsback in Guilford, Camden Town Brewery in errr, Camden and currently at Meantime in Greenwich.

My advice on starting a brewery. Don't. Or, if you decide to, think VERY carefully about it. Volunteer somewhere for a bit. It is generally cold, lonely, hard, physical work. But, very rewarding!

[redstu]

just started a Woodforde's Wherry this evening. (£16 from Wilkinson).

I haven't tried this kit before but the reviews seem to be good.

It should be going in the barrel next Tuesday and probably being drunk a few days later depending on clarity.

The past few attempts were ok but nothing special. The last one was Coopers stout, didnt quite have the full flavour I was looking for.

The Boots special stout was my favourite (must have been over 10 years ago now), as you could drink it the day after barreling it.

Can anyone recommend a good stout ki?

[Turn7]

A few days after barrelling? Blimey, you're keen!

I normally let mine sit for at least 3 weeks before drinking.

[illmonkey]

PedroB said:

illmonkey said:

PedroB said:

I forgot to add to this thread a while back, I'm a brewer, both commercially and at home. If anyone wants any help with anything give me a shout. I also live in East Kent so if any of you are this way and want to do homebrew day, let me know.

Care to share what you do commercially, something we may have drunk?

I enjoy doing it so much, my man brain already says I could start a brewery up. Trying to have 2 brews on the go at the minute.

I have worked for a few breweries over the last few years in a brewing role. Mainly small local breweries but more recently larger, more automated breweries. The places I have worked you may know/have drunk beer from are Lovibonds in Henley-on-Thames, Hogsback in Guilford, Camden Town Brewery in errr, Camden and currently at Meantime in Greenwich.

My advice on starting a brewery. Don't. Or, if you decide to, think VERY carefully about it. Volunteer somewhere for a bit. It is generally cold, lonely, hard, physical work. But, very rewarding!

Rebellion, Henley is my 'local' brewery, their members nights are great, just don't get lumped being the driver!

I said my 'man brain', you know, quit the job, start it up before really figuring out if it'll work out.

Currently on the 3rd batch of this; http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f69/all-amarillo-ipa-2... It's a fantastic middle of the road IPA style beer. We've changed from light spraymalt to medium and changed the grain to see what happens. It's much much darker now, so hoping for a more winter-y ale.

For those that only use the kits, I highly recommend getting some gear and doing a proper boil, use the link above. Get a mate involved and its good fun, and you can have a bottle of the last brew after. It turns into the circle of beerlife. We have spend over £150 on kit, and just the ingredients make it work out about £1/bottle, but its great drinking something you've made.

[Burgmeister]

Thanks for the advice so far chaps.

Looking forward to the kit arriving later this week and then cracking on. I have been saving all my shop bought ale bottles for the last few weeks though I may need to up the ante for the next week or so to ensure I have sufficient bottles for the bottling process. Wouldn't want to be caught short.

I jsut need to find a large vat of some sort to lob em in for sterilising - maybe the bath.

[illmonkey]

Burgmeister said:

Thanks for the advice so far chaps.

Looking forward to the kit arriving later this week and then cracking on. I have been saving all my shop bought ale bottles for the last few weeks though I may need to up the ante for the next week or so to ensure I have sufficient bottles for the bottling process. Wouldn't want to be caught short.

I jsut need to find a large vat of some sort to lob em in for sterilising - maybe the bath.

Bath is what we used initially, infact we used the bathroom as a brew room (parents flat between tenants).

Now we just do 15 at a time in the sink. I give them 5 minutes in the water (bottles full), then take them out still full, and leave them on a towl for an other 10 minutes, while the next batch go in the sink. Drain them back out into the sink to reuse the sterilised water and wash them out, twice, after.

I went into this thinking cleanliness is the most important thing. It still is, we've had a few bottles explode upon opening, when we look there is the smallest bit of dirt/yeast at the bottom. But, you can be too careful.

[Burgmeister]

^^ Great, that process of sterilising sounds simple and effective. I plan to spend a while getting this part right as I dont want to spoil my first attempt by being lazy! The bottles im using are currnetly sat upright in the shed collecting dust in addition to the small amount of dried beer on the bottom so I suspect they'll need a good scrub.

Is it worth faffing around trying to de-label my bottle stock or will i just end up with a sticky mess where the labels once were?

[illmonkey]

Burgmeister said:

^^ Great, that process of sterilising sounds simple and effective. I plan to spend a while getting this part right as I dont want to spoil my first attempt by being lazy! The bottles im using are currnetly sat upright in the shed collecting dust in addition to the small amount of dried beer on the bottom so I suspect they'll need a good scrub.

Is it worth faffing around trying to de-label my bottle stock or will i just end up with a sticky mess where the labels once were?

You can soak the lables off, hot water should do it, and a scrub from a, er, scrubber. We take them off in the sterilisation water (only 3 or 4 per batch), but if its 40 bottles, I'd do a soak in the bath and flush the water before sterilising. You can also buy "label remover", but elbow grease seems to work. Have you got a bottle brush? We use it every time, as the crap can stick to the bottom of the bottle.

[Burgmeister]

illmonkey said:

You can soak the lables off, hot water should do it, and a scrub from a, er, scrubber. We take them off in the sterilisation water (only 3 or 4 per batch), but if its 40 bottles, I'd do a soak in the bath and flush the water before sterilising. You can also buy "label remover", but elbow grease seems to work. Have you got a bottle brush? We use it every time, as the crap can stick to the bottom of the bottle.

Perfect, in that case I'll leave all the bottles to soak overnight in a hot bath and srub the remants off the following morning.

Bottle brush is on order with the rest of the gubbins as I need some mechanism to scrape the remains of the original contents of the bottle off the bottom. In hindsight I should have rinsed them immediately after drinking to save hassle later on. I'll rinse the remaining 15 or so I need to consume before the brewing process can begin!

I'm planning on doing the brewing under the stairs as I reckon being in the middle of the house the temperature will be the most constant and with the door closed its nice and dark (and the floor is solid so if it spills/ explodes then I won't get into too much trouble).

[illmonkey]

Burgmeister said:

Perfect, in that case I'll leave all the bottles to soak overnight in a hot bath and srub the remants off the following morning.

Bottle brush is on order with the rest of the gubbins as I need some mechanism to scrape the remains of the original contents of the bottle off the bottom. In hindsight I should have rinsed them immediately after drinking to save hassle later on. I'll rinse the remaining 15 or so I need to consume before the brewing process can begin!

I'm planning on doing the brewing under the stairs as I reckon being in the middle of the house the temperature will be the most constant and with the door closed its nice and dark (and the floor is solid so if it spills/ explodes then I won't get into too much trouble).

20 minutes will get the labels soaked enough to peel them off.

Again, I starting being over cautious, and have slowly backed off. We have our FV in the parents kitchen, near windows, so I imagine the temp and light vary. Might not be ideal, but we're not selling the stuff.

[otolith]

Some labels come off really easily, and others are an absolute pain in the arse.

[DocArbathnot]

redstu said:

just started a Woodforde's Wherry this evening. (£16 from Wilkinson).

I haven't tried this kit before but the reviews seem to be good.

It should be going in the barrel next Tuesday and probably being drunk a few days later depending on clarity.

The past few attempts were ok but nothing special. The last one was Coopers stout, didnt quite have the full flavour I was looking for.

The Boots special stout was my favourite (must have been over 10 years ago now), as you could drink it the day after barreling it.

Can anyone recommend a good stout ki?

I would try and leave it a bit longer. I reckon 6-8 weeks from start to finish so have 3 kegs on the go at a time. The extra week or two really do make a difference.

[Burgmeister]

What sort of shelf life should one be expecting from their newly bottled brews?

My intention (which will vary with enthusiasm) is to brew most of the time so that while im drinking a batch there is new stock coming online to replace it. But if by some miracle I produce something quite decent then I might want to keep some back for 'special occasions'.

[otolith]

In general, stronger beers keep better and need longer in the bottle before they are ready to drink.

[SpeckledJim]

otolith said:

Some labels come off really easily, and others are an absolute pain in the arse.

Yeah, the foil/plastic-type ones are usually a dream. Paper ones more luck-of-the-draw.

[otolith]

BrewDog labels come off very nicely.

[Turn7]

Ive got about 70 odd plastic PT bottles that I first used when I started to brew going spare if anyones local enough to me.

Free,but a donation to H4H appreciated.

Theyll need a good clean and sterilise as dust laden currently,