Home Brew

[marksx]

Hoonigan said:

And do it over the dishwasher(door down) for an easy clean up...

Nah, that would mean buying a dishwasher and buckling to pressure from SWMBO.

[C0ffin D0dger]

C0ffin D0dger said:

Managed to finish up my brew fridge last night. Need to get some beer on now ASAP, stocks are about to run dry

Youngs American Pale Ale kit made last night and it's the first one to christen the brew fridge. Sat at a steady 20 degrees when I checked it this morning so it all seems to be working well.

Got a Festival Father Hooks Best Bitter to make once that's finished followed by a Coopers stout that I'm going to bottle. Going to make a foray into wine making at some point also.

Need another brew fridge now

[PositronicRay]

Couple of kegs of Festival waiting to clear. Taking ages.

[RizzoTheRat]

craigthecoupe said:

so something like this would do the job then?
http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/acatalog/HomeB...

Mine doesn't even have the tap in the bottom, meaning less chance of a leak. I have a siphon pipe that clips on the top to get the beer out. Take a look in Wilkinsons, they do the buckets and everything cheaply and will have all you need if you plan to use kits rather than whole grain.

I think all the stuff I have is:

• Bucket
• Sterilising stuff
• Stirrer
• Cardboard box lined with bin liner as a bund just in case it escapes the bucket, hasn't yet though
• Siphon tube
• Capping tool and caps

I reuse old bottles, and there's quite a few bottles that the capping tool won't clamp on to properly, so I have one of the ones' you put on top and hit with a hammer as well. I'm gradually building up a collection of swing top bottles when I see them cheap too, need to find some mates that drink Grolsh

[craigthecoupe]

just had a quick look at wilko, and they do indeed sell quite a bit of homebrew kit, thanks for the heads up rizzo

[craigthecoupe]

afternoon chaps. well, i've sorted most of what i need to ferment, just need to sort out the bottle/keg situation now. i bought the youngs ipa kit after watching this youtube review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKDs6t9xJhY

just poured it all together, wrapped it in a bit of bubble wrap as our house runs a bit cool, and now the wait begins.

hopefully in a couple of weeks it'll be running out of puff and i can think about priming and bottling/putting in a keg.

i thought id go the bottle route, but realistically i won't have time to drink enough beers to have bottles. does anyone know of a good cheap supply for bottles? i don't want to spend a fortune, as this is supposed to be a bit of fun, and a bit of a budget option.

craig

[RizzoTheRat]

Lots of people selling bottles on e-bay, but I started homebrewing around Christmas so just asked a couple of mates to save all their empty beer bottles.

[don4l]

craigthecoupe said:

afternoon chaps. well, i've sorted most of what i need to ferment, just need to sort out the bottle/keg situation now. i bought the youngs ipa kit after watching this youtube review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKDs6t9xJhY

just poured it all together, wrapped it in a bit of bubble wrap as our house runs a bit cool, and now the wait begins.

hopefully in a couple of weeks it'll be running out of puff and i can think about priming and bottling/putting in a keg.

i thought id go the bottle route, but realistically i won't have time to drink enough beers to have bottles. does anyone know of a good cheap supply for bottles? i don't want to spend a fortune, as this is supposed to be a bit of fun, and a bit of a budget option.

craig

On my first brew I bottled most and put some in the keg. The stuff in the keg had to be poured down the drain. I think that I didn't put enough vaseline on the seal, and the Gas escaped.

I buy my bottles in Aldi. Apparently, dark bottles are better for the beer, but I put a couple of clear bottles in with each batch so that I can see what is happening.

[marksx]

I can't get enough bottles from friends and family but I refuse to pay for an emtpy bottle! I've about 60 with beer conditioning 20 or so to fill and the rest of my next batch is going in a keg. Then I'm stuck!

Dying to brew up another batch too.

[C0ffin D0dger]

I recently bough a couple of boxes of Coopers PET bottles as Tesco Direct had them on offer (£7). They look to be quite a good alternative to glass and less of a faff at bottling time as you don't crown cap them. Wilko's are currently doing them at £8 though: http://www.wilko.com/homebrew-accessories+equipmen...

Have a Coopers Stout kit lined up to go in these.

Meanwhile the Young's APA has been going nicely in the brew fridge, took a sample last night and it's down to 1.008 so I'll add the dry hops tomorrow then whack it in the pressure barrel on Monday. The sample was nice enough but I think the dry hopping will add quite a bit to the taste.

On the hunt for another fridge...

[RizzoTheRat]

don4l said:

Apparently, dark bottles are better for the beer, but I put a couple of clear bottles in with each batch so that I can see what is happening.

Only if you keep them in the light, I put the bottles in cardboard boxes, and again being paranoid about leakage line the box with a binliner first.

The problem is the wife keeps complaining about the amount of empties I have around the place, and as I prefer maltier ales while she's in to hoppy IPAs and smokey porters she doesn't drink much of my homebrew either.

[craigthecoupe]

after mixing up my youngs kit i took a gravity reading.
it came out at 1.070
is this right? i have no idea what im talking about, but seems high!
i bought a cheap muntons hydrometer in wilko, is it likely that its not reading right, or is that reading normal.
i followed the instructions to the letter.

[Chester draws]

Possibly a tad high maybe??

http://www.rooftopbrew.net/abv_calculator.php

Calculator above says starting at 1070 and finishing at 1007 as Young's say (often Final Gravity (FG) in instructions is a touch optimistic) give abv of 8% ish.

As long as you've only used the kit contents and are up to 23 litres not much else you can do.

It's tricky to get a good hydrometer reading with all the bubbles and froth,bubbles can also cling, lifting it slightly.

Give it a good stir, check the temp, sprinkle the yeast and let it do its stuff.

[C0ffin D0dger]

Check the calibration of your hydrometer by testing it in plain old tap water. It should read 1.000

If it reads higher or lower than this then it's out by that much so compensate accordingly. They are also calibrated at a specific temperature, normally 20 degrees C, so if the temperature of what you are measuring is different to the calibrated temperature this will also effect the reading.

If it was anything like my Youngs APA kit then it came with the hopped malt extract in either one big or two smaller pouches + a two bags of brewing sugar one small one large. The large bag of brewing sugar goes in at the beginning, the second smaller one is kept back for priming at the bottling / kegging stage. Don't suppose you accidentally added the priming sugar too? Other than that provided you made it up to the full 23 litres then the OG shouldn't be far off what it's supposed to be so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Edited by C0ffin D0dger on Thursday 28th April 16:12

Edited by C0ffin D0dger on Thursday 28th April 16:13

[craigthecoupe]

yeah, the malt extract came in two packs, i added both, and the larger bag of brewing sugar. as you say, the small one is kept back with the pack of hops for the later stages. i filled up to bang on 23 litres, so i cant see how i can have done anything else wrong. ill just wait and see how it comes out.
i was hoping for a decent quaffable summer ipa, but at this rate i could end up with a right head banger

[craigthecoupe]

the hydrometer was 4-6 points out id say, with that in mind, i started at about 1.065
either way, its started bubbling away nicely
thanks all for your help.

[don4l]

craigthecoupe said:

after mixing up my youngs kit i took a gravity reading.
it came out at 1.070
is this right? i have no idea what im talking about, but seems high!
i bought a cheap muntons hydrometer in wilko, is it likely that its not reading right, or is that reading normal.
i followed the instructions to the letter.

If that reading is accurate, then you are likely to end up with 7.6% ABV.

I find that most of the kits produce a lower ABV than advertised, so I guess that your hydrometer is just wrong.

As long as the scaling is correct, it won't matter.

[don4l]

Well... I've made a very interesting discovery.

My first batch of Woodford Wherry was not really drinkable until it had been in the bottles for four weeks. It was very good from 6 weeks, by which time it had developed a lovely creamy texture.


My second batch of Wherry was bottled on the 7th of this month. It was made with This suggestion...

This evening, I decided to give it a try to see how it is coming along.

Wow! Just Wow.

It is absolutely delicious.

It has a slight nutty/ chocolaty taste. It is very full bodied. Even the OH said that it smells nice.

I cannot recommend this highly enough.

If anyone is thinking of trying this, you only need a quarter of a small bag of hops. Split the remainder into three bags and freeze them.

[RizzoTheRat]

My local brewery (Hogs Back) did a dry hopped version of one of their beers last year, using home grown hops, it was bloody lovely. I may have to give this a try.

[don4l]

RizzoTheRat said:

My local brewery (Hogs Back) did a dry hopped version of one of their beers last year, using home grown hops, it was bloody lovely. I may have to give this a try.

That is also my local brewery. I'm hoping to do one of their tours soon.

I think that the addition of the spraymalt had a much bigger effect than the dry hopping.

I used half a bag of this:-
http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/acatalog/Munto...