Any homebrewers here?

[Jonboy_t]

I've been doing homebrew kits for quite a while and generally get a good pint out of a brew, but I'm trying to get it a bit closer to a 'real beer' and am looking for inspiration!

I generally tend to use Woodford kits as they're the closest I've found to real beer so far, but I always end up with 1/4 inch of sediment in the bottom of every bottle and have tried loads of different filters etc to get rid of it prior to bottling, but nothing I've found works!

Also, I've always wanted to make a brew completely from scratch (i.e. get the raw ingredients and brew instead of buying a kit) but every one of the recipes and guides online are written by people who know what they're doing, unlike me, so I don't understand a word they're saying!

Does anyone here make beer from kit? Have you found anything that works to improve your brew? Any good recipes (i'm simple, so simple recipes are good!!)

[JAHetfield]

My uncle (God rest his soul) used to make the best poteen in the land. Sadly he took his recipe to the grave but I do remember my aunt always shouting at him for stealing her tights to use as part of the filtering process.

[Vieste]

[otolith]

If you are bottle conditioning the beer with a little sugar added before bottling, you will always get a bit of sediment in the bottle - the sugar is there to feed the live yeast so that it produces CO2 to carbonate the beer, and having done so it dies and sinks.

[Jonboy_t]

otolith said:

If you are bottle conditioning the beer with a little sugar added before bottling, you will always get a bit of sediment in the bottle - the sugar is there to feed the live yeast so that it produces CO2 to carbonate the beer, and having done so it dies and sinks.

I'm sure that's probably all it is actually, I didn't really think about it like that and always just assumed it was ste slipping through the filtering I do!

I've used tights, fishtank filters, muzlin, sponges, even a proper wine filter, but it's always there! Makes sense that it's secondary sediment though, I suppose.

[madbadger]

You can reduce the sediment by adding a racking into the process.

You normally brew in a bucket, rack to a carboy then bottle?

Try brewing, rack, wait a couple of days, rack again wait a couple of days then bottle.

Helps stop the sediment fizzing up when you open a bottle and spoiling the clarity of the beer.

[Jonboy_t]

madbadger said:

You can reduce the sediment by adding a racking into the process.

You normally brew in a bucket, rack to a carboy then bottle?

Try brewing, rack, wait a couple of days, rack again wait a couple of days then bottle.

Helps stop the sediment fizzing up when you open a bottle and spoiling the clarity of the beer.

This will sound like a real newbie question, but I've just taught myself how to do it so far, so don't know what a lot of the terms mean - what's racking?

All I do is ferment in a bucket, then syphon/filter into either a pressure barrel or, more recently, bottles. Am I right in thinking racking is the syphoning process, but just repeated as per your post?

[Opara]

You could go the "brew in a bag" route, you could start with as little as a 20 litre stock pot and muslin bag.Another bonus is a brew will be half the price of a kit.

[stackmonkey]

Jonboy_t said:

madbadger said:

You can reduce the sediment by adding a racking into the process.

You normally brew in a bucket, rack to a carboy then bottle?

Try brewing, rack, wait a couple of days, rack again wait a couple of days then bottle.

Helps stop the sediment fizzing up when you open a bottle and spoiling the clarity of the beer.

This will sound like a real newbie question, but I've just taught myself how to do it so far, so don't know what a lot of the terms mean - what's racking?

All I do is ferment in a bucket, then syphon/filter into either a pressure barrel or, more recently, bottles. Am I right in thinking racking is the syphoning process, but just repeated as per your post?

THe siphoning / filtering is a means of racking, yes.

[madbadger]

stackmonkey said:

Jonboy_t said:

madbadger said:

You can reduce the sediment by adding a racking into the process.

You normally brew in a bucket, rack to a carboy then bottle?

Try brewing, rack, wait a couple of days, rack again wait a couple of days then bottle.

Helps stop the sediment fizzing up when you open a bottle and spoiling the clarity of the beer.

This will sound like a real newbie question, but I've just taught myself how to do it so far, so don't know what a lot of the terms mean - what's racking?

All I do is ferment in a bucket, then syphon/filter into either a pressure barrel or, more recently, bottles. Am I right in thinking racking is the syphoning process, but just repeated as per your post?

THe siphoning / filtering is a means of racking, yes.

[Bob the Planner]

syphon the beer from the lees (yeast) and add a fining agent (gelatine or isinglass). If you are brewing from grain then use irish moss during the boil with the hops and it helps drop the proteins from the beer.

As mentioned in this thread, David Beers books take you through the process of brewing beers from kits or grains. Well worth the investment IMO.

Edited by Bob the Planner on Wednesday 18th April 10:59

[Jonboy_t]

Cheers for the advice guys! As mentioned, I've only ever bought kits and have just picked it up from there, so I appreciate the guidance.

I was looking last night at the cost of making it from raw ingredients and it looks incredibly expensive compared to kit form! I get 40 pint kits for about £20 all in, and it looks as though I'd need to spend about twice that just for the malt - am I looking at completely the wrong thing?!! (recipe said 11.5lb (~5kg) malt and it would be £12 for 1.5kg - although this is for extract, so presumably I would only need a percentage of the initial weight?)

[Gold]

Jonboy_t said:

Cheers for the advice guys! As mentioned, I've only ever bought kits and have just picked it up from there, so I appreciate the guidance.

I was looking last night at the cost of making it from raw ingredients and it looks incredibly expensive compared to kit form! I get 40 pint kits for about £20 all in, and it looks as though I'd need to spend about twice that just for the malt - am I looking at completely the wrong thing?!! (recipe said 11.5lb (~5kg) malt and it would be £12 for 1.5kg - although this is for extract, so presumably I would only need a percentage of the initial weight?)

Don't get confused between all-grain brewing and extract brewing. You can't simply use the same recipes, you need far less malt extract by weight.

5kg of pale ale malt in a 23l/40 pint batch would be around 5% (depending on efficiency).

3.8kg of pale liquid malt extract in a 23l/40 pint batch would be 5%.

Extract brewing will probably be slightly more expensive than kits (but this can vary) but give you far more flexibility and control about what you brew. All-grain brewing is cheaper but much more time consuming.

[Bob the Planner]

Jonboy_t said:

Cheers for the advice guys! As mentioned, I've only ever bought kits and have just picked it up from there, so I appreciate the guidance.

I was looking last night at the cost of making it from raw ingredients and it looks incredibly expensive compared to kit form! I get 40 pint kits for about £20 all in, and it looks as though I'd need to spend about twice that just for the malt - am I looking at completely the wrong thing?!! (recipe said 11.5lb (~5kg) malt and it would be £12 for 1.5kg - although this is for extract, so presumably I would only need a percentage of the initial weight?)

Quality vs quantity !

[twazzock]

I've made my own wine but never beer, considering trying it out soon. Any good starter kits?

[otolith]

I've made some pretty ropey country wines over the years (not from kits) as well as some decent ones, but I don't remember ever getting poor results from a beer kit. They seem pretty reliable.

The last kit I used was a Brewferm "beers of the world" kit - I messed about with it a bit, mostly by chucking a load of sloes in it, but it was very nice.

http://www.arkwrightshomebrew.com/index.php/cPath/...

[SwanJack]

otolith said:

The last kit I used was a Brewferm "beers of the world" kit - I messed about with it a bit, mostly by chucking a load of sloes in it, but it was very nice.

http://www.arkwrightshomebrew.com/index.php/cPath/...

I've used these too. The Ambiorix kit is very good, as is the Weiss beer kit (especially when you add Cardamom and orange peel).