Be Excellent To Each Other

Bottled up the latest batch. And tidied!

In the kitchen I now have undergoing secondary fermentation:

22 litres Pilsner Lager and 22 litres IPA.

In the garage I have:

16 litres Dark Ale and 16 litres Yorkshire Bitter.

Should get me through until the end of August.

taking some to the beexbeque?

I certainly can bring a volume and selection, sure.

Wil Wheaton's latest post about his homebrewing attempt is really rather touching. Possibly the nicest thing you'll read this week.

For the homebrewers and historians of science amongst you:

And another update from Mr Wheaton regarding his homebrews.

My lovely Missus has bought me a home brewing kit, which may well be put into production this weekend, ready for Christmas. I wondering if I should put some festive stuff in - cinnamon and cloves or nutmeg or turkey or something - for added seasonal wintery deliciousness.

If you do it this weekend, it will be done way before Christmas..

Squirt in stunning inability to calculate dates shocker! I've actually got time for 2 lots, I reckon. Maybe I'll do a plain one first, to ensure I actually know what I'm doing.

Hot water, stuff from can, sugar, stir, cold water, stir, lid on, wait, bottle, wait, drink, fall over.

Does anyone have a favourite homebrew online store? I'm gonna need some bottles soon, and I fancy wine-making as well, so some demijohns and a smaller fermenter will be needed.

I ordered stuff through amazon, seemed to be about the same price and had the convenience (and, to my mind, the safety) of amazon, rather than a website I'd not heard of before.

Tesco Value Still Water bottles have the advantage of containing sterile water, and being sterile, so that's what I used, but I'm cheap.

The experienced home-brewer I know uses those as well.

Except now he knows me and gets as many Diet Coke bottles as he wants for free.

Have to say. unless you have a large amount of storage, don't bother with glass bottles, I have loads lying around, and for the few times I use the,, they just take up a load of space, and don't work amazingly better than a plastic bottle. Aternatiavely buy a keg.

Also, experienced home-brewer ('Dave') makes sure to pour off a bunch of half-litre fizzy-pop bottles because his job involves a few days a week of travelling and therefore staying in hotels, so he's always got a cheap night in without staying sober.

Not beers.








That was step 1. Got 25 litres!

Kalmar has all the best toys.

Ooooo!

Wow...

Good stuff!

Bottled my beer on the weekend - is was fermenting a bit slow so it took a few days more than planned. Next up, some wine! I'm thinking turnip.

TOP TIP: Potato Wine is delish.

Thanks guys



And yet, is he happy?


Oh, also:

Is that sloe gin in the making? My dad made that a year or two back - utterly delicious.

Sure is

We made some, and it was right good.

Parnsip wine fermented and racked! We found an old recipe belonging to my great-grandmother, and used that. I think I over gingered it, and under-sugared it, as it tastes a bit odd. Anyway, it'll "mature" for a few months and then I'll be in odd wine paradise!

Hey, how's my cider coming along, Kalmar?

I shall enquire, it should be done by now.

Parsnip wine sounds awesome. Well, brave, anyway!

As someone asked:

For a first go, things you will need:
this

Basically, I recall:

Sterilise everything using sterilising powder. Boil 4 litres of water and add it to the bucket. Stir in the stuff from the tin until it is dissolved, and the same with the sugar as you add the rest of the water. NOTE: After emptying the water out of the bottles, screw the caps back on the empty bottles quickly. You can then use these for bottling as they are still sterile for our purposes). Take a quick readig on they hydrometrer. Add the elast, stir it in and put the lid on. Wait a week or so, until the hydromter sasys a different reading (I forget which, willl get back to you, although 1007 springs to mind, isntructions are in the tin). Then, syphon the beer from the bucket into the bottles, and add 2 teaspoon sugar per bottle. Store in cool dark room for about 5 weeks. Open and drink.

All the intructions are in the tin.

this was nice, too

You can make it more ebtter by not using tins and buying raw ingredients, too.

This was a good idea, too. Bobby knows a lot.

One of my fav beers is Blandford Flyer by Badger. 5.2% with a heavy hint of Ginger. Quite potent with a great taste.

I love badger, but the one thing I don' t like is that they get the flavours by adding other things to the beer, rather than from the blend of malt/hops etc. It's cheating. I've had chocolate ale that has that taste because of the blend and the process, not cos they've added some bloody flavouring.

A few have flavorings a lot don't. The Brewery Tour at Badger is awesome.

Yeah, but the ones that have a distinctive flavour have it cos they've added something - it's basically a slightly beardy alcopop.

Not convinced, the bloke doing the tour spent a lot of time explaining the hops and malts they use.

Well, for example, they say on the very bottle of the Blandford Flyer that they add ginger to it. So ner.

Well yes. But it does not make it at Alcopop

The River Cottage Stinger is nice, it uses Nettles instead of Hops. I belive.

...

I think I'm putting too much sugar in my bottles for secondary fermentation. My current batch is pretty lively and quite sweet, albeit not a sickly as the previous batch. So drinkable, but even after excessive chilling it still produces far too much head. Only had one explosion so far, and I blame the heatwave for that!

Are you sure primary fermentation has finished? I add (I think, will check later) 1 teaspoon per litre for secondary fermentation in full bottles.

If any of you are ever in the area, I strongly recommend Tring Brewery's ales. Moongazer is one of my absolute favourite ales ever.

Plus I went on a tour of their brewery a year or so ago with my old man, *accidentally* got totally wankered on free beer, had to get up early the following morning for a job interview and then went and got offered the job in question. So they really do make the beer of winners.

Probably too much sugar: I think I'm on 1 teaspoon per half-litre (plus the odd one for luck). I generally bottle when there's no sign of life no matter how hard I agitate the barrell and when the hydrometer reading stablises itself.

Yeah, that's way too much. Also, I suspect that as the temperature drops, more CO2 is absorbed into the liquid, so that will make it fizzier.

Ah, and there was me thinking that putting a bottle in the fridge for a week or so would kill the yeasties abd make it less active. Didn't think about the CO2. But then, I was an arts student.

I would be surprised if the cold killed the yeast, unless you started freezing it.

Best way to keep a sourdough starter is in the fridge, the yeast still works, slower and bacteria like lactobacillis can't take hold. You can freeze a mature starter.

Brewers yeast is generally hardier.

Bottled!

The White Rabbit here in the 'Ford now sells Brooklyn Lager on tap. This is a Good Thing.

Yep.