Home-brewing.

ApeXaviour

Anybody else have an interest in this? I used to brew a couple fruit wines before, amateur stuff really and never tasted that good. But now I'm going full steam, researching etc etc but with beer. I've got one in primary fermenting now. Made just with unhopped liquid malt extract. Going to transfer it into it's secondary fermentation containers tomorrow. Should come out as a pale but strong ale if I've done it right.

From my research I've learned the reason most people's home-brew "kits" turn out bad are numerous (the instructions on the kit are simply useless), however it's usually because they didn't sanitise everything. Brewing is 75% cleaning. A small bit of bacteria gets in and gets a hold where you want the yeast to, and you get a bad taste.

So the point of this thread? I'd really like to talk to other homebrewers or people who'd like to take it up. We could exchange recipies, ideas insights etc?

Citizen_Erased

Yep , I've tried a couple of fruit wines ( black berries all the times though ) but never had any good results. My father used to try it is aswell but he gave up after similar results to mine.My lastest attempt may not have been airtight which is incredibly annoying because it was a lot wasted for all the effort but also I have never put that much into cleaning aswelll.
What I would really like to do though is distill it or something similar regardless of the law. I think it would give much better results and open up new doors. What I'm thinking I would like to do , and may start soon is , would be to attempt to make Plum wine and then perhaps distill it to hopefully get some sort of laqeur type after dinner alcohol.

rubadub

distilling is a great hobby, far better returns
the online bible of distilling is

www.homedistiller.org

it is simply the best website I have ever found about a single subject.
You can buy a still from sweden for about €250. it is nice and small, mabe the size of a deep fat fryer. the ones you build are far better, you can get it to 96% and tasting absolutely lovely, no hangovers either (thats how you tell if you made it right).

ApeXaviour

Right it's pretty illegal but I think if we keep it relatively hypothetical boards shouldn't have a problem with it as it's not a criminal offense afaik. I've "done" a lot of distilling. My "still" is broken at the mo' but it wasn't a pot still (the type you'd make the liquor with) it was a metre tall reflux stand that produced pure clear 92% vol ethanol.. It's a lot like the one here from moonshine-still.com.

To build one of these stills is expensive however (cost us ~€500 just for piping and welding equipment)... A pot still is a lot easier. Homedistiller is a great site. Don't get cocky with it though, there's a lot of science and a lot of research to do to get it right (I had two years of college chemistry to help me). It's way more difficult than beer. It's also more dangerous, not only with the law but ethanol is explosively flammable. Imagine distilling petrol in your kitchen. Not exactly recommended if you have a gas hob. And lastly it's a hell of a lot more time consuming than beer. It comes out drip by drip. To make 4 X 750ml bottles took me 13 hours of distilling. That's sitting, constantly watching the temperature and adjusting heat. To get it faster you need bigger more expensive equipment. A big boiling pot especially. The 4.5L one we had is plain tedius. We're upgrading our pot to a keg hopefully when we get enough time (my friend and I). First thing you need to do is read and understand http://www.homedistiller.org/ right through entirely. It's a book..

I began to figure it wasn't at all worth my time distillin' (at least til the still is upgraded) with the amount of alcohol I was getting per hour I was working to get it. So I've moved to beer for the moment. I love beer, don't drink spirits much anyway. And it takes very little working time to make (a big relief). The equipment is also an awful lot cheaper..

rubadub wrote:

distilling is a great hobby, far better returns

While I agree it's a great hobby. I'm be very doubtful on these returns you speak of..

rubadub

After reading homedistiller, if you are going to design a still a book worth getting is the compleat distiller from http://www.amphora-society.com
Worth the price as extra info can save you a fortune on design flaws, they also sell copper packing which is perfect and easy to use for distilling.
The moonshine-still.com has a serious design flaw which is explained on homedistiller and the compleat distiller. It can be modified to work better.
4x750ml bottles at 92% is equivalent to 55.2 litres of beer at 5%, not bad.

I spent about €20 on my first still. Then I got a amphora column which did cost a bit but is made by experts. I am looking to sell my still, if interested give me a PM, I could get you full started and will throw in all the stuff you need, including carbon and yeasts.

Returns I speak of is being able to start a brew today with 25litres and 8 bags of sugar, €7 for sugar €4.5 for yeast. and this day next week be drinking pure vodka, 3-4 litres at 95%, thats like 150 cans of beer for about €13 including electricity.

ApeXaviour

That's a little pedantic to be honest.. It's never near 100% yield, you'd be lucky to get over 2L. And the hours hours of distilling. If I was working for those hours I could afford more than the vodka I made. Hence it not being worth my time.

Using a keg sized pot will cut my distilling time in half. A bit of epoxy putty and tightening certain things to improve the yield and it will become worthwhile again however.

I'm just warning citizen that it takes a lot of time and effort to do it right even just to make it worthwhile...

rubadub

100% would have been 4.7 litres at 95% thats why I said 3-4l. I stick to 3 myself, you can separate heads and tails and put them in a stripped wash and keep getting some more out. Working all those hours? I leave my still on by itself, if you have a good setup you have nothing to worry about. The better your still the better the separation. You mention you get 92%, you should be able to do better, I bet if I saw it or had a full description I could recommend changes which would raise % and therefore drinkable yeild.

It is not piss pants easy but you can set up a spiral still on its own. or use an "amazing still" (google it) for no hassle distilling. www.partyman.se sell one that can be set up and left alone.

1 batch gives me over 150 longnecks worth of vodka. That would take ages to bottle.
Maybe your beer setup was better than your distilling, and I am vice-versa. but for me distilling is far less trouble with a end product that I personally prefer. (great for stashing into concerts, a 200ml 95% bottle, is equivalent to over 13 bottles of 4.3% beer)

noby

I ahve little or no interest in distilling or wine-making, but I do brew beer.

ApeXaviour, as you say, the most important thing to get a good result from your beer kit is cleanliness/sanatising.
Although kits have improved a lot in the last few years, you still get what you pay for. If you buy the cheapest kit(and add 1Kg sugar), you'll end up with cheap beer.
You can get all-malt kits, where no sugar is added, but they can be expensive.
The next best step is partial mash. This is what I usually do. It's not as complicated or time-consuming as all-grain full mashing, but you end up with good results.
There are a few Irish sites where you can buy malt extract, speciality grains, hops and yeast.
Equipment can be relatively inexpensive too:
A couple of 5gallon buckets
A large pot
A siphon
Some other odds and sods from the kitchen (large sieve etc.)
And some empty bottles.

ApeXaviour, have you tasted your beer yet?
What's it like?
What recipe did you use?

ApeXaviour

Thank god for noby, you're just what I was looking for

To answer your questions I have tasted my beer but only "green" as it were, last week before I bottled it. It tasted quite nice but obviously didnt hold its fizz yet and I was a little worried about how weak it tasted (alcohol-wise, flavour was fine) and I think this may be as a result of the low specific gravity (it only measured as 1.020 when I've been told it's supposed to start off at 1.040). I plan on opening the first bottle in a little over a weeks time and will keep updated.

Lets see I used a 1.6Kilo can of John Bull unhopped diastatic liquid malt extract. Added no sugar (as my uncle had told me) and didnt use any hops. Its my first time have I mentioned? Anyway boiled that for 20 mins. Primary ferment for 2 weeks, secondary for a week in airlocked demijohns (I realise now the timing should be vice-versa). Added about 250g of glucose to the 5 gallons immediately before I bottled it.

Just arriving in the post today is another tin but of John Bull unhopped light liquid malt extract and 250 g of fuggles hops as well as some yeast. For my next brew I plan to boil the malt for an hour, then half way through the boil add some hops.

I'm intrigied by this partial mash you mentioned! Can you elaborate on it? What the ingredients you use are, what exactly you do and how you do it? I haven't really heard much about it.. Cheers

Blub2k4

I'm going out to blackrock tonight to pick up a 25l brewing flagon in a frame from the leinster freecycle scheme and want to start brewing soon enough.
I was in the uk recently and picked up two recipe books at a car book sale for a quid, one is on real ales and the other is on lagers/pilsener.
They look interesting and have recipes for brandnamed beers such as "old peculiar" and "old speckled hen" and "Guinness" so I am really looking forward to trying it out.
I possibly wont be starting it for a little while but like I say it should be fun.

noby

ApeXaviour,

What volume did you make? If you made 5 gallons you will have pretty weak beer alright. When your uncle advised you not to add the sugar, he should have suggested you add more extract instead, or else to make a smaller batch. A 3 gallon batch would give you an OG of around 1.040-1.045, and you'd end up with a 4.5% beer.


There are a couple of sites where you can plug in your ingredients, and it'll give you your final result.
Try the Recipator spreadsheet to give you a guideline.

If you have LME and hops, all you need is some grains to make a partial mash. Crystal malt is probably the most common.

The basic steps are:
crush the grain
steep it in about 1/2 gallon or so of 70deg water for about 20 mins
remove the grains, top up your water (now called wort) and use this to boil your LME.
The bigger volume you boil the better. I can get about 2.5 gallons boiling in a big pot.
There are usually three hop additions:
bittering - boiled for an hour
flavour - boiled for the last 20 mins
Aroma - the last 2 mins.

Pour it all, through a big seive, into your fermenting bin, and add cold water to make it up to your full volume (usually 5 gallons)
When your temp is less than about 25deg, add your yeast.

Simple really.

Blub2k4

Noby, where is a good place in dublin to get quality ingredients like hops and suchlike?
I am interested in doing real ales but still need some equipment.

Do you generally make your own stuff like airlocks and suchlike or do you buy them in ready made?

noby

Grape and Grain are Dublin based. They don't have a shop, but will deliver to your home/work.

Not living in Dublin, I've never used them, but know people who have, with no complaints.


The Home Brew Centre are a mail-order shop in Clare.

I often use them.

Wexford Brewing cater more for the all-grain brewer. He can be a little slower, as I think it's more a sideline hobby than a shop.

I live in Dungarvan, and there's a small shop in Waterford. He has beer & wine kits, aswell as all the extra bits - Airlocks, siphons, barrels etc., so I just get then all there usually.

Blub2k4

Thanks for that.

kenmc

Hi Apex,
I've been brewing for almost a year now, great results every time. At the moment I'm fermenting a Brewferm Abbey kit (8%), it's gonna taste great. In bottles waiting for Christmas are Brewferm Christmas Beer and Diabalo. Also in bottles are a coopers stout I brewed about a month ago, starting to drink it now and it's super. Have brewed Muntons Conneseurs Wheat Beer and Bock Beer, Coopers Real Ale and Woodfords Wherry in the past, all came out fine.
I got a King Keg from Grape n Grain for Christmas last year, and that was my intro to the world of HB. Since then I've bought 2 fermenters and loads of bits n pieces including a bottling tree - dead handy. Tonight I think I'll start off my Brewferm Wheat beer.
I get my stuff from grape n grain, grogsmugglers.com,homebrewcenter.ie, art-of-brewing.co.uk and thehomebrewshop.co.uk

Agree that the most important thing is cleanliness. Other than that it's real easy to be honest. Everyone who's had any of my beer has always been impressed, and loads of ppl are starting to get into brewing their own too (got one lad a kingkeg as a wedding present!).

edit; actually Apex, have I been chatting to you on homebrewtalk.com?
sounds familiar for your first approach, uncle recommended unhopped JB extract.

sean_0

I'm really interested in getting into homebrewing but I'm still at the research stage right now. I've got one big question: where did you guys get the bottles for your homebrew?

I've collected quite a few 500ml Guinness bottles but I'm worried that they might not be strong enough because they're not returnables. Pint bottles of bulmers would probably be ideal but I can't stand the stuff.

paconnors

sean_0 wrote:

Pint bottles of bulmers would probably be ideal but I can't stand the stuff.

Buy them and get somebody to drink them for you!!

kenmc

i collected mine from parties i've been to and saved them from when I've bought them. also shipped a couple of crates of them home when I moved from holland (they were full of belgian beer at the time!)
I've used all sorts of bottles without any problems.
Cept stay away from screw tops, and clear glass ones.
Also the rolling rock bottles is hard to get the labels off.
Good ones to get are 500 ml bottles, especially the Kopparberg cider ones. bear in mind that for a 5 gallon batch you'll need about 44 or so 500ml bottles and 66 330 bottles or some combination in between. I started out by bottling some into 2l plastic bottles and keeping them in the dark so the sunlight didn't ruin it.
I now have a 80l bin in the back garden full of bleach water which the empties go into to keep them cleanish. when I need them I just have to empty, give a quick dunk in sterilizer and rinse them and I'm done. The labels float off in the water too.
I think I have too many bottles now. must start dumping the green ones - they don't look so nice!

edit - another option is to go to your local and ask if they'd give/sell you some - I've heard of ppl getting a crate of bulmers 500ml for a euro a crate or so.

sean_0

edit - another option is to go to your local and ask if they'd give/sell you some -

That seems like a good idea. I worked in a pub all through college so I might ask them. The 500ml guinness bottles look exactly the same as Kopparberg ones and they do look great. I think i'll keep "collecting" them and start brewing when I have enough. Shouldn't be too long actually.

Here's an interesting site I found: www.howtobrew.com
It's bascially an online book and is actually better than some books I've read. Anyone got opinions on which books are best?

kenmc

thats a great online book. "The complete joy of homebrewing" is supposed to be good to - never read it though.
I have a book on porter and stout, and one called "brewing classic european beers at home" with recipes for Duvel, Hoegaarden, Guinness etc etc - loads of cool recipes.
didn't make any of them yet - it's mostly all grain and I'm not there yet,

kenmc

oh and another thing. leave the beer to sit for as long as you can. weeks. months even. I've still got a couple of bottles of stuff I brewed back in April. And it tasts so good now I wish I didn't drink it all back then! Best bet is to brew loads up front and leave them for ages. keep buying bottles in the offie. these are useful anyway. then you can start "maintenence" brewing when you have a big enough stockpile.
I made some stuff in August I won't be opening till Xmas,

noby

sean_0 wrote:

I'm really interested in getting into homebrewing but I'm still at the research stage right now. I've got one big question: where did you guys get the bottles for your homebrew?

I've collected quite a few 500ml Guinness bottles but I'm worried that they might not be strong enough because they're not returnables. Pint bottles of bulmers would probably be ideal but I can't stand the stuff.

I have often been told about the un-suitability of non-returnable bottles. So far I've used all sorts of 5ooml/pint brown bottles, and , touch wood, have had no problems. I keep any empties (everything from Guinness to Budvar or Erdinger etc.) in a bin of water with bleach too.
I got started off on my bottle collection by visiting a lazy friend with a taste for German beer. He had a lot of 500ml brown bottles 'waiting' to go to the bottle bank.
If you know someone in a pub, that helps. If you can get some crates off them too, that's even better.


kenmc, only recently I discovered 5 bottles of stout I had stashed in the back of the cupboard last christmas. Tasted even nicer now. What a treat!

kenmc

I'm going to leave a couple of my strong beers till I come home from travelling the world next year. they should be superb!

Blub2k4

Ken, how well would it keep in a king keg? Can you finish it in that and never put it in a bottle?
I would be more interested in leaving it in a keg and not bottling as it would mean a lot less work and sterile procedure.

kenmc

It keeps in a keg for a long time, i have a CO2 cylinder to keep it charged, as it pumps out of that. to be honest though despite thehassle, bottles are easier, cos you can stick them into the fridge or give them to people. Also means that you can brew as soon as you have more bottles, rather than having to wait till the keg is empty. I usually brew the keg for a party or BBQ or so on - it's cool, but bottles are better for day to day.

Karl Weiss

Hi, and great respect to all beer lovers. To my mind there's nothing more relaxing then taking a cool bottle of beer made exactly as you like it: along with soothing a thirst it gives you some moral satisfaction and raises your spirits a good deal ;-)

A few days ago I decided to start a blog of my own with my tested brewing beer recipes. There's it's address: http://beerrecipe.blogme.com/ Come and check it up youself.

Karl Weiss

I'd like to add that the process of beer brewage is a very individual thing - the taste of beer depends on the cooker much more then on the ingredients and the tools you have...

happy_acid_face

im surprised http://www.irishcraftbrewer.com hasn't been mentioned yet...

BeerNut

Mmmm... brand awareness...

How's your homebrew these days, H_A_F?

oblivious

Yes, follow the banners over

Tom Ghostwood

I decided to make a few short tutorial videos on hombrew cider. I have come up with a cheap, easy and very effective way of pressing apples for cider making. Click on the link below.

Cider making tutorials parts 1-4:

If you've any questions or suggestions do get in touch.

Cheers,
Tom.