Home Brew Kits...

lazygit

Hi guys,

just wondering if anyone knows anywhere in dublin that sells home beer home brewing kits.. would be aiming for a wheat type bear..

also would wine making kit be any good for this? 5 gallon drums, air traps , jars etc.. or would i need to buy the full beer kit..?

is most of the home beer made from just a packed of powder add water and yeast? someone told me thats all it was

kenmc

You can get it from www.grapengraindublin.com
They do a muntons connesieur wheat beer which is very nice.
If you have the fermenters,syphons, caps and capper then you're all set.
It comes as a large tin of gloop (hopped malt extract) and a sachet of yeast. To this you must add 22/23 litres of water, 1kg of sugar or stuff called DME - Dry Malt Extract, and you sprinkle in the yeast. Instructions are included in the kit of course.
I suspect you will need to buy a capper and caps, and collect bottles from pubs/friends/wherever. Also some sanitizer if you don't have much left from wine brewing.
Whoever told you that most of the homebrew is from a packet of powder, just add water and yeast, does not know what they're talking about.
Hope this helps. There's a couple of us brewers on the site now, so there should be plenty of ppl to ask questions of.
K

ApeXaviour

lazygit wrote:

Hi guys,

just wondering if anyone knows anywhere in dublin that sells home beer home brewing kits.. would be aiming for a wheat type bear..

also would wine making kit be any good for this? 5 gallon drums, air traps , jars etc.. or would i need to buy the full beer kit..?

is most of the home beer made from just a packed of powder add water and yeast? someone told me thats all it was

Home brew kit instructions are a disgrace... quite simply. adding sugar (as per their woeful instructions) will leave it lacking a lot whole of body and also with a cidery taste (due to the invertase enzyme made by the yeast). Also, more often than not the yeast you get with beer kits is past its sell by date and as such is pretty useless. You're better off buying just tins of plain liquid malt extract and yeast seperately as their cheaper, the only difference is that the kit is hopped. But so negligably it's below detection level.

A quick guide, you need a 5 gallon fermentor, u-tube and syhpon, bottle capper & crown caps, beer bottles (this can be collected off friends and such very easily I find), either 5 demijohns (with bored rubber bungs and airlocks) or a 5G carboy, VWP steriliser, large bottle/demijohn brush, a hydrometer and thermometer are helpful. The country cellar on patrick st dun laoghaire has a homebrew section though I'd recommend either buying your stuff off www.beersmugglers.com or www.thehomebrewcentre.ie, both are based in ireland and the latter being the cheaper one..

Ingredients-wise I'd recommend buying some DME (dried malt extract) with your LME tin or kit. Say 1.5 kilo dme, one (1.6kg) tin of LME, some hops if you want. Boil it for an hour and make it up to 5 gallons, this would give you an original gravity of 1.046. If brewed to completion it would give you a 4.7% beer.
I warn though there is A LOT more to it than this, I recommend before even starting to read the entire http://www.howtobrew.com/ website and start posting on www.homebrewtalk.com

One final word: your brew will be drinkable if you keep everything sanitary and sterilised. You want no bacteria whatsoever to grow in your brew or it will be utterly disgusting! Brewing is 75% cleaning.

A spreadsheet site to work out ingredients vs alcohol, hops vs bitterness etc. Extremely useful:
http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator

Happy Brewing!

noby

"Home brew kits are a disgrace... quite simply."

A bit of a sweeping statement. Cheap kits are not worth it, yes. As a rule adding extract instead of sugar will improve any kit. But there are Premium 3kg kits available that are all malt. These are far from a disgrace.

But for any newcomer - with kits you get what you pay for. Buy a cheap kit and you end up with cheap, nasty beer.

kenmc

I dunno Apex, I think thats a bit harsh. I've only ever used kits, and they've all been very drinkable. Some of them I have used DME with, others sugar. (always brown sugar though, I think it is better than white stuff).
And I've never had any problems with the yeast either. That said, I tend to go for the higher end of the price range of kits. I've also had some kits which require little/no sugar, and a normal sized tin makes 7/9 litres instead of 23, so you can see how much malt/body is in these compared to some.
For a first timer, who wants to create a particular style, with little/no hassle, I think the kit is right. After that then yeah by all means go and buy unhopped LMEs, mix and boil, hop to your taste etc, if it's something you wanna get into more. I knew that I will be away for the next year, so I never bothered to take the next step to partial/all grain, but when I come home, I will for sure...

lazygit

excellent stuff guys... lots of stuff to read.. thanks alot.

ApeXaviour

Sorry bout that I mean to imply that the instructions that come with kits them are usually not worth their weight..

add sugar and voila kinda stuff

kenmc

I followed mine to a "T" the first kit I made. Everyone who got some enjoyed it. Now I ad lib a lot more, and started boiling the sugar/water. But you have to start somewhere. The Kits' manufacturers want people to continue buying their stuff, so it's in their interest to provide good info. If you do what it says on the tin, you will get reasonable results. If you read books/websites etc, and try to understand the process,start playing around a bit you will get better results. It's a bit like cooking really. Anyone can follow a recipe in a book, but it's more fun when you put your own slant on it.
To put it simply, there's nothing you can do *wrong* by following the instructions provided.

ApeXaviour

Any of the kits I've bought or even seen ever mentioned anything about sanitising. Stuff I've made in the past (couple years back) turned rancid because I just cleaned half-arsedly with fairy liquid..

Also friends of mine in the past trying with kits all screwed up bad. granted I've I don't know what kits but it left me with a bitter taste (quite literally)

DrIndy

There is an art to brewing which I never had the time to learn although must try to make it a hobby!

My granduncle used to make some of the most outstanding home wines imaginable using berries such as gooseberries and redcurrants. The taste is unique. He also had to park his car outside as the garage was full of wine racks as he left them for a few years to mature before drinking!

John_C

1. Two cheap kits are better than one expensive kit and you won't need any sugar.
2. Make sure to use two big buckets and syphon the beer from one to the other before botteling to remove most of the yeast. A lot of kits don't include that in the instructions.
3. Botteling into plastic lemonade bottles in so much easier than glass bottles.
4. The longer you leave it in the bottles the better.
5. The lovely Linda in grapengraindublin.com is the best source of materials in Dublin. Followed closely by the health-food shop in Dunlaoghaire.

DrIndy

Of note as well (although most people know this)

Brewing your own is 100% legal.

Distilling isn't.......