Home Brewing

 nice soothing music,do we get a you tube video of you falling about drunk when its been tested

If you really want to get serious about home brewing you need to get yourself a book called "Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy" by Dave Line.

This guy dedicated his llife to tasting pub beers and concocting home brew recipes to match, it really is an awesome book! It covers real ales, keg beers and lagers including a lot of foreign ones. If you can find a good home brew shop that sells malted grain and all the hop varieties you can copy your favourite beers. It is pretty hard work though, for 5 gallons of beer you need to mash and strain about 10lbs dry weight of malted barley, but the results can be well worth the effort. His Guiness recipe beats the pants off the real (bottled) thing,

I used to do this many years ago when I was young, free, single and broke. Keep promising myself I'll get back into it but always seem to be too busy.

One general tip - temperature is crucial. Use an aquarium heater set to 18C to keep the temperature absolutely constant until primary fermentation stops after about a week. Then switch it off and let the beer stand cool for another week to clear. This way you can completely avoid the cloudiness and yeasty taste that gives home brew a bad name.

Wish I'd spoken to you sooner - I was wracking my brain to work out how to keep the temperature constant - would never have dreamed to use an aquarium heater. I invested in a heat belt (sure they didn't have those back in the olden days, Ferox ;-)) and it seems to be working well. Should by bottling by the middle of the week.

 you have got me going on the homebrew stuff again.i did have a king keg micro brewing system,wich made up to 40 pints.i cant for the life in me remember where i put the barrel until my dear wife told me i burned it once cause i couldnt be botherd cleening it.(damn waist) so now i have been trawling round the tinternet again trying to find another and the mrs has just said she will buy me one for fathers day so yup someday soon i will be up and running again with the homebrew

 so next question is who's up for a fishy friends meet where theres loads of homebrew goin in july/august

 fishy friends???jesus thats my daughter takin the micky out of me when i'm on here,she's nine and goes on that i spk to you lot more than her"dads on with his fishy friends again" also could be the drink typing lol

Craig, back in the dark ages verily heat belts were available, also the little heated trays for standing demijohns on, but at the time I happened to have a spare aquarium heater. Can you actually set a thermostat on the belts to a specific temperature or is it just "warm"? I'd be wary of the temperature varying with ambient.

I NEARLY got going again a couple of years ago, had a huge crop of blackcurrants and decided to make wine, went out and bought all the gear but couldn't get yeast (nationwide shortage due to some warehouse burning down apparently) so stuck the berries in the freezer. They're still there, the 5 gallon bucket and plastic hose now being used for aquarium water changing.

BTW the home wine bible is "First Steps In Winemaking" by C.J.J. Berry. I am led to believe that some of the recipes were actually poisonous but these were mercifully omitted after about the second edition.

According to the brewbelt instructions, it sets different temps depending where you put it one the barrel and what kind of liquid is in the tub. Fermantion seems to be happening anyway so must be doing something.

Thanks for the book tip, I ordered it from Play. Also have a copy of The Compete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian, another recommended bible.

Not sure I want to go into wine making. I think I'm a bit too much of a connoiseur to start drinking home-made wine!

SA - If you want a decent starter kits, HomeBrew 4 U have a good range

http://www.homebrew4u.co.uk/

Would love to have a fishy meet up, though not sure my back garden can take the lot of you!

 Home brew, jeez that takes me back a long way.

My mate (who sadly passed away at the end of last year at only 35 due to drink) used to have these home brew kits, we're talking about 17 or 18 years ago.  Mind you it wasn't exactly the sweetest tasting thing..............LOL.

Ah the memories!

FD

Bottled my brew today. Didn't get to film any of it I'm afraid. Perhaps the next will be me drinking it!

craiglockley:

Not sure I want to go into wine making. I think I'm a bit too much of a connoiseur to start drinking home-made wine!

Don't knock it mate, home made wine has it's connoisseurs too!

craiglockley:

Would love to have a fishy meet up, though not sure my back garden can take the lot of you!

Is that vertically or horizontally disposed??