Home Brew

[Crilly]

Anyone brew their own beer, just wondering that it was like and how expensive it was.

[Crags]

Used to long time ago - wasn't expensive as me Ma had all the gear already - just buy kits and stuff, and me gramps even had all the stuff for a pressurised barrel.

It's well worth it though as the stuff puts you on your arse in no time lol. Mate of mine used to buy Brew in a Bag things... you basically buy a bag of all the mixture, add water to it, hang it up for 3 weeks and then open the tap at the bottom - wasn't the best but it did the job lol.

[matt1chelski]

My dad used to make wine, as crags said, very strong.

[Cam]

made 2 beer kits b 4 (cheap 10 quid 1s from wilkinsons) gr8 stuff
at the time grosh had an offer 2 bottles plue 2 glasses for cheap so baught them and once they were emptyed they were the best thing to the beer in (the large bottles i mean) they had resealable lids
when it came time to empty the co2 had built up so much ud 'pop' the lid and the whole lid and metal fixing would fly off into the air

and 1/4 of a bottle of that would have sorted

then i made sum peech shannps (cos it was cheap) it was stronger and so much sugar christ it would rot your teeth your kids teeth and there kids teeth when u drunk it....but by gum it was fooking lovly (and it always gives u a good nights sleep) LOL
.....gonna have to rebrew sum beer i think

[Crags]

snip...so much sugar christ it would rot your teeth your kids teeth and there kids teeth when u drunk it..../snip

AHHHH ha ha ha ha ha ha ha


breathe...


BUHAHAHAHAHAHHA

Cam that's piss funny mate - i quite literally fell about laughing!

[whatnow]

i tried it last year and felt a bit stitched up with it. I spent £70 on a pressurised KigKeg barrel, gas canisters, three tins of dilutable beer mix stuff (one wheat beer, one ale and one other I forgot now) steraliser and some other random junk.

I mixed it all together, followed the very basic instructions, clean stuff, boil water, add beer mix, add water, leave for a while (really easy). When it came around to testing the stuff I put a gas canister on the top of the barrel (it was a good one with a tap at the bottom ala keg style) but psssht all the gas escaped out of the top of the barrel. I checked the barrel and found out i was missing a seal on it. The beer was flat and undrinkable.

'Fair enough' I thought i messed it up and wasn't too bothered, one can of beer mix was only about £7, i'll just do it again. (I was more keen on drinking the wheat beer anyway and tried with a free crappy beer first (the one i forgot the name of)).

I did it all again, checked the seal but didn't want to test it with a gas canister becuase i didn't want to waste another one of them (quite expesive wasting too much stuff). I complained to the company and got a new top to the barrel sent out to me hopeing it'd be a defected one initially. I went ahead confident everything was good (even checked all the other parts with the company to make sure it'd work this time). Got around to having it all ready again (about 6-8 weeks later I think). All ready for the nice wheat beer (mmmm wheat beer) added the gas canister, pssssht - all the gas escaped again

both times I tried to drink the beer but with no pressure and no seal it was flat, cloudy and pissy, a really bad mix for beer

I was a bit disheartened at that point becuase I ended up wasting quite a bit of money on it all. Plus the company were really shitty with me (i'll try to remember who they were). Bascially they just blamed me both times, but one the second time I was really checking everything with them, it's a very simple process which kept going wrong - it was getting annoying!

I tried it a third time with the ale but used a different container and then transferred it to tesco's value lemonade bottles instead of using the kingkeg. This was a much better idea, the beer was much fuller bodied, carbonated and more drinkable. It was still really cloudy but that was becuase the second barrel I was wasn't quite the right thing for the job, but the lemonaide bottles did most of the work -it's all about pressure, flat beer is GRIM!

Don't let me experience get you down, it's more of a crap story about my incompetitance and dodgy stuff (I blame the barrel!) than anything else. I used to make elderflower/elderberry/blackberry wine as a child and it was awesome, I drank as much as i wanted (well it was mine!) I was about 10-12 at the time, brilliant stuff with a bit of lemonade if i had too much it had to be spritzered

I would love to try it again but when i moved house i had to leave all my kegs and barrels there becuase we physically couldn't fit them in the car i was gutted becuase i'd wanted to try it again for ages. However I do have a crate full of beer in the loft and I might actually go and try one (some grloch bottles and some 3 litre lemonade bottles (grolche pop top ones are a bit crap imo)

Now you've made me want to look into it again

Let us know how it goes :thumbs

[Cam]

Now you've made me want to look into it again

Let us know how it goes :thumbs

on this thread ive just baught another larger and a peach shannps

and im stealizing the bottles and bins now....how ever do i need a shpyoning tube and about 10 quids worth of sugar lol

but am going to go on holiday a week on sunday so thats part of the waiting time go LOL

[Cenus_]

shpyoning

[Cam]

shut it u tart!!!

fecked if i no how to spell it.........and tbh i dont care cos when its done and ive drunk it i'll be to pissed to care ......for cheap

[whatnow]

cam - where do you get it all from? surely it's not all in wilko?

[MercuryRises]

Some of the larger Boots stores used to sell the kits, no idea if they still do or not.


Oddly enough I just finished digging out all my pressureised barrels and syphoning tubes etc.

could be that its time for a nasty hangover

[Ynox]

tempted to start some homebrew in my gaff at uni this year. Theres a market stall in cov market that sells all sorts of home brew crap.

[Cam]

cam - where do you get it all from? surely it's not all in wilko?

got every thing from wilkos
apart from the sugar i needed that came from the co op

i am only usein the kits the easyest 1s

but there are sites/books with recpies and stuff

http://www.art-of-brewing.co.uk/

havent used um yet..... but might do after my peach schnapps is done

id advise buying a funnel or 2 a large 1 and a small 1
hasnt said on n e of the kits ive used but when bottleing or adding into a demijhon its much easyer oh and scales cheap 1s will do for the sugar (first kit i got home got every thing ready then said 'fuck do i measure the sugar ) day l8er and 1.29 (or summit) and i was away LOL

[Cam]

just a 2 week update

bottled my beer last nite all it needs now is a few weeks to mature

i have 4 2 litre coke bottles 2 1.5 litre grolsh bottles 3 750ml wine bottles about 9 275/300ml carlsberg bottles and about 5 500ml coke bottles sitting in my kitchen....might take a photo l8er

peech shannps shud be ready for the nxt stage in a few days ....i just dont have n e bottles left now

Cheers.

Cam.

[whatnow]

lol sounds like a good assorment of sizes u got there

i'd post photo's of my homebrew sludge but it's so crap!

i will have to get back into it all, just need to save up some dosh for it all :thumbs

[shadowdancer]

got me in the mood for doing some homebrewing now with all this talk.

my dad used to do it years ago and I remember him dishing it out at a party once.

a neighbour of ours was going to work that night so he asked for low alcohol beer , so my dad poured him a pint of homebrew, needless to say, he went home after a couple more low alcohol beers to get ready for work and went to bed instead of going to work.

[micko69]

my good self and the wonder that is incognito are doing this for xmas, should be fun

[incognito™]

will be ruthless we shall do the larger and the shnapps me thinks


will be fun too... best part is drinking the massive bottles of grolsche so we have plenty of empties

[Cam]

my advice is start it now so its cos it will imporve with age and the longer u leave it the better it gets (beer or shnapps)

(pics from a shit cam
http://www.twatinc.co.uk/beer/PICT0037.JPG
http://www.twatinc.co.uk/beer/PICT0038.JPG
http://www.twatinc.co.uk/beer/PICT0039.JPG
http://www.twatinc.co.uk/beer/PICT0040.JPG )


edit: just noticed on pic 39 that the lid is missing on the clear wire bottle (in the rack)...the presure must of bin to much lol

[whatnow]

if the lids missing how is the liquid still inside? lol

nice beer tho, do you filter out the sediment or are you hardcore?