Homebrew thread

[TommyTurnips]

Probably been mentioned in the first 23 pages but has anyone had a go at making mead?

I haven't but I would love to make a hopped mead and ferment it with ale yeast.

[Ferris]

I think I made my first two extract kits by repeatedly filling and boiling the kettle to fill my bucket with hot sanitiser before thinking there's got to be a better way than this. Then I was spray bottle all the way.

It's the other huge benefit of all grain brewing - because you have a rolling boil for an hour, it doesn't massively matter what comes into contact with the wort (within reason). It's only after everything is cooled for yeast pitching that you need to be careful so as long as your fermenter and a large spoon are definitely sanitized, everything else is gravy.

[ASFTSN]

As long as it's no rinse sanitiser you'll be fine. I've never had any problems from letting the beer touch the bubbles. Infact I heard that rinsing can even undo the good work that your sanitiser has just done, as the water sat in your pipes may not be the cleanest. You only really need a small amount of the concentrated solution diluted in water to make a lot of sanitiser. I don't have the instructions in front of me but I think my bottle says a teaspoon sized amount. I've never used starsan as it was usually hard to find in the uk, but I just bought some from the malt miller so I'll give it a try soon. Also I've never discarded sanitiser,  I've always kept it in the spray bottle. I'm not sure if that is the correct thing to do but I've never had any infections.

I'm thinking my sanitiser just hadn't dissolved properly, and that the instructions might be a bit dodge - it specified 5g per litre of water which seemed like a huge amount - I was ending up with nearly a handful for sterilising a bucket by those measures.

[Ferris]

You can make up a litre and swirl it round. As long as the surface has been touched by the sanitizer you're alright.

Before I was a starsan man, I made up 4 litres in a fermented and threw all my gear in there with a big tea towel. After a few minutes, tea towel out laid flat on the spare bit of counter, all my gear resting on top of that, then rotate the bucket at an angle to get the inside of the fermenter, then call it a day.

I still do the last bit for sanitizing the fermenter, but only make a litre these days[nb]I don't think I've brewed since about 2019 due to child and space but the point stands[/nb].

[ASFTSN]

I'll give that a go next time. Now I've been overly paranoid and this batch seems to be turning out drinkable I think I'll do batch with a bit more of a relaxed 'tude!

[TommyTurnips]

Yep, as Ferris said, just as long as the sanitiser touches all the surfaces you'll be fine. I don't recommend a spray bottle for sanitising bottles as it is a long tedious task and when I tried it I had an achy trigger finger by the time I was finished spraying about 35 bottles. It's much easier to have a washing up bowl or similar vessel full of sanitiser and dunk and soak the bottles in that IMO.

[Ferris]

Bottles go in dishwasher, hot wash cycle for an hour.

There is always a lazy-man solution.

[MojoJojo]

I don't have a dishwasher, would the washing machine work?

[Blue Jam]

Wash and dry bottles, put foil over the necks, sterilise in the oven, leave the foil on until you need to bottle your beer. Just a home autoclave innit.

[MojoJojo]

I might try with a George Foreman grill.

[Blue Jam]

I was a starsan man

Waiting in the sky

[TommyTurnips]

David Bowie's homebrewing hobby demands a re-write!

Alas, I have never had a dishwasher since I left home. It's OK though because I am soon to start kegging. Yes, I got so sick of bottling that I have bought a refurbished corny keg, gas and beverage lines, soda stream bottle and a tap and plan to keg my brew that I will make tomorrow. I've never done this before but I move forward with plans to build a kegerator.

[Ferris]

David Bowie's homebrewing hobby demands a re-write!

Alas, I have never had a dishwasher since I left home. It's OK though because I am soon to start kegging. Yes, I got so sick of bottling that I have bought a refurbished corny keg, gas and beverage lines, soda stream bottle and a tap and plan to keg my brew that I will make tomorrow. I've never done this before but I move forward with plans to build a kegerator.

I lived without a dishwasher for years and it was absolutely fine, then I got one when we moved into our previous apartment and now I'm a hapless dishwasher junky.

Started small, you know, just put the forks in but do the rest by hand, once a week like, as a treat. Last few years it's gotten so I can't go a few days without a go on the old dishwasher, have to have it; feel the washing up tabs between my fingers, the smell of the filter when I rinse it in the sink, the lifestyle.

You should stay away from them if you know what's good for you. Don't be like me.

[Ferris]

Am also fascinated by kegging and kegerators, and demand more information and a few photos when complete. Would love one (and have a space for one in the basement) but I think I'd just sit down there all day getting spangled and playing beat saber.

[TommyTurnips]

I have thought about how to do this for a long time now trying to decide what to do. Basically there are two options, build your own which is cheaper and you can decide which fridge you get and taps, towers, etc or you can buy one which is more expensive. For a long time I was going to buy the mangrove jacks one but I recently heard that it seems quite cheaply made. So I'm doing a Boris Johnson style u-turn and building my own.

I bought this so I can keg and dispense my homebrew in the meantime https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/133496235748

Then I want to buy a fridge with the biggest internal capacity to fit two kegs. I have my eye on a little babe by hotpoint, but have yet to work out if it's viable to drill through the top of it without hitting any wires.

Then I'm going to buy this kegerator kit from the malt miller with Perilic flow control taps https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/product/kegerator-kit-double-tap-tower-perlic-faucets/.

And of course I'll need another keg. I think two taps will be enough. I have a founders brewing wooden tap handle and a stone brewing one too from my travels to go on the taps as I love the American style oddly shaped craft beer taps. I love going into bars over there and seeing a row of creatively shaped handles behind the bar so I'm going to do that with my own bar which will be in the garage/mancave. I've watched loads of kegerator build videos on YouTube so I think I have an idea of how to do it. I'll probably get my dad to advise on the drilling for the tap tower as he is an electrician. That way I can borrow his tools as well.

[Ferris]

Will read this in more depth later - but to stay on-brand, I've always loved these tap handles

https://fanshop.leftfieldbrewery.ca/products/tap-handle

Just nice things.

[TommyTurnips]

I can tell by your profile pic that you would like that tap handle!

[Ferris]

I know, like I say it is ludicrously on-brand. They are beautifully turned pieces of work though, and the beers themselves are easily some of the best in Toronto which puts them in a real upper echelon of quality.

I used to live about 20 mins away so I was in there fairly regularly - I'm not just googling baseball bat beer taps online, promise.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Well I dunno how many brews I actually made since this thread was started about a year ago, but today when bottling a lager and pitching an IPA I used the last of my 25 kilo sack of dextrose and had to order another one!

My from-scratch brew is still moving very, very slowly after giving it a good stir for a couple of minutes with a paint stirrer on my electric drill a couple of weeks ago, so I dug out the yeast I wasn't sure I ruined when I forgot to peel the sachet off a kit and stood it in boiling water. I put the yeast in some warm water with some sugar and it smelled yeasty and there were a few bubbles so I chucked that in and gave the thing another good going with the stirrer, hopefully that'll help finish it off.

[TommyTurnips]

I've never tried making a lager, partly because I prefer ales, and partly because of the cold temperatures they ferment at which has been unachievable for me until now. My brewdog chaos theory clone is currently in my new temperature controlled fermenter which boasts the ability to lager and cold crash so maybe I'll try making a lager this year. I'm slightly disgusted at myself at how much money I spent on this thing, and funny to think that I originally hoped I would save money by home brewing.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The John Bull lager kits aren't bad. Bit flavourless but very easy and come out nice and clear.

On the kegerator tip, my dad has a rotokeg to give me so I think I'm going to get a 2nd hand under counter fridge and play about using that off a sparklet or soda stream attachment (literally just shoved in the fridge with no modification), then work my way up to a korny keg and proper co2 bottle.

[TommyTurnips]

My Nelson Sauvin IPA has been in the fermenter for two weeks now. I'm going to leave it a third week as I always do for the yeast to clean up and then keg it. I bought a hotpoint fridge which arrived today to build a kegerator. I bought this fridge because it has a whopping 149 litres of internal space which fits two corny kegs easily and I found this post on a homebrew forum https://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=69768 where the exact same fridge was used to make a kegerator so that gives me the confidence to drill into it without hopefully hitting any coolant pipes of wiring. I have all the ingredients now to make a kegerator, now just need some sort of hole saw or dremel to cut the hole for the tap tower.

[ASFTSN]

Tried my Ruby Ale first batch yesterday. Got the bowl ready under the pressure barrel tap because I'd read it can get messy. Turned the spigot annnnnndd...

...nothing. No pressure after 2 weeks of secondary fermentation. Tried to increase this with some CO2 canisters in the top so I could actually get the beer out and the resulting fine beer mist and/or noise coming from certain areas seems to indicate it's been sitting there for two weeks with a lid that wasn't tight enough and also a slight leak around the spigot itself. Everything I'd read cautioned about over-tightening either of these things so I suppose I didn't go far enough.

Managed to get enough 'artificial' pressure up to be able to draw off a pint and I would guess the slight exposure to air has had its effects. It's got foam on the top because I over-pressurised it, but the actual body of the beer is flat, and seems to have about 1/4 of the taste it did when I tried it after primary fermentation.

So there we go, first time trying to homebrew beer and it turned out shite. Seems about par. I'll probably try again when I have the energy to do anything.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Did you put vaseline around the gaskets to seal them? That seems to be essential.

If the beer hasn't gone off through being oxygenated, I suppose you could re-seal and give it a second primary since the first will have just been turned into booze. It might be worth doing that even if the beer is a bit of a lost cause to test the integrity and not risk ruining another batch?

[Ferris]

Did you put vaseline around the gaskets to seal them? That seems to be essential.

If the beer hasn't gone off through being oxygenated, I suppose you could re-seal and give it a second primary since the first will have just been turned into booze. It might be worth doing that even if the beer is a bit of a lost cause to test the integrity and not risk ruining another batch?

I'd second this. If it's the HDPE type plastic I'm thinking of, you have to really go some to overtighten it.

Give it another 4 days with some more carbing and see how you feel - worst case, you're no further forward.

[ASFTSN]

Did you put vaseline around the gaskets to seal them? That seems to be essential.

If the beer hasn't gone off through being oxygenated, I suppose you could re-seal and give it a second primary since the first will have just been turned into booze. It might be worth doing that even if the beer is a bit of a lost cause to test the integrity and not risk ruining another batch?

I did indeed. Maybe I should've just slathered more Vaseline on and tightened (...)

Second primary - sorry not sure what you mean here? This was from an extract kit originally.

I'd second this. If it's the HDPE type plastic I'm thinking of, you have to really go some to overtighten it.

Give it another 4 days with some more carbing and see how you feel - worst case, you're no further forward.

Just leave it sitting with the CO2 in for a while and try it again you mean? I was probably being overly harsh yesterday, it's drinkable and not disgusting or anything, just extremely bland and inspid (and not very alcoholic).

[Sebastian Cobb]

Sorry, should've said second secondary, just add the required ~150g of sugar to re-fizz it again. I doubt the co2 from a sparklet will be enough on its own.

[Ferris]

Yeah what Cobb said. The little CO2 cartridges are only enough for serving, not force-carbing.

[ASFTSN]

Happy to report that actually it was only the first few glasses that were naff. The rest seems perfectly drinkable and has in fact got me pleasantly pissed on more than on occasion now. I'm assuming the air leak only affected the beer nearest to the spigot and I caught it in time? Can't wait to make some more!

[TommyTurnips]

I've never used the plastic pressure barrel to dispense my beer, I've only used it to bottle. How is it? Presumably you get that sort of lightly carbonated cask style ale but then you're pressured into drinking the whole bottle in a week before it all goes flat. I've always bottled until recently.