Culture. Homebrew

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  1.  
    I have just moved in to my new place and I have a large cellar, so I am looking at homebrewing kits.

    Has anyone got any experience and even some good links I can check out?

    I would like to brew my own blonde lager!
  2.  
    Kilju

    That should see you right.

    I like this bit:

    "Kilju also has a strong association with the Finnish punk subculture due to the DIY- and anti-establishment-aspects of the drink. In Finland, only licensed restaurants and the government monopoly Alko are allowed to sell drinks with an ABV content of over 4.7%. Drinking homebrew can thus be considered a form of anti-authoritarian protest."
  3.  
    A train set would surely be more suitable. I wish I had room for a proper train set at home.
  4.  
    during the economic depression that followed the Finnish banking crisis of the early 1990s yeast strains known as turbo yeast were introduced to the market. These yeast strains allow for a very rapid fermentation to full strength, in some cases in as little as three days


    3 days! - goodbye liver.
  5.  
    @Fluffica



    ?
  6.  
    I was thinking a little grander in scale and detail.
  7.  
    Is the cellar tanked Dave?
  8.  
    Start a wine cellar! I'd love a wine cellar. I'd go down there and drink from dusty bottles of vintage claret by candle light.
  9.  
    and get a built-in humidor down there too!
  10.  
    as the suggestions have degraded, I'll weigh in with

  11.  

    I brew my own beer from time to time (just the kit stuff at the minute - I've not tried any fancy full-grain brewing yet) and call on my girlfriends dad for advice as he's been doing it for years too.

    I get my stuff from a local homebrew shop, The Happy Brewer in Bedford, and pick up other bits from a local Wilkinsons (don't know if you've got one near you) but you might like to take a look at these folks on teh interwebs:

    Homebrew Megastore - this will get you kitted out, and I'd recommend Brewferm kits if you want belgian style beers (I particularly like their "Oud Bruin" - I've got 24 litres waiting to be bottled off right now)

    BrewUK - this or this are similar starter setups but come with a beer kit too, so this will give you your first 40 pints right out of the gate.

    I'd suggest that you get mid-range beer kits to start with (~£10, Coopers etc.), and then move on to the better ones (£13+, Muntons, Brewferm etc.) once you've got the hang of it as you're bound to not make quite such a good job of it the first few times. I'd give the cheaper "one tin" kits that advise you to use 1kg normal sugar a miss as they're not as nice, and stick with "2 tin / all malt extract" kits as they give a fuller, more rounded flavour.

    A lot of the kits themselves are made by the same people (Muntons) as you'll see if you look at the business addresses on some of the kits if you see them in the flesh (Geordie == Muntons, for example).

    Give me a shout if you want any more info - happy to help.

  12.  
    A cellar, you say.....?

  13.  

    Oh, and you're looking at about £60 - £80 to get set up and sort your first 40 pints (so £2 per pint), and then between £10 and £20 for each subsequent 40 pints (so 25-50p per pint).

    Initial fermentation takes about a week depending on strength and conditions (yeast like a nice warm room temperature), and then it's off into a barrel or bottles to condition and settle for a few days somewhere warm to kick off a minor secondary fermentation (to carbonate the beer), and then as long as you can stand to leave them in a cool, dark place (like your cellar) to properly condition.

    It's drinkable as soon as its cleared, but most beers will benefit from keeping for a while as the minor amounts of residual yeast slowly nibble away at the harsher chemical edges in the brew to make it a more pleasant and rounded drink.

    The big thing is to make sure that your brewing kit, barrel, bottles etc. are well sterilised before the beer gets in contact with it as yeast, beer and bacteria aren't a good mix - Milton tablets from the baby aisle of your chosen supermarket do an admirable and piss-easy job of this.

  14.  
    @ jamd - hehe

    @ Andy, does it taste alright? Every time I have tried home brew its been rank.
  15.  
    Is homebrew fizzy like draught beer? Sorry if thats a silly question, I know nothing about non commercial beer.
  16.  

    Nate - it tastes ok to me ;-)

    Gecko - homebrew ales end up lightly carbonated (like a traditional pub bitter), but lagers can have a bit more fizz to them, as can ciders (unless you make a flat / lightly carbonated one).

    The secondary fermentation once you've barrelled/bottled them is what creates the carbonation - the CO2 given off by the yeast converting sugars to alcohol can't go anywhere in the sealed vessel so it generates internal pressure (hence the pop when you open a bottle) and carbonates the liquid itself.

    I did some a 2 or 3 years ago for xmas and took a few bottles in to work for the lads, and one stayed un-drunk for a full year (spending about 6 months of that time in the company fridge), and certain people were deeply dubious about it when it was finally cracked open, but after 1 year of bottle conditioning it was bloody lovely - just ask Mr Harper.

    The cheaper kits aren't as good as they only have the single can of malt extract to provide the flavour and character of the beer, with the sugars for fermentation being supplemented with good old fashioned white sugar such as might enhance your morning cuppa.

    The "all extract" 2-tin kits have twice the flavour potential and don't require additional plain sugar, so they're likely to have a more rounded flavour.

    I guess it depends on what kits you use and how fastidious you are - if you make sure everything is cleaned, syphon off properly, let everything settle, and give it time to prove then it can be pretty nice.

    If you want to be super-hardcore then you can get yourself a big-ass saucepan and go the whole hog with a full grain brew where you boil the malted barley up, add hops for flavour etc., to get your "wort" which then gets diluted down and fermented on, so what you're doing is exactly the same as traditional brewing, just on a smaller scale.

    The stuff in the tins is basically an equivalent to condensed wort - a tick malty, hoppy treacle that you dilute and set the yeast loose on without the need for boiling and generally looking like one of the witches from Macbeth stirring a cauldron.

  17.  
    On a similar theme, if you havent seen it already I suggest you checkout an American documentary called Beerwars. Its a pretty good insight into the unfair way American beer industry works.
  18.  
    Andy gave me some of his beer for Christmas once. It was ... interesting.
  19.  

    Andy gave me some of his beer for Christmas once. It was ... interesting.

    I told you that you should let it condition a bit...

  20.  
    Start a cheese cellar. You can get all the shit you need to start making cheese off eBay. Cheese is much more rock and roll than beer making.

    Home-brewing beer is only a few steps away from morris dancing and being in wicker man.

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