Homebrew

[Wa10]

Do we have any other home brew aficionados in the community? 

And yes, before anybody comments, I am acutely aware that the level of my posts/threads involving alcohol is starting to indicate a problem! 😛

I got into homebrew probably 8-9 years ago originally, progressing from cheap kits to proper all-grain beer brewing and country/hedgerow wines as I was living in the middle of the countryside at the time and had an outhouse which made a perfect brewshed. 

Unfortunately, as with many hobbies, life rather got in the way and I sold all of my extensive kit off a couple of years back when I moved back to my home area. Haven't had the time, space or money to start again for a while, but the boredom of a day off yesterday led me to have a browse of some of my old homebrew haunts online and resulted in me spending far more money than was strictly affordable on far more equipment and ingredients than is strictly sensible...I'm just grateful that I'm currently single and don't have anybody to explain it to/hide it from, haha!

Over the coming weeks I should have 10 gallons of wine and 5 gallons of ale on the go, with a view to it being drinkable (although still rather young) in the summer, and perfect in time for Christmas.

Will post some rather tipsy updates here as I go along, but would love to hear about anybody else who has brewed in the past or who currently dabbles.  

[sheepdog]

See what happens when IT terminology gets too clever...I thought you were going to start a topic on missing packages for the Mac OsX! And just to show what comes up first in my google search:

but no, I don't drink much though curious to try brewing for some reason. Sadly don't have the space to do it though.

[Wa10]

Haha, love it @sheepdog! I was actually thinking you were going to mention homebrew games/apps at first - love my tech but to be honest the whole Apple thing has completely passed me by, so I'd never heard of Homebrew in that context.

I know my posts tend to suggest otherwise, but believe it or not I tend not to drink much either, haha. Although when it's readily on tap at a cost of pence per pint (and not many more pence per glass of wine) I suspect I may inbibe slightly more 😛

When I used to do All-Grain it was quite a substantial setup and needed a full shed to house it all...which was the perfect excuse to have a proper bar in the garden too, hehe. However now I've gone back to basics it only takes a small table in the corner of the spare room with a couple of buckets.

First batch of goodies arrived last night, got one more delivery and then the chaos can commence!  

[Wa10]

3 weeks in, and it's taking over again, haha!!

Bottled a gallon of particularly crisp, dry Chardonnay last night and kegged 5 gallons of dark mild. Tonight is bottling 5 gallons of cider, and second stage on a couple of experimental brews - a rather odd beetroot and blueberry based wine (which is smelling lovely, but will be one to lay down for a couple of years to mature and develop real depth of flavour I reckon) and also a fruity concoction of Pineapple and Coconut which I intend to fortify with white rum and bottle as a kind of liqueur - again probably a keeper rather than one for this year.

Anybody got the number for AA? "Hick"! 😛  Hehe 

[Martin-O2]

Sounds like it's all going really well @Wa10! What would you say the hardest type of drink is to make when homebrewing? 

[Wa10]

Sadly any kind of spirit, as you need so much more equipment...and it's not legal in this country anyway. 😞

Other than that, a decent red wine is a challenge. Most tend to come out more of a Rosé as it's difficult to get the body and depth of flavour/colour from juice. Now if I could use fresh grapes complete with the skins and pulp then I'd probably have much more success, but that would get incredibly messy and expensivd!

There are some half decent red wine kits at the top end of the market, probably equating to £1.50-£2 per bottle which is still a decent saving, but I've been spoiled by juice based wines coming in at 3 or 4 bottles for £2 hehe.

Have got a bit of an experimental red on the go at the moment, using a blend of beetroot, blueberry and red grape juices in the hope it will hold it's colour and body well. Wont be ready to drink for at least a couple of years though, which will hopefully give the flavours time to mellow out. 

At the opposite end of the scale...a few lites of cheap apple juice, a bag of sugar and a pinch of yeast is all it really takes to make a passable cider.  

What's your tipple of choice @Martin-O2? And I'll see what I can knock together  

[Martin-O2]

@Wa10 You'll have to let me know how that red turns out  

Ahh OK so you base in on a solution rather then grapes! I wasn't aware making you're own spirit was illegal. I suppose you have to use heat and pressure which could get serous so it makes sense. 

[Wa10]

Will do.

I sometimes do "Country Wines" using actual fruit, but other than that it tends to be juice or juice concentrate as a base. The commercial wine kits you can buy tend to have grape juice concentrate included, whereas a lot of mine are based on supermarket fruit juices. And lots and lots of sugar to turn into the intoxicating stuff, haha.

If I was allowed to brew and distil my own whisky, I'd be in heaven!! Not so lucky though sadly 😞 I think it's a combination of safety issues and HMRC duty that's the sticking point.