Homebrew Thread

[Brotherton Lad]

Several quince recipes in here and lots of others:

Booze for Free: Amazon.co.uk: Andy Hamilton: Books

Quince does make nice jam, though.

[Bubbles_Barker]

Is a (sotto voce) shed warm enough for brewing

Add a plug in 'warming belt' and bingo!

As long as your s**d has power.

[BONNACON]

I got two 5 gallon burco's given me a couple of weeks ago. Let the party begin!!

[Lardbeast]

Use champagne yeast for your ciders. As Brother BL has mentioned, brewing is not difficult and the results are well worth your time and effort. Main thing is to keep hygiene standards high or you risk the beer getting an infection.

Got a couple of gallons of Bock left, made with a lot of dark malt giving a very chocolatey flavour. Also have five gallons of Bitter to be broached soon as well as a load of ginger beer brewing. Ginger beer around 3% ABV which leaves a fair bit of sugar to give it a sweeter flavour. Using malt for the GB also gives a good colour, and conditioning in the keg for a week or so makes for a well carbonated drink with a good head.

[eodmatt]

Been brewing for many a year. Used to do 20 gallon batches of wine in 5 gallon acid carboys "donated" by the big REME workshops in Aldershot. Had to get rid of about 30 gallons in 1980 on posting to Germany so had an "open night at home" - free booze for anyone who was passing. The ex HiD told everyone at work (Aldershot police station) and so that night there were up to 10 police cars at any one time outside the house and the stainless steel sink was full of police radios as virtually every on duty and many off duty police turned up for a free scoop. Cracking night that was.

[samain11]

I planted 10 vines in the garden some years ago to form a fence and get enough juice for 25-30 bottles of red depending on the crop, most expensive parts of the process were the vines, £7 each and the fruit press which i ended up buying off ebay for £125, printed up my own "chateaux chite" labels and started talking about things like "hints of elderberry" and the quality of my "cellar" which is bollocks because none of it lasts long enough to get laid down, more like thrown down.....the neck. Its a pity that distilling is illegal because I picked up this important skill from my Czech sidekick when I was working on a siesmic crew in Ragheadistan and became quite good at building and operating reflux tower stills that looked like window-mounted aircons.

[Brotherton Lad]

Been brewing for many a year. Used to do 20 gallon batches of wine in 5 gallon acid carboys "donated" by the big REME workshops in Aldershot. Had to get rid of about 30 gallons in 1980 on posting to Germany so had an "open night at home" - free booze for anyone who was passing. The ex HiD told everyone at work (Aldershot police station) and so that night there were up to 10 police cars at any one time outside the house and the stainless steel sink was full of police radios as virtually every on duty and many off duty police turned up for a free scoop. Cracking night that was.

Did that pack of yeast ever turn up in your neck of the woods, eod?

[wet_blobby]

Distilling is quite legal down here, you can buy distilling kits off the shelf. The Chief spanner monkey at our gig does an awesome bourbon, $20 a litre.

[happybonzo]

I use a garden shredder for Cider making. I've found that it does a pretty good job of producing pulp. I got mine off Ebay.

Another thing I found is that most of the wine fruit presses seem to rust to bits with the acidic content of apple juice. There's some really good videos on YouTube of how to make your own press using timber and a small bottle jack. If I get the time, I'm going to fabricate one from stainless steel.

Wine Works are a good supplier for all equipment, especially if you are after the more interesting items such as this little beauty

[ancienturion]

I was only going to have a quick look at this thread for interest sake but it's very thirsty work so I've had just a couple to keep me going. I shall now have to try and write myself a note re home booze.