Homebrew Thread

[ugly]

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.
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Everytime I have made real cider from apples and not a kit I havent added anything. The juice will ferment on itsown as there is plenty of naturally occurring yeast and sugar already all over the fruit.
The level of fermentation as in time was what turned apple juice into cider!
i did test it years ago but its at least 18 years since I made cider from apples. I do have a stash of mini barrels from the local shop, 8 pinters to 18 pints and usually buy Harveys the day before the summer BBQ and let it settle.

[Grubby Bum III]

As others have said lets have a Homebrew Thread, so here it is!! Used to do homebrew about 15yrs ago but not since.

Quite agree - last time I tried it was about 25 years ago in the West Country. Haven't had any need to do it since as I was abroad most of the time, and tipple in most foreign places is a reasonable price. So given the insiduous rise in the already exorbitant price/tax in the UK, home brewing is likely to become a popular hobby once again!

[cent05zr70]

Quince? Bloody wooden apples. Only good for throwing at cats.

[ancienturion]

Very sensible thread this. I suppose we couldn't all get together over a few drinks to discuss the finer arts?

On a more sober note, a chemist near me has one complete wall of his shop stocked with wine/beer making kit and is always willing to stop for a quick chat and advice. Meanwhile his collection of eastern european females get on with the dispensing of boring prescriptions.

[ancienturion]

Quince? Bloody wooden apples. Only good for throwing at cats.

And for making some sort of jam/jelly so I am told.

[Kirkz]

Quince! Is that the fruit the cheese eating surrender monkeys call "The Dogs Arse"?

[samain11]

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.

I knew it was legal in NZ because you can order ready made stills from there on various websites, don't think they would get past the revenue man though, easy enough to build though, plenty of plans on-line etc. I used to make a brew we christened "flash" out of a mash consisting of water, tinned tomato puree, sugar and bread yeast. Let it cook in 40 gallon oil drums hidden in the POL point, and then cook it up in my covert still, I reckon it was about 70-75% abv and was pretty neutral a bit like vodka, mix with anything we had to hand and kept all 6 of us ex-pats on the crew well oiled, never got caught by the beardies either. On one occasion I decided to attempt making cider in a 500 ltr water bladder, I hid it in a store trailer and after two days it had blown up so much we couldn't get in to open the valve, looking back we took some risks to stay true to our anglo-saxon heritage.

[Mothman]

OMG dont talk about home brew......I did a few kits of home brew in the early 90's...first couple were average...however the last one i did was wild.... my brother and his partner at the time and my BF had three bottles of the stuff one night..was ok.. nothing great but drinkable....after enjoying the chat for a couple of hours and two of the bottles downed, i decided to go to the loo...i stood up and my legs were pissed could not walk to save my life....as the others laughed their heads off...I crawled to the loo and back again...at this point was called a light weight..much to my humour everyone else had pissed legs, after the third bottle and time to go home, which was a mile away, and an easy walk but not after this brew it was decided just to sleep where we had been sitting..after that i decided not to bother with it...but good luck with yours

My now deceased mum, a former nurse used to make a barley wine she called the 'Epidural'

It had a similar effect as you described. This is something quite common with home brew.

I'm thinking of getting into this, and have an idea for flavoured high strength stout or porter, flavours being licquorice or blackcurrant. Any ideas or experience of this on the forum?

[Brotherton Lad]

There's a US nutter brewing here (26 mins), he cooks on gas:

How To Make Beer (full) - YouTube

Brewing from a kit is much, much simpler. eg Coopers kits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1l1o...eature=related

and extract brewing is a half-way house:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyWzk...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daCvV...eature=related

As a rule of thumb, the more work you have to do, the better the beer (it's also cheaper, though you need to invest in more eqpt).

[old_nis]

I never did it myself, but this was a hobby of some of the lads in my old unit; they said it was legal as no heat was involved, but I bet the HMRC would find some way around the law in order to confiscate it. However, (it's very simple) here goes...

Remember that you are taking cider (the recipe makes apple brandy, the lads weren't fussy) at maybe 5% alcohol and turning it into 70% alcohol, so the volume diminishes pretty fast. Buy many gallons of cider from any supermarket. Buy a second-hand chest freezer, ideally one with a waterproof inner lining (t'lads used to use buckets anyway) and put as much cider into the freezer as possible. Freeze at the minimum temperature available on the dial.

Open the freezer next day, tap the ice to break it, and then lift the ice out, shaking drops of nectar off the shards of ice. This ice is water, not alcohol. The alcohol stays behind in the bucket, getting stronger as the water (ice) is removed. Repeat many times until the cider turns into brandy. When the volume gets down to about 5% of the original, top up again with the contents of the bucket next to it, fill the empty bucket with cider, and repeat ad infinitum.

You will need to sample it regularly for quality-control purposes...