Home Brew Questions

[Voley]

More action this end, too.

The Headcracker is finished leaving only a trail of wrecked braincells and broken furniture in it's wake. The Wherry is now a very quaffable Light Summer Ale having conditioned in the bottles for a few weeks. It's not too strong so a good session ale. The cider is best described as 'an acquired taste' but I diluted it by a third again with apple juice and I like it now. I'm the only one that does, mind, most turn their nose up at it. Suits me. The cinnamon and cloves were a good idea. I've got 5 gallons of Admiral's Reserve on a secondary ferment and I've just put a pack of Munton's liquid gold Pilsner Lager on to ferment, too. If that wasn't enough (and it surely is, by anyone's standards) I've got a Muntons IPA kit to get cracking on once some bottles become available.

It's a great feeling having some genuinely good beer in the house that you've made. I like trying the beer out on people and seeing how pleasantly surprised they are by the quality. Good fun this new hobby of mine.

 

[badseed]

Thread should not die.
Anyone made spirits? my wife has expressed interest in me making my own vodka

 

[berniedicters]

Thread should not die.
Anyone made spirits? my wife has expressed interest in me making my own vodka

It's trickier: needs lots more kit.

And it's very illegal. Though not quite as likely to poison people as "the authorities" would have you believe. But you have to make a lot of mash to get not a vast amount of spirit, so it doesn't really lend itself to domestic scale production.

 

[Sir Belchalot]

You can make a small, cheap still to experiment with out of a pressure cooker & tubing from the back of an old fridge (clean it with caustic soda first though). The tubing's the ideal size to fit through the rubber ring on the pressure cooker.
Don't drink the 1st 10% of spirit produced though. 10 litres of mash will produce a litre or so of spirits (minus the 100ml that you discard). Made some years ago using this method & was potent but safe.

 

[berniedicters]

You can make a small, cheap still to experiment with out of a pressure cooker & tubing from the back of an old fridge (clean it with caustic soda first though). The tubing's the ideal size to fit through the rubber ring on the pressure cooker.
Don't drink the 1st 10% of spirit produced though. 10 litres of mash will produce a litre or so of spirits (minus the 100ml that you discard). Made some years ago using this method & was potent but safe.

To be on the safe side, you may want to discard the last 10%, too.

The first 10% will be heavy on methanol, which is Seriously Bad Shit and makes people go blind. The last 10% will tend to have a lot of the higher alcohols and fusels, which are what tends to make the spirit a bit heavier and more prone to causing hangovers.

This is particularly the case with a bodged-up still like a pressure cooker.

Do remember that you are combining flame (or at least heat) with a highly inflammable substance. It's not coincidence that distilleries often burned down...

Remember also that, when bodging up stills, the worst things are often not methanol but impurities collected off the equipment: there was a spate of serious poisonings some years ago in the Deep South in the US, which were traced to people using car radiators as part of their distillation setup. These had been soldered with lead solder, which the hot distillate was bringing very neatly into solution and concentrating. Bad news all round.

So I'd be tempted to make sure I was using pristine tubes, and knowing exactly what I was doing...

 

[Sir Belchalot]

Just a note on safety. Make sure that the vapour/spirit are well away from naked flames when doing the run. Check the purity of your spirit by lighting some in a spoon. It should burn with a blue flame, if it doesn't don't drink it!
Just seen the post above, all good advice.

 

[badseed]

I was thinking about one of these air stiller thingies, makes it a bit easier and safer I think.
It looks a bit more complicated than I thought though and Smirnoff Red Label is on special at my local bottle shop so I might wait a while.

http://stillspirits.com/wa.asp?idWebPage=6149&idDetails=137

Put it on my to do list along with the all grain set up.

I just made a lovely ale with:
lager kit
1 can pale liquid malt
500g wheat malt extract.
250g Carapils (cracked and steeped for 30 minutes)
15g Amarillo and 15g Saaz dry hopped at the end
Safale yeast.

 

[Stig]

I'm going to set off a new brew tomorrow, as I haven't done one for a good few weeks now, but not sure what to do.

I probably want a golden ale, as my last few have been dark ones; mild and porter etc, but I can't find any good recipes out there, just slightly boring ones.

I've found a timothy taylor's landlord recipe, but I really want something like an Oakham JHB recipe.

PS this scary stills stuff, it it the same with freezing cider off to get applejack brandy, regarding the meths and fusels?

 

[Griff]

Went into Wilkinsons on Saturday for some gardening stuff and came away with a Yorkshire Bitter kit, 5 gallon tank, hydrometer, syphon, bottles and caps.

Got it all bubbling away in the houthouse now.

 

[badseed]

Went into Wilkinsons on Saturday for some gardening stuff and came away with a Yorkshire Bitter kit, 5 gallon tank, hydrometer, syphon, bottles and caps.

Got it all bubbling away in the houthouse now.

Is this your first time?
If you haven't, you really should read this thread

 

[Stig]

Mine is having trouble getting down to pitching temperature, damn this hot weather.
I don't have a wort chiller either, not for want of trying, I'm still arguing with hop and grape about that having paid them 100 quid for some stuff on April the fecking 5th! They've 'gone on holiday' now.

 

[Voley]

If I've had a batch of beer in a fully pressurised keg fermenting away for weeks and I now want to bottle it, do I still need to stick some sugar in the bottles?

 

[berniedicters]

If I've had a batch of beer in a fully pressurised keg fermenting away for weeks and I now want to bottle it, do I still need to stick some sugar in the bottles?

Yes, probably.

When you decant to bottle, you'll certainly keep some of the CO2 in solution, but you'll lose most of it. You're also going to find you may have a problem with foaming up, if you're decanting carbonated beer...

I was just thinking about this thread. I'm going to get married in 11 months or so, and it strikes me that it might make some sense to brew up a nice nuptial ale. So I should start to think about something special I might do for the occasion. Probably something fairly high-gravity and exotic.

 

[Voley]

Thanks, agnes. I thought as much.

I agree with your suggestion about a wedding ale, too. A one-off for the reception would be a nice touch.

Just finished brewing some Admiral's Reserve which is a nice hoppy Summery brew. Took a long time to clear but was worth waiting for. It's going into bottles today and I'm getting a batch of Munton's Fixby Gold on tomorrow.

 

[berniedicters]

Thanks, agnes. I thought as much.

I agree with your suggestion about a wedding ale, too. A one-off for the reception would be a nice touch.

Just finished brewing some Admiral's Reserve which is a nice hoppy Summery brew. Took a long time to clear but was worth waiting for. It's going into bottles today and I'm getting a batch of Munton's Fixby Gold on tomorrow.

Heh, that pint on the pack image looks like it had a spot of bother clearing, too!

 

[Voley]

Mine's a hell of a lot cloudier than that. Tastes good though. Light and refreshing. Just right for this weather, really. not too strong so you can get a few down you fairly happily, too.

 

[DotCommunist]

Sterilising me demijohns:

can I just use generic baby bottle sterilising stuff or is it essential to buy specialist brewers stuff?

 

[Voley]

I would've thought that was alright.

Agnes? What do you reckon?

 

[berniedicters]

Sterilising me demijohns:

can I just use generic baby bottle sterilising stuff or is it essential to buy specialist brewers stuff?

I user baby stuff. You need to rinse well afterwards - the Milton type products tend to be chlorine-based disinfectants such as sodium hypochlorite or dichloroisocyanutate (I just went and read that off the box ), which will tend to leave a bit of a taint. So clean, sterilise and rinse and the job's a good 'un!

 

[DotCommunist]

sweet, I can get some of that free

 

[berniedicters]

General tip, which probably won't apply to most of us...don't soak stainless steel vessels in chlorine-based disinfectants. It destroys the steel surprisingly quickly. So if you do use bleaches (for example) to clean SS utensils, don't soak them, and rinse them quickly afterwards.

 

[mr steev]

My mate has given me some 'videne' which he's been raving about.
You can get it from chemists. dilute 1ml to a litre of cold water and just spray it on what needs to be sterilised. No need to rinse as it evaporates. It just needs to be in contact with the surface for 20 seconds

 

[berniedicters]

My mate has given me some 'videne' which he's been raving about.
You can get it from chemists. dilute 1ml to a litre of cold water and just spray it on what needs to be sterilised. No need to rinse as it evaporates. It just needs to be in contact with the surface for 20 seconds

Right, well, that's an iodine-based steriliser, so you don't have quite the same problem with taint. We lesser mortals can also get iodophor, which is a kind of demilitarised version of videne But I will look at costs, because iodophor can be quite pricey (yonks since I bought mine, though), and if the videne is cheaper I'll go for that.

One thing I do notice - it has a few additional ingredients, viz. Alkyl Phenol Ether Sulphate (Ammonium Salt), Glycerin BP, Citric Acid, Anhydrous Sodium Phosphate, Purified Water BP.

I don't know what effect some of those might have on the brewing process - but it's possible they might. And a 10% solution goes for about £6/500ml, which is a fair bit pricier than iodophor, but I'm not sure about concentrations with the iodophor.

For completeness, we should probably also mention the oxygenating bleaches, which don't have the taint problem, but are more expensive. Look for stuff containing sodium percarbonate.

 

[lighterthief]

Quick question: just starting to brew a batch of beer and have discovered 2 bags of Young's 'Body Bru', ie 1kg of malto dextrin.

Is this stuff used as a substitute for sugar? For example, I'm going to add 1kg of spray malt to this batch instead of 1kg sugar, but next time round could I add the Body Bru instead?

Ta

 

[berniedicters]

Quick question: just starting to brew a batch of beer and have discovered 2 bags of Young's 'Body Bru', ie 1kg of malto dextrin.

Is this stuff used as a substitute for sugar? For example, I'm going to add 1kg of spray malt to this batch instead of 1kg sugar, but next time round could I add the Body Bru instead?

Ta

Nonononono!!

Body Bru is a non-fermentable sugar - maltodextrose - that is added to increase the "body" of a beer by not getting fermented to alcohol. Although it's not as sweet as sucrose or glucose, it does leave a residual sweetness and weight to the brew.

So it will be no good as a substitute for spraymalt! You want smaller quantities of that, added to a medium to high gravity beer to give it a bit less of the old loopyjuice factor and make it taste a bit "bigger" (along with all the nice hops and quality yeast ).

When barley is malted and roasted at quite high temperatures, one of the effects is to produce similar "higher" sugars as a result of the roasting, which are non- (or at least less) fermentable, so it's no surprise with the kind of beers you're looking at brewing from such malts are usually quite high gravity and very much full-bodied ales (Stout being a particularly good example - brewed with very roasted malts = medium to high gravity, lots of body).

 

[lighterthief]

You want smaller quantities of that, added to a medium to high gravity beer to give it a bit less of the old loopyjuice factor and make it taste a bit "bigger"

Ah. I see!

So...when and in what quantities might Body Bru make a pleasing difference?

For example, next batch will be Munton's Mild, which has turned out very nice in the past with 1kg of dark spraymalt substituted for the 1kg sugar required - could Body Bru be put to some use here, albeit in smaller quantities?

 

[berniedicters]

Ah. I see!

So...when and in what quantities might Body Bru make a pleasing difference?

For example, next batch will be Munton's Mild, which has turned out very nice in the past with 1kg of dark spraymalt substituted for the 1kg sugar required - could Body Bru be put to some use here, albeit in smaller quantities?

Here's a bit of detail about dextrins in brewing.

As far as quantities go, you're probably looking at a maximum of 500g per batch, and that'd have to be for a seriously robust beer. Typically, you might be adding 25, 50g. Best probably to dissolve it in boiling water, thus sterilising it and making it easier to dissolve - I hear it's a bit difficult to get it to - before adding it to the brew.

 

[lighterthief]

Thanks for that agnesdavies - useful to know for next time. Heard my batch blooping away under the stairs this morning which is such a pleasing sound to the ear

 

[mr steev]

I'm going to start a batch of festive cider over the weekend by adding some cinnamon and cloves etc. Anyone got any ideas of how much spice I should use for a gallon?

 

[berniedicters]

I'm going to start a batch of festive cider over the weekend by adding some cinnamon and cloves etc. Anyone got any ideas of how much spice I should use for a gallon?

There's not really an amount. I often add a light fistful of cinnamon, which is just about enough to give the cider a slight cinamonny edge. My guess is that you'd probably not want that much cloves, though. I think this one's definitely down to trial and error!