heinous seamus
Perfect in an empty room
I'm just drinking the first bottle of my elderflower pale ale. It's quality 
Home Brew Questions
- Thread starter Voley
- Start date
badseed
Mighty but thin.
The plastic PET bottles are good for this, they release the pressure before they can explode. You can use them over and over.
TopCat
Putin fanboy
I have a huge soup of stale stout and glass shards with maybe ten bottles intact that will prob blow up if I move the huge plastic crate they are in.
I'm instead moving house tomorrow and abandoning this project to my son to sort out while I hold hands and that with my big love.
I'm instead moving house tomorrow and abandoning this project to my son to sort out while I hold hands and that with my big love.
TopCat
Putin fanboy
The recent still cider is really good. Fermented for 12 weeks. Reall clean and very strong. Mostly gone now. Big love remarked today on the two lonely but full demijohns I brought over. As in where is the rest?
I smiled as I unloaded my air rifle, my kayak and my plant collection.
All good.
I smiled as I unloaded my air rifle, my kayak and my plant collection.
All good.
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
I made an apple wine. Two demijohns, split a 40 pint cider kit between them, then added a kilo of sugar to each, very gently.
It was ready at New Year, I warned people that it was very strong, but of course it didn't taste strong. New Year's Day... can't remember what the movie the quote comes from, but, I did see dead people.
TopCat
Putin fanboy
I served some of mine in pint glasses half full of ice. Gave the guest half a chance.I made an apple wine. Two demijohns, split a 40 pint cider kit between them, then added a kilo of sugar to each, very gently.
It was ready at New Year, I warned people that it was very strong, but of course it didn't taste strong. New Year's Day... can't remember what the movie the quote comes from, but, I did see dead people.
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
First hedgerow plonk started today:
5g Rhubarb, strawberry, raspberry and blackberry
5g Whitecurrant (old work colleague called up and said she had a surfeit - about 10 lb
)
The season has started
5g Rhubarb, strawberry, raspberry and blackberry
5g Whitecurrant (old work colleague called up and said she had a surfeit - about 10 lb
)The season has started
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
Operation “Free Booze” is underway. 24 gallons of hedgerow plonk plopping away - flavours are: Whitecurrant & BlackBerry, Rhubarb & BlackBerry and just plain old BlackBerry. Watching the elderberries closely for the next wave. Already getting offers of apples for next month so this season may be mighty indeed!
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I really want to get in amongst the blackberries this year. Jam, wine, crumbles (I'll probably just blanch and freeze the berries), gin, you name it, they're going in it...
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
That’s the spirit! The cool thing is the BlackBerry season has barely started. All I’ve picked have been those highest up (which for a tall chap like me is no problem) while the vast majority remain green. Despite this each gallon has 3lb of ripe fruit in it
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
We've got a fair way to go here in Wales - not seeing any evidence of fruit much near ripeness here yet...That’s the spirit! The cool thing is the BlackBerry season has barely started. All I’ve picked have been those highest up (which for a tall chap like me is no problem) while the vast majority remain green. Despite this each gallon has 3lb of ripe fruit in it
jontz01
taking refuge in the loft
Anyone have experience with hopping a brew kit? I've just picked up 46g of freeze dried tangerine dream hops. Intending to add some to a Coopers European lager kit at approx 23L. Not sure of best method to use... I brew in plastic buclets with clingfim. Super basic... Any advice gratefully recieved. Cheers.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Let the fermentation get underway, and lob a fistful of hops in. You may want to use a hop bag (or a well boiled sock), or a strainer at racking time.
Scaggs
following seagulls
I only add pelleted hops to kits because I assume they are sterile. The Hops I grow myself I usually add to the boil when I'm doing an all grain brew. You could make an 'hop tea' with them and add them that way but I've not tried that yet.
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
Tried my elderflower wine yesterday. Something must have gone badly wrong as it tastes fucking horrible - like creosote! Now I know what a new garden shed tastes like.
In better news, was out brambling this morning and noticed apples and elderberries are starting to ripen so will switch from blackberries to cider in a week or two. Did a lovely scrumpy with elderberry wine (ratio of 4:1) last year - complemented each other beautifully. 36 gallons of hedgerow plonk so far - it’s getting difficult to move around the house but the smell is great
In better news, was out brambling this morning and noticed apples and elderberries are starting to ripen so will switch from blackberries to cider in a week or two. Did a lovely scrumpy with elderberry wine (ratio of 4:1) last year - complemented each other beautifully. 36 gallons of hedgerow plonk so far - it’s getting difficult to move around the house but the smell is great
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
6 gallons of scrumpy squeezed today - first of the season. Good to clean down the equipment and get down to it. I’m averse to exercise for exercise’s sake but cranking an apple press for a couple of hours beats any gym 
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
Just spent the morning scratting a car load of apples (18 gallons of scrumpy so far) - probably another 5-6 gallons in this bin of pulp
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
Racking off the hedgerow plonk before the cider season begins in earnest. Here’s my “Wall of Wine” (plus cider and mead) so far with 24 more gallons still to be packed away in a similar fashion. It’s all getting a bit silly really but must follow my instincts on this one - and try to work out where to store my tools and gardening equipment 
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
Anyone come across this?
A mate phoned and said he'd been to the shop in Chesterfield and they sell stills
They sell stills and the bloke told him that it's not illegal to distill your own alcohol as long as you don't sell it.
This seemed highly tempting to me so I looked at the site but right up front they say "It is illegal to manufacture spirits in the UK without a distiller's licence".
I checked and apparently if you distill without a licence you risk a £1000 fine and your still confiscated. This clearly didn't bother the bloke in the shop since he'll already have sold the still - the one my mate was considering (and who wouldn't?) cost £800. I checked their FAQs and there was no mention of this (nor for some reason of blindness nor explosions if something goes wrong).
They do sell lots of flavourings that apparently you can add to cheap vodka with (my mate tells me) really good results. I probably won't bother because Aldi do really good prices on gin, rum and port which are the ones I'm mainly interested in.
A mate phoned and said he'd been to the shop in Chesterfield and they sell stills
They sell stills and the bloke told him that it's not illegal to distill your own alcohol as long as you don't sell it.This seemed highly tempting to me so I looked at the site but right up front they say "It is illegal to manufacture spirits in the UK without a distiller's licence".
I checked and apparently if you distill without a licence you risk a £1000 fine and your still confiscated. This clearly didn't bother the bloke in the shop since he'll already have sold the still - the one my mate was considering (and who wouldn't?) cost £800. I checked their FAQs and there was no mention of this (nor for some reason of blindness nor explosions if something goes wrong).
They do sell lots of flavourings that apparently you can add to cheap vodka with (my mate tells me) really good results. I probably won't bother because Aldi do really good prices on gin, rum and port which are the ones I'm mainly interested in.
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
Anyone come across this?
A mate phoned and said he'd been to the shop in Chesterfield and they sell stills
This seemed highly tempting to me so I looked at the site but right up front they say "It is illegal to manufacture spirits in the UK without a distiller's licence".
I checked and apparently if you distill without a licence you risk a £1000 fine and your still confiscated. This clearly didn't bother the bloke in the shop since he'll already have sold the still - the one my mate was considering (and who wouldn't?) cost £800. I checked their FAQs and there was no mention of this (nor for some reason of blindness nor explosions if something goes wrong).
They do sell lots of flavourings that apparently you can add to cheap vodka with (my mate tells me) really good results. I probably won't bother because Aldi do really good prices on gin, rum and port which are the ones I'm mainly interested in.
It’s perfectly legal to buy those electric stills but (a bit like buying certain seeds..) it’s for distilling water or extracting essential oils. The fact that you could use it for alcoholic distillation is acknowledged but not condoned (as many home brew shop owners have informed me with a wink
)Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
Yeah, its akin to buying a bong, which, on no account should you use to smoke illicit substances.Anyone come across this?
A mate phoned and said he'd been to the shop in Chesterfield and they sell stills
This seemed highly tempting to me so I looked at the site but right up front they say "It is illegal to manufacture spirits in the UK without a distiller's licence".
I checked and apparently if you distill without a licence you risk a £1000 fine and your still confiscated. This clearly didn't bother the bloke in the shop since he'll already have sold the still - the one my mate was considering (and who wouldn't?) cost £800. I checked their FAQs and there was no mention of this (nor for some reason of blindness nor explosions if something goes wrong).
They do sell lots of flavourings that apparently you can add to cheap vodka with (my mate tells me) really good results. I probably won't bother because Aldi do really good prices on gin, rum and port which are the ones I'm mainly interested in.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
There are legitimate uses for stills - I believe people use them to get essential oils out of stuff, for example.Yeah, its akin to buying a bong, which, on no account should you use to smoke illicit substances.
I'm a bit dubious about the whole blindness/explosions thing, though. There are some basic precautions you have to take (you discard the first and final runnings, to keep the methanols out of it), but most of the "poisonous spirit" stuff was more about the way moonshine was often cooled by passing through car radiators, which have a lot of lead in them, that hot alcohol leaches out very effectively. Similarly, the explosion risk - while definitely there - is manageable with comparatively basic safety precautions, and these stills are often either electrically powered, or can be used on electric cookers, eliminating the naked flame/alcohol vapour issue.
I think it's still something to be approached with caution, but the fact is that the Revenue are keen to big up the fear angle is because they know they don't have a hope in hell of controlling small-scale spirit production in practice.
On a slightly tangential note, a friend of mine bought a property in Brittany - a collection of buildings that had housed a butcher's shop and abattoir, with outbuildings. Having moved in, he was going through the loft and found a sealed carboy which, on further examination, turned out to contain about 20 litres of "eau de vie du cidre" - Calvados, by any other name, and if not home-distilled, almost certainly made by the mobile still which comes around the villages once a year, providing you have the "grandfather" rights to use it. But I suspect there's a lot of quiet illegal distilling going on - you don't have to be in the social circle long before people start offering you strangely pale liquids from well-used Johnny Walker bottles
What they don't do is to sell it or share it openly.ETA: it tasted very nice indeed.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
There are legitimate uses for stills - I believe people use them to get essential oils out of stuff, for example.
I'm a bit dubious about the whole blindness/explosions thing, though. There are some basic precautions you have to take (you discard the first and final runnings, to keep the methanols out of it), but most of the "poisonous spirit" stuff was more about the way moonshine was often cooled by passing through car radiators, which have a lot of lead in them, that hot alcohol leaches out very effectively. Similarly, the explosion risk - while definitely there - is manageable with comparatively basic safety precautions, and these stills are often either electrically powered, or can be used on electric cookers, eliminating the naked flame/alcohol vapour issue.
I think it's still something to be approached with caution, but the fact is that the Revenue are keen to big up the fear angle is because they know they don't have a hope in hell of controlling small-scale spirit production in practice.
On a slightly tangential note, a friend of mine bought a property in Brittany - a collection of buildings that had housed a butcher's shop and abattoir, with outbuildings. Having moved in, he was going through the loft and found a sealed carboy which, on further examination, turned out to contain about 20 litres of "eau de vie du cidre" - Calvados, by any other name, and if not home-distilled, almost certainly made by the mobile still which comes around the villages once a year, providing you have the "grandfather" rights to use it. But I suspect there's a lot of quiet illegal distilling going on - you don't have to be in the social circle long before people start offering you strangely pale liquids from well-used Johnny Walker bottles
ETA: it tasted very nice indeed.
If I'd just bought myself a small pot still from say, Amazon, I suspect that Calvados would be my 1st attempt, were I to be an inconsiderate defrauder of the Exchequer.
Entirely coincidentally, I appear to have collected 24 litres of Lidl apple juice, several kilos of peeled, cored & frozen Bramleys, sugar & some high-alcohol fruit yeast. A nice project for the spring!
Also, found a reasonably-informative book called "The Joy of Home Distilling" by Rick Morris.
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
First Scrumpy bottling from last year’s batch - 8 pints bottled, 300 or so to go...
telbert
Do you like sponge?
My first batch of Turbo Cider is now underway. 20 lt of Sainsbury's cheapest apple juice, cider yeast and nutrient . Ive insulated the space under my bench in the shed, put some doors on and installed a tube heater & thermostat .
Just have to wait for the magic to happen now.
Just have to wait for the magic to happen now.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Medium sweet? Your turbo cider will, of course, be drier than a vicar's wit, so may be worth exploring sweetening arrangements. Lactose is good, as long as you're not lactose-intolerant.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
One of the nicest ways I found to drink it was to use something like elderflower cordial - put a slug of that in at pouring time. I've got a couple of bottles of Bottlegreen "winter berry" or something, which goes very nicely in a glass of mordantly dry cider.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
My Slovakian neighbour's Hungarian partner has taken to using Sainsbury 50% juice blackcurrant cordial to temper his bone-dry 8% cider.
I may have introduced him to blending it half & half with his homebrew stout, too.
