Homebrew - The Bear and Badger

Wookienopants

Anyone here brew their own drinks?

I was thinking of getting into creating something and a martial arts instructor I train with brought along some homemade mead he had been brewing for a year and it tasted amazing. We spoke about the process and it sounds quite interesting, thinking I’m going to attempt it for a project this year.
If it goes well enough I may bottle it and gift it to family come next Christmas.

Anyone here have any experience? Any tips?
Any recipie ideas or any suggestions for how NOT to do things?

Kow

How about not putting it in the games section? Thought it was some hacked Switch thing.

Wookienopants

Oh did I? Sorry I’m posting from my phone and didn’t know how

Wookienopants

Fixed

Kow

Well that's all I have to contribute.

Wookienopants

well at least you contributed

Moot_Geeza

I made some mead once from a recipe in FHM. It was horrendous. There was an egg in it iirc.

Diluted Dante

That's where you went wrong.

acemuzzy

Bet when you drank it you had egg on your face

Paul the sparky

No interest in mead, but I'd like to know how to brew my own beer. And moonshine/pochine of course. Anyone correcting my spelling with the Irish one is a dick, obviously.

acemuzzy

Spoiler:

GooberTheHat

Distilling moonshine is a risky business. I wouldn't do it in the home.

g.man

Mate of mine back when I was still at school used to make home brew. It was seriously awesome stuff. Many an afternoon was spent skipping classes and getting pissed on the stuff.
Never made any myself tho...

good times

g.man

Diluted Dante

Paul the sparky wrote:

No interest in mead, but I'd like to know how to brew my own beer. And moonshine/pochine of course. Anyone correcting my spelling with the Irish one is a dick, obviously.

*beoir

GooberTheHat wrote:

Distilling moonshine is a risky business. I wouldn't do it in the home.

Wookienopants

I figure I’d try Mead first because I quite like it and it’s pretty much just yeast, honey, citrus and water at its most basic. Quite simple to make.
From there I’d look at dabbling in homebrewed beer.

Moonshine is most likely to blow up my conservatory

Brooks

One hobby I'm going to just leave to the pros.

Paul the sparky

It's a great idea for a Stock meet actually, everyone brew their own shit, meet up and get fucked on it in a cottage somewhere while playing local MP games.

Diluted Dante

Meet up and get fucked in a cottage? There are websites for that.

Wookienopants

I have a great idea for a forum inspired brew

Paul the sparky

A VR headset and chloroform?

Kow

Actually, when I was at university, me and a friend made beer. The end result had little things floating in it and tasted like stale piss but we drank it anyway. It was a bit like Heineken.

FranticPea

No GoldenEye though eh?

Diluted Dante

Kow wrote:

Actually, when I was at university, me and a friend made beer. The end result had little things floating in it and tasted like stale piss but we drank it anyway.

I think I've had that in Wetherspoons.

Paul the sparky

FranticPea wrote:

No GoldenEye though eh?

Maybe a little pink eye.

Wookienopants

Paul the sparky wrote:

A VR headset and chloroform?

I was thinking of something that starts sweet but has the occasional repeating hint of bitterness

Nina

Colleague of B does this, he has a proper backyard to make it. We went to watch (and drink) a couple of weeks ago, he was starting on a pumpkin beer. It's a serious business here.

He often brings the stuff in on beer Friday, always good. Often uses Belgium yeast and he tries all different kinds of beers. Pretty sure the suggested starting with Mead first, as you don't need big buckets. Think cider is good for starting with too.

It all looked complicated and you need some space for it by the looks of it. And it can smell really bad. I don't know anything about it, but can ask for general tips if I see him again.

WorKid

I'd heard (could be a myth) that it is still illegal to brew alcohol in the US without a licence.

Nina

Quick Google search says that the last 2 states legalized homebrew in 2013, so everything should be fine.

[Deleted User]

A pal of mine at school made a home brew beer, which he called This Horse Is Not Fit For Work. It was probably awful, but I liked the name.

I tried to make cider once, but it didn’t work. I didn’t have anywhere that stays warm where I could keep it, was part of the issue.

I have nothing useful to add, sorry.

davyK

There are entry level kits one can buy. Everything is in a can. Empty it into a bucket and you add water , yeast (usually supplied in a sachet in the kit) and sugar - then put a close fitting lid on the bucket and let nature take its course. Some kits come with the bucket.

Best results are when the bucket is stored in a warm dark place. A house with a hot press (cupboard where the hot cylinder is) is optimal. My house has a combi gas boiler so any house that has that won't have such a facility.

You would need strong bottles that can take pressurised liquid to siphon the brew into and finish off (it improves further and clears a bit in the bottle. Something called "finings" are added at that point which may promote a modest amount of further fermentation and give the beer some gas).

If you don't use appropriate bottles you will have broken bottles and a beer soaked floor.

Back when my dad did it we used glass lemonade bottles but I'm sure there's a modern equivalent. Come to think of it the plastic soft drink bottles may work but I would check that out. We moved onto using a purpose bought 40 pint barrel with a tap after a while.

The results won't be as fine as with a made from scratch job but it will get you started. There's a temptation to add more sugar which is a bit of a gamble as while it can make the brew stronger if you add too much the yeast will die when the alcohol reaches a certain level and the remaining sugar would make the brew fairly sickly to taste.

Had an uncle who got into the making from scratch thing. I can remember a very good batch of ginger beer but he was drinking a 5 gallon barrel a week and decided it was best to pack it in.

Matt_82

I remember back at the dawn of the year 2000, someone showed up to the party with a bottle of some shit that no-one could identify. Only a couple of guys at the party were dumb enough to try it and their reactions as they drank it put off most others who would have been considering. After a short while of laughing and worrying, it was sat aside and forgotten about.

The next day I wandered into the kitchen and picked up the bottle to have a more sober inspection of it. When I picked it up, I noticed it had completely dissolved the varnish on the wood table it had been sitting on. There was this little bottle shaped bare patch on the table. God knows what that shit was doing to the guys that tried it.

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