Home brewing

[Salar]

I used to do a lot of home brewing, quite a few years ago. SWMBO won't let me now, need to keep the weight down.

I started with kits, but soon got fed up with them, so advanced to hops, grain, malt extract etc. which gave a much better brew.
As said above the darker brews seem to come out the best.

Two books which I classed as my bibles were "The Big Book of Brewing" and "Brewing beers like those you can buy" both written by Dave Line and still available.

Brewing beers like those you buy has some great recipes, particularly for Guinness, Brown Ale and IPA clones.

Be careful if you try ginger beer, I once had three bottles explode!!!

 

[DaveReading]

[QUOTE 5274464, member: 259"]They were my bibles for a good few years. He was a really good writer and took a lot of the smoke and mirrors out of brewing. His recipe for Burton Ale was spot on. He died pretty young, sadly.[/QUOTE]

He was a lovely guy - he came to talk to our local home brew club, must be 30+ years ago now, and he was fascinating. Not long after that we heard that he had sadly passed away. RIP Dave.

 

[Noodle Legs]

Made quite a lot of elderberry wine which when left long enough goes like a port but it requires a lot of patience to wait it out! Done a lot of other wines too (both from scratch and kits) and beer from kits and they were sound (although the scratch wines were better imo) Cleanliness is the main thing as mentioned previously.

Watching a rerun of a river cottage episode last week has inspired me to try dandelion and burdock beer.......

 

[Tin Pot]

Anyone here do it? I got bought a kit for Crimbo, and Mrs D has promised to get me the final bits I need for my Birthday. I've cleaned out one of my sheds to make a brewery.

Chatting about this up the pub this afternoon (its nicer, less busy when the workies aren't in there) and a bloke I know brews his own mead, reckons its easy.

So are there any amateur brewers on here?

Tried it when I was 18 with a Boots lager kit.

Hundreds of pints of headache juice later I decided to let someone else do the brewing.