Home Brew Beer

[ronburgundy]

Yeah it's good fun and bloody cheap too. I used to keep my plastic drum in the bath tub, so that if I needed to up the temperature a bit I could put some hot water in the bath.

The only painful bit is the bottling process.

[ubute]

Yeah the 3 most important words you need to remember about home brewing are: Cleanliness, cleanliness and cleanliness!

Try to keep the temperature nice and constant, use good yeast, and keep things clean.

As said you can buy the basic Coopers kits and sugars at coles/woolies/k-mart etc. If you want some better quality ingredients like different malt extracts, hops and decent yeast then visit your local home brew shop. For starters though forget the expensive ingredients, just start out with your basic Coopers kit till you get the method down.

As for when to brew, that depends on the weather where you live, the style of beer you're brewing and the type of yeast. Generally the warmer the temperature the faster the yeast will chew through the sugars but then you may get some undesired flavours/aromas, fluctuating temp is not good either for that same reason. If you're using a good ale yeast, they'll recommend brewing around 18 degrees, for lager yeasts it will be lower.

Keep it dark away from UV while it's fermenting, and same goes for once it's bottled. Try to avoid clear bottles, brown ones are the best.

You can put a brew down for $15 and get 60 stubbies or 30 tallies/long necks/king browns etc.

If you wanna get more info you can find craploads on aussie home brew forums. Google will help you out.

Eventually once you get sick of bottling, you can setup a kegging system in an old fridge and have your own brews on tap

[bjc]

In sydney I used to use a keg warmer, cost about $30 and is just a coil that wraps around the plastic keg to keep a constant 30C, I also wrapped the keg ina horse blanket or similar. In townsville nothing was needed just to be kept off the cold tiles and in spot with little light.

keeping the bottles sterilised is up to you but they must be clean, I used the sodium metabisulphate but in anycase with this sterilising agent, dont breath it and dont get it in your eyes as from first hand experience it f#cks you up!

I also brewed brigalow ginger beer for those of you who like it, can be alcoholic or not but I used to mix with my rum for a big hit. If your punchy I dont advise doing so though!

I miss the home brew but watch your mate with it and watch your weight...

[mercuryturbo]

Eventually once you get sick of bottling, you can setup a kegging system in an old fridge and have your own brews on tap

My fiance's old man does this & really does taste f*ckin good & its a lot easier once your set up.

The worse part is, as opposed to bottling, you cant take your beer with when you go out socialising. So its a good idea to at least keep a few slabs set aside for the odd barbie at your mates place.

Edited 09/06/09 08:56 AM by mercuryturbo

[ubute]

Well one other solution is to keep some of those Grolsch swingtop bottles. Just fill them up from the keg whenever you're going somewhere, they'd last fine for the night.

[JimmyXR6T04]

I brewed a few batches a few years ago, and to be honest I preferred my home brew to bought beer.. Having said that, constantly cleaning bottles got the better of me.

But for anyone that could be bothered to do it, it's worth it.

My advice is to keep an accurate record of the brew, ingredients and brewing temp etc.. that way when you find the one you like you can replicate it.

There's a good website out there www.aussiehomebrewer.com.au it has some great info.

[ronburgundy]

As I said to a mate after I'd tasted the first batch "it's better than Tooheys!".

Cleaning was a pain though - fine when I was in uni and a) had the spare time, and b) in insatiable thirst for the amber stuff paired with c) cash flow issues

[BFHOON]

the only advice I can offer is read the instructions twice and follow them to the letter. sterilise everything well and use latex gloves.

get to know your local brew shop owner and pick his brains as oftern as you can.

[daav]

thanks fo the help fellas, will give it a go when im on uni holidays and see how it turns out!!

[BFHOON]

if your at uni you may be more interested in making a small still and churning out your own vodka at 90%alcohol.