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Home Brew


Ken L

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I've been a bit of a brewer for years but having now settled into the new house, I've started up properly again and have recently brewed and bottled a bitter and a stout which I'm reliably informed are excellent (I'm off the beer at the moment) and have just started up a barley wine.

What suprised me most was the way that the suplies are suddenly so easy to find again - and so cheap !

Both my local Wilkinson's and the local Tesco do basic stuff at good prices and what they can't supply is available on-line.

 

Once the beer stocks are in, the winemaking can start as soon as the elderberies and other fruits are ripe.

 

Any other brewmakers on the forum ?

 

For anyone tempted to give it a try, my only advice would be to steer clear of lager kits. Cheap lager is always on offer in the supermarkets anyway and it's the one style of beer that is hard duplicate at home to a satisfying standard.

Wine kits are generaly disapointing too, just go straight to the fruit.

There really is nothing difficult about brewing and the only essential is good hygene.

Species caught in 2020: Barbel. European Eel. Bleak. Perch. Pike.

Species caught in 2019: Pike. Bream. Tench. Chub. Common Carp. European Eel. Barbel. Bleak. Dace.

Species caught in 2018: Perch. Bream. Rainbow Trout. Brown Trout. Chub. Roach. Carp. European Eel.

Species caught in 2017: Siamese carp. Striped catfish. Rohu. Mekong catfish. Amazon red tail catfish. Arapaima. Black Minnow Shark. Perch. Chub. Brown Trout. Pike. Bream. Roach. Rudd. Bleak. Common Carp.

Species caught in 2016: Siamese carp. Jullien's golden carp. Striped catfish. Mekong catfish. Amazon red tail catfish. Arapaima. Alligator gar. Rohu. Black Minnow Shark. Roach, Bream, Perch, Ballan Wrasse. Rudd. Common Carp. Pike. Zander. Chub. Bleak.

Species caught in 2015: Brown Trout. Roach. Bream. Terrapin. Eel. Barbel. Pike. Chub.

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Whoa,

 

We need to meet up Ken :o

 

I brew 30 bottle wine kits from http://www.art-of-brewing.co.uk/ website.

 

I usually get kits about the £25 range & put half a kilo of sultanas/rasins in with the brew wrapped up in a muslin bag. Have made wine from almost everything in the past.

 

Used to drink beer & have made thousands of gallons but have gone off beer in past couple of years.

 

Best brew ever. Elderberry Champagne

Liqourice ginger wine

Carrot whiskey

Gorse flower wine (although this was apparently mildly toxic)

 

Never eat a whole fly agaric mushroom :o

Edited by ziggy searchfield
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Interesting kits. Is the quality significantly better than the old 6 bottle kits that used to be sold by Boots ?

 

Made mead one. Was OK but I didn't bother again. Adding honey to beer instead of part of the sugar has produced some interesting results in the past and is something that I may well repeat though.

Best brews ever ?

A five gallon batch of elderberry wine with a super high fruit content and fermented out with a high alcohol tolerant wine yeast - it was better than most Ports I've drunk.

Next best

Sparkling blackberry wine. A slap in the face with summer in the middle of winter.

 

I can't be messin with boiling malt so I use kits for the beer but tend to brew a 40 pint kit out to 30 pints or just a bit over for more strength and more flavour which is one of the reasons why I'm doing the brewing now - its much easier to brew out all the sugar when it's warm. The results are right up their with my Grandfathers boiled malt beers so I don't feel the need to change.

 

Best skip lift I ever did was four 18.9L water cooler bottles. Half an hour messing with the tops so they will take an airlock and guess where most of my brewing gets done ?

Species caught in 2020: Barbel. European Eel. Bleak. Perch. Pike.

Species caught in 2019: Pike. Bream. Tench. Chub. Common Carp. European Eel. Barbel. Bleak. Dace.

Species caught in 2018: Perch. Bream. Rainbow Trout. Brown Trout. Chub. Roach. Carp. European Eel.

Species caught in 2017: Siamese carp. Striped catfish. Rohu. Mekong catfish. Amazon red tail catfish. Arapaima. Black Minnow Shark. Perch. Chub. Brown Trout. Pike. Bream. Roach. Rudd. Bleak. Common Carp.

Species caught in 2016: Siamese carp. Jullien's golden carp. Striped catfish. Mekong catfish. Amazon red tail catfish. Arapaima. Alligator gar. Rohu. Black Minnow Shark. Roach, Bream, Perch, Ballan Wrasse. Rudd. Common Carp. Pike. Zander. Chub. Bleak.

Species caught in 2015: Brown Trout. Roach. Bream. Terrapin. Eel. Barbel. Pike. Chub.

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I used to make my own wine in the UK in a previous life as did my Dad (he got me started) And agree about the Lager! DEAD loss all of them. Some beer was worth repeating but some was just cloudy water with a strange taste to me! But WINE!! WOW! Best I ever made and never tasted anything like it to this day is Beetroot wine! I not only go to taste the brew I also got to eat the makings!! I mean, how easy is it? Just wash beetroot and boil as normal and then use the water to make several gallons of wine! I also made wine from tea bags. Very sherry like and worst was I once made some of my own Dandelion and Burdock! Well after we replaced ALL the clothes in the airing cupboard and replaced all the timber and flooring etc. I vowed NEVER to do it again!

 

Now with wine at sometimes as low as 80p a bottle I simply don't bother! But it is a BIG industry thing in France I assure you! Most large stores carry a full range of brewing pans and gas stoves and barrels/bottling implements! So if anyone ever wants to see what stuff costs???

Chris Goddard


It is to be observed that 'angling' is the name given to fishing by people who can't fish.

If GOD had NOT meant us to go fishing, WHY did he give us arms then??


(If you can't help out someone in need then don't bother my old Dad always said! My grandma put it a LITTLE more, well different! It's like peeing yourself in a black pair of pants she said! It gives you a LOVELY warm feeling but no-one really notices!))

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More to the point is anyone pressing and fermenting their own cider. I know of a few cider houses near Ziggy which do their own and may let you press your own fruit.

Tony

 

After a certain age, if you don't wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead.

 

 

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Made cider and cyser in 2008 and will make more this year if we get a good apple harvest. Still have some bottles of cyser of various strengths left. Used to make wine from fruit and beer from kits. Best wines were from a batch of very strong sweet blackberry - half of it I mixed with dry red plonk brought back from France, and half I fortified with vodka. The stuff mixed with wine had a secondary fermentation in the bottle and produce a very nice moderately sweet sparkling wine, and the fortified version was very port-like.

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Any of you guys do a home made errrr whiskey or whisky we, eeeerrrrr i can errrrrr test out for you. :icecream:

Free to choose apart from the ones where the trust poked their nose in. Common eel. tope. Bass and sea bream. All restricted.


New for 2016 TAT are the main instigators for the demise of the u k bass charter boat industry, where they went screaming off to parliament and for the first time assisting so called angling gurus set up bass take bans with the e u using rubbish exaggerated info collected by ices from anglers, they must be very proud.

Upgrade, the door has been closed with regards to anglers being linked to the e u superstate and the failed c f p. So TAT will no longer need to pay monies to the EAA anymore as that org is no longer relevant to the u k . Goodbye to the europeon anglers alliance and pathetic restrictions from the e u.

Angling is better than politics, ban politics from angling.

Consumer of bass. where is the evidence that the u k bass stock need angling trust protection. Why won't you work with your peers instead of castigating them. They have the answer.

Recipie's for mullet stew more than welcomed.

Angling sanitation trust and kent and sussex sea anglers org delete's and blocks rsa's alternative opinion on their face book site. Although they claim to rep all.

new for 2014. where is the evidence that the south coast bream stock need the angling trust? Your campaign has no evidence. Why won't you work with your peers, the inshore under tens? As opposed to alienating them? Angling trust failed big time re bait digging, even fish legal attempted to intervene and failed, all for what, nothing.

Looks like the sea angling reps have been coerced by the ifca's to compose sea angling strategy's that the ifca's at some stage will look at drafting into legislation to manage the rsa, because they like wasting tax payers money. That's without asking the rsa btw. You know who you are..

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More to the point is anyone pressing and fermenting their own cider. I know of a few cider houses near Ziggy which do their own and may let you press your own fruit.

 

Used to drink cider, found too many people that "used to drink it" Then I met some people who "still" drink it. Most of the capilaries under the skin on the face have burst & the nose has developed a split down the middle. When the apples are crushed the pips are crushed too, these contain cyanogenetic glycosides that the body breaks down into cyanide, slowly poisoning the drinker over decades.

 

The odd pint or four now and again wont hurt though. Most Burrow Hill cider i've drunk in one day = 8 pints. Was not a well Ziggy the next day.

 

*******

 

Chris, 80p a bottle ! I can't even brew it for that ! Did the dent de lyon & burdock explode then ?

 

 

*******

 

Ken, the kits are better but anything under £30 needs sultanas or currants to give it body. I used to under top up the 40 pint kits too, but i'd always boil up a handfull of hops to add too, so you know you're drinking a stronger beer.

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