Home brew? Homebrew? Winemaking

My local homebrew shop is having issues getting malt at the mo. They buy it from the malt miller who have a backlog due to homebrewers all wanting to brew during this period. All good if you use extract though.

Anyone need some hops ?
I've got whole cone Target and Phoenix
Frozen on day of picking.
Ideal for British styles.
Not the most exciting hops but I've brewed using them green and dried.
Collect from KT4

1 Attachment

Great time for home brewing.
I've some hops, and hop bine saplings. No idea what type, they taste good in my hyper-hopped beer.

Pick up West.

A cider brewing buddy started out on beer recently with a wilko stout kit but added chilli, cacao nibs and vanilla. It is very tasty. I dropped around some of my swingtop growlers so will have 3l of it headed my way to enjoy further.

I use a place called geterbrewed for my grain. They do a custom grain kit ,you can order the exact amount of grain, hops, yeast etc for each brew large or small.
Just ordered grain etc for an English/American crossover IPA I'm calling 'Lockdown '
The pic is a smash czech pilsner 4.6% o brewed recently.

1 Attachment

Any chance I could get some hops? Planning to do a brew this week - I am in NW10 (did we meet at West Beers once?) I would get @Pathracer 's but sounds far away :(

Sure

Pop round. I'll leave a bag of frozen hops for you to pick up outside

I've just set off an IPA kit. Have had very good results from the first couple of brews using the same. It's super hoppy, about 6%. Been a bit random on the carbonation as I've done the bottles individually, but have a bottling bucket this time so should get a bit more consistent.

Anyway. At the same time as dry hopping, can you add other flavours? I'd like to get a bit more citrus - grapefruit, blood orange etc in there. How do i do this?

What hops are you using? Different hops might get you more toward more citrus flavours.

I'll have to check. They are pretty citrussy anyway, but wanted to push it on a bit.

https://learn.kegerator.com/amarillo-hops/

Actually there's a whole list here:
https://byo.com/resource/hops/

Thanks @skydancer
Another question to put out there, I have always bottle conditioned, but a friend of mine has an empty cask (I assume not a keg as it had Doom Bar in it) that I could use... anyone on here have experience of cask conditioning?

There's a CAMRA book on Cellarmanship, and the 7th edition is out in a week or two (though why they've not changed the title I don't know...), which should cover lots of the care and feeding of casks. Though are you sure you can drink ~72 pints in about three days?

I've added earl grey, ground coffee, blitzed fruit (frozen first to kill any bugs) and rose petals at dry Hopping.
I've also added stuff before pitching yeast. I've also added bourbon soaked oak chips to a smoked porter. I'm Thunder and Little on Instagram and I've got ratings on untapped if anyone is interested

Cool. What worked best of the above? (think I'll pass on Rose petals mind)

Depends on the style......
Coffee good in stouts ,
Tea(earl grey, lemon and ginger) good in pales, IPA,
Dried fruit and spices in dark/ Christmas beers.
The rose petals went in a 3.5 % pale with lychees, different but was popular in the summer !
Just experiment with flavours that work together.
Haven't tried chocolate yet.........

OK - this is getting serious, I'm going to need a home hobby; brewing fits the bill, I like beer and the science and alchemy of brewing appeals.
What is the minimum kit list to get something going, and something that I could expand if i get the bug.
cheers

Probably best to look at kits first then brew in a bag set up on your hob.....
You'd need a large stock pot , grain bags, thermometer, fermentation bucket, bottles , no rinse steriliser, capper, siphoning pipes etc .
Easy to spend a lot of money............
Edit, I have spent a lot money 😬

Need a fermentation bucket, siphoning tube/bottling wand and some bottles.

Choose a kit that is your preferred beer style.
Profit.

Steriliser doesn't need to be brewing specific - I use Milton baby ones.
Hydrometers come with many starter setups and you need if you want to know how strong it is. I just drink it.
Bottles - I have some homebrew PET ones, some Grolsch flip tops ones I've collected over time. But you can use any fizzy pop bottles really. (Though brown is better to keep the light out or something. I store mine under a sheet.)

The kits are really easy and amazingly good. Definitely worth a go.

Time to sort the beer situation for the next few months of lockdown.

1 Attachment

Yup, sorting the situation
Small batch 2 gallon Brew
A simple Brew with:
Amber malt extract
Hops from the garden, possibly fuggles
New world yeast
Dried Apricots for extra sugar

About to pitch the rehydrate yeast

1 Attachment

Nice. Would of had a go at brew in the bag but the current lack of dry malt put that on hold. Although I hope to buy a Grainfather later this year.

Out of all the extract brew kits Bulldog always seems to have constantly good kits. The high ABV's are a bonus as well...

Brewing Lockdown IPA tomorrow, I'm using hops that I've had laying around.
In the boil I'm using local grown (Epsom) Target and Phoenix hops and for dry hopping a mix of Citra , cascade and mosaic .

Brewdog released their DIY Dog guide to brewing all their beers:

https://www.brewdog.com/uk/community/diy-dog

"Every year we re-release one of the best documents we have ever put together, DIY Dog. A compilation for (and of) the ages, it contains every single BrewDog beer recipe in homebrew-level detail, issued as a free download to anybody who would like it. Hundreds of brew days to come, more than a decade in the making. All there in black and white."