Home brew? Homebrew? Winemaking

As snotty said, you don't need the pressure barrel stage. Graham Wheeler says to cask your brew for a month or two before bottling, but I don't bother, along with many other homebrewers. Straight to bottle, and I use 2L PET sparkling water bottles (we drink a lot of these) with screw caps for session beer. Swing top and crown caps for nice beers.

I would just drop it in plastic bottles but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Gotta be nice glass bottles I'm afraid.

All this homebrewing is fantastic.

Once our house is done I'll be doing this for sure!

There's a bottle here with your name on, Spence.

Thanks Sir Sparkes.

I didn't realise you were at football last weekend. I wasn't that far from you either!

In the City Stand, just to the right of Delia's box, so to speak... My dad has a season ticket but he's in Oz visiting my sister so I got a game.

I'm bottling tomorrow. Looks like I'll have enough bottles for 1/2 or 2/3 of the beer, and I'll stick the rest in the barrel, pump in some CO2 and see if it keeps. Any tips?

Just sterilise everything, pop a half teaspoon of sugar in each bottle, fill to an inch from the top and pop a cap on it? What could possibly go wrong?

Yep, that's about it. I've not had much luck with kegs so no tips there... bottling is a pain but satisfying when its all done. Rinse the steriliser out really well, it tastes rank.

Can hopefully rack of my cider today, the bubbling had slowed right down last night.

I'm leaving my 80L sitting on its lees until spring, reckon it adds some flavour.

Just tested the cider's gravity, it's almost there but I think I'll leave it one more night, it's still slowly pushing bubbles through the airlock so don't want to plug it and blow stuff up, tastes pretty good already though, quite tart.

my ale is now bottled, about 5 days later than I should have but I'm sure it will be fine. At the moment it tastes like the bottom of the barrel of a proper beer, so hopefully in a week or two it will taste right.

Just tested the cider's gravity, it's almost there but I think I'll leave it one more night, it's still slowly pushing bubbles through the airlock so don't want to plug it and blow stuff up, tastes pretty good already though, quite tart.

I'd wait at least a week after the airlock stops burping tbh.

Not if I want to drink it for xmas. The yeast is meant to be relatively quick acting and there is very little sugar left in it to ferment, a day should be fine. I'll put the plugs on lightly so they pop off if too much builds up and if it really won't stop I'll pick up some campden tablets on Monday, I want to give it at least a few days to settle away from the yeast remains. I did leave it far too late but judging by the taste at the moment it'll be fine and the stuff I save for new years will be better.

Just bottled the beer: 28 bottles. The rest went into the keg. Not sure what'll happen in the keg as it's only a third full. Just guessed at how much sugar to put into bottles and keg. Hopefully nothing will explode. I tasted a little sip and it seemed decent. Should improve over a few weeks, right?

Should improve over the next few months. I try to not touch mine for at least 2 months.

:(

I may cave in and drink the ~8 pints in the keg in a couple of weeks. But I'll try to be good and leave the bottles alone.

I've got about 4 bottles worth sat in the keg still because I didn't have enough bottles. Also, I bought a "better brew" the capping machine for 15 off Amazon and it's so much better than the cheaper one I had before.

Got up this morning and found that the tap had been leaking. A few pints all over the worktop. Put keg in sink and sloped off to work. Got home just now and thought I'd try a pint as it's probably going to go off - tap broke off in my hand. Managed to put a pint glass under deluge and get a full glass before it emptied, but was dreadfully cloudy because of sloshing around. So the bottles had better be good.

I have some yeast, sugar, ginger and lemons so tomorrow I'll do a quick batch of ginger beer to drink later this week.

Oh dear. My experience with kegs thus far has been similarly chaotic. Bottles ftw.

15 litres of ginger beer on the go; will pop it in large plastic bottles. As much as I hate the idea and would prefer bottles, it'll be easy.

Four two-litre bottles of ginger beer in the cupboard, and four glass Adnams bottles too. I also had extra so filled four pint glasses. Mrs Sparky loves Crabbies but called this "flat and meh". It's better with some lemonade added, she says, so hopefully it'll get some fizz in the bottle. It's like nicely-gingery dishwater: probably nicer once fizzy and chilled. We'll see.

opened a bottle today and it's worked! it still tastes a little bit thin but has come on significantly since bottling and so should mature a bit more over the weeks. Perfect timing as now I'm too broke to buy booze anyway.

party at sparky's new gaff ?

party at sparky's new gaff ?

I'm more than happy to crack open a bottle for anyone who makes the arduous journey down to Downham.