Home brew? Homebrew? Winemaking

I've just read all the way through that first-brew thread. Very impressive, and lots of jargon I don't yet understand. But I think I'd like to try an all-grain brew next time. Maybe some more research is called for first...

I just had a bash at it, came out fine, just keep it all sterile and jobs a good'n.

More equipment needed to do all grain, I see. I think I'm just going to buy another of these kits for now - they're on offer at the moment - and do another brew with a few lessons learned. Just need to get to Wilko and also find another 30 or so glass bottles. Currently only £16. Will let it ferment longer and be smarter with siphoning, use a filter to stop so much sediment getting into the bottles.

They won't have that many bottles in stock, order online. There's loads of bulk lots on ebay.

I wasn't going to buy the bottles. Well, I was, but with beer in them. They're not that much more expensive with beer in than without...

Just got home to find five bottles have exploded in my kitchen cupboard, in a chain-reaction. Hopefully it hasn't dripped downstairs. Must've put way too much sugar in when bottling. Can only imagine the noise it made. Cripes. I've got a hell of a mess to tidy up now - the glass turns to crumbs when they pop.

release the pressure on the others sparky

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/viking-drunk-14083699.jpg

Ah, bottle bombs, we've all had them. The survivors are likely to be lively - open with a glass close by, over the sink! Or you can try opening a smidge and letting some gas out, then tightening again. How much sugar did you put in, and were you sure they had fermented out to dryness first? I mean hydrometrically sure?

In a couple of hours, once the cleaning up is done...

Embarassingly, I once gave a neighbour I only vaguely knew at the time a bottle of our cider as a thank-you for helping us out with something. It exploded in their utility room a week later. Awkward moments thread>>>>>>

Ooh, that is awkward. Think I've got all the glass now. Although I'm sure I'll be able to find some six months from now when barefoot in kitchen.

My uncle lost large stashes of brews from that. They'd tend go off in a chain reaction he reckoned. Started brewing ginger beer and using 2L PET plastic bottles instead.

The ones that popped were ginger beer. I had three two-litre bottles of it and four glass pint-sized bottles. I should've thought about the glass ones because the plastic ones got so firm that I had to let gas out. You live and learn.

I think one went and took the others with it. One bottle of beer also copped it.

I actually have 40 pints of ginger beer mk2 fermenting now. I'd better use less sugar when bottling this one.

Some tiny glass shards actually scarred the insides of my cupboard. It went off with quite some force. Imagine what it takes to pop an Adnams bottle...

My uncle lost large stashes of brews from that. They'd tend go off in a chain reaction he reckoned. Started brewing ginger beer and using 2L PET plastic bottles instead.

This. The modern plastic bottles have the vertical cut out lines on the screw thread. So if the brew is about to explode it gives a bypass for the pressure.

My ginger beer has been in the fermenter since the 14th, so eleven days so far. Bubbling has pretty much died away. But I give it a swirl occasionally by moving the fermenter back and forth quickly - I've been told not to open it up to stir as you'll get oxygen and infection in there - and bubbling starts up for a little while again after each one.

It looks good. I used malt extract instead of sugar this time so it's more "beery" than the last batch, which was more like alcoholic lemonade. Each time the airlock burps you can smell a nice citrusy aroma; I popped lemons, oranges and raisins in there, along with a huge lump of root ginger.

I'm a bit scared to bottle it after the exploding incident, so I want to leave it be for another week or so to make sure it's totally finished fermenting. Maybe longer. I'll also scale back the amount of priming sugar I use to practically nothing. Is there any danger in using too little? I've got five gallons in there (23 litres) so would I be ok using as little as 50g?

Funnily enough I was reading Graham Wheeler on the shitter today and 50g cane sugar primings is exactly what he says.

Oh, cool. 50g for 5 gallons? I just plucked that figure from mid-air. I'll need to be 100% sure fermentation is done though, or I'll have 40 bottles going bang this time.

How's it all going?

How's it all going?

I did another batch of the Wherry as it was so good. That just got bottled at the weekend. I also have a batch of questionable ginger beer in the cupboard which was bottled a few weeks ago. I've got two marathons in April so there should be 80 bottles of booze ready for me afterwards...

So far I've done two batches of Wherry and two ginger beers. The first ginger beer was just so-so and the second had malt instead of sugar so will hopefully be more "beery".

Next up is a kit of Milestones raspberry beer. Shame that it's raspberry flavouring, not fruit, but I looked and it would've been £50 worth of fresh raspberries! I'll do that later as I don't currently have enough bottles to store it.

I'm also on the lookout for some proper crates still to store previous batches...

Was very worried that the porter I made back in November was pants, it had a metallic aftertaste which seems to have mellowed out a bit now. Tastes very strongly of coffee now.

I've got an Irish stout kit waiting for me at the post office, going to brew that up and once it's been in bottles for a couple of weeks start the next one, this time it will be a whole grain dark ale, hopefully.

does anybody want a 5 gallon pressure barrel? I've used it a couple times but prefer bottling so won't use it again. free to anybody who can collect.

Ill dibs that - collection from where?

So I got my brother in law a home brew kit for xmas.
He is ready to bottle and etc.

It is his birthday this month and I am thinking of getting him a load of bottles, caps and labels.
I have done a design for labels and caps that I would like to get printed.

Has anyone used a label/cap printing service before that they would recommend...?

Ill dibs that - collection from where?

sorry princeperch just saw your reply. collection is from SE4.