Home brew? Homebrew? Winemaking

It would be nice to just step out from the kitchen to the garage (brew area).

One can always dream.

Picked up some co2 today,
£20 for the gas, £40 deposit no contract just take it back and pay £20 for a re-fill ! Food grade obvs, from Tam leisure in New Malden.
Brewing a coffee stout soon that will be my first keg beer !

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That's a very good deal for the gas!

What regulator are you going to use? Currently running a twin Kegland myself.

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I've got this.....
Yours looks more user friendly tbf and I should have bought a twin but it will do for starters!

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I was fast enough to get one when it came in stock k, they sell out fast!

Still, a small one with a Sodastream adaptor will be handy for the garden parties before pubs fully reopen.

I'm looking at making one of these for spring / early summer. But with the sodastream bottle strapped to it. I reckon a flow control tap should take of foaming issues.

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At a slightly more amateur level, coming to the end of my winter stout, I've gone for a lemon sour. Will be amazing for summer, but is a little early for it now. Think I'll get some extra bottles and brew an interim more regular ipa. Not sure my garage storage area is quite ready for 80pint storage though. Hey ho - sure I'll muddle through.

To be honest after bottling only a few brews the tedium and pain of faffing around with:

Washing bottles

Sterilising bottles

Putting beer into sterilised bottling bucket

Bottling beer

Capping beer

Storing said beer

Beer exploding / glass fragments everywhere

Running out of bottles

Is exactly why the idea of one single pressurised vessel is so appealing at the moment. 😂

Washing and sterilising is a pain, but screw top PET mostly (with a few flip top glass) so no bottle bombs to date.
I do envy your fancy set ups, but with my time and skills I'm still very pleased with what I can produce from kits. For around £25 and 2 hours it's solid investment.

The only thing that bothers me about bottling is when I forget it’s homebrew and pour all the sediment into the glass

Had to dump a batch of dead pony club clone earlier in the week which was made even more devastating by the fact it tasted delicious when I last took a sample.

Tried to be fancy and cold crash it in the fv, and it sucked about a litre of starsan in through the blowoff tube.

Any suggestions to counteract this other than using a balloon or not cold crashing?

You can build a double airlock. Something like this.

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For sure. Kits nowadays are really good, that's how I did it for years.

If it wasn't for the pubs being shut and a good deal on a Grainfather and loads of extras I'd still be using them.

Once you start down the all grain road though there is always an 'upgrade' to go for...

Once you start down the all grain road though there is always an 'upgrade' to go for...

This is so so true

Just setting up my keg, do you reckon having exposed pipe between the fridge and tap will give me problems?
I'm wondering whether I should run it through an insulated tube or something?

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Don't think you'll have problems as you pour with such a short length.

Presume you'll empty the pipe between sessions?

Yes I was expecting to do that, I may have to cut a hatch in the shed wall to avoid having to pull the fridge out !

Wanting to get back into brewing some beer, starting off with kits, possibly looking into trying out some grain stuff a short way down the line with biab maybe if I get back into it properly. Is there any reccomemded places to look for the gear and kits these days? Haven't brewed anything for about 6 years now when I was in Uni and it would just be me and my mates picking up whatever kit took our fancy at Wilkinsons in town.

Maltmiller is probably the place to look for kits, fermenting buckets etc I just get mine from Wilko

Bulldog Brews kits are really good.

bulldog-brews-beer-kits
As Mustard said, Wilko has equipment on the shelf or have a look for 2nd hand gear in the usual places.

brew2bottle are very quick and usually cheap.
Festival, Mangrove Jack Craft series (for fancier brews), Youngs - all been good kits for me.

First thoughts on seeing this picture 🤔

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Milk stout obviously Officer...

Yeah, the Colombian coffee is a coincidence !

Anyone fancy stepping up their oak aged beer?

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If I had the space.........