Any Home-Brewers on here!?

[Magellann]

Working on a coopers lager right now, planning on making mead soon with some Italian honey. Really useful hobby for SHTF and with all the taxes/monopolies on alcohol there is a lot of money to be saved.

Ive made the Coopers Lager before and it turned out not bad, I buggered up the carbonation a little and it didn't have the fizz that it should have, but still tasted pretty good.

[flyinlead]

I’ve never brewed beer before, is it complicated or expensive to get into brewing good quality beer? I’m only interested if I can make something comparable with the craft brews that I buy.
Can you brew small batches? I don’t drink a lot but I’d like to have a few kinds around. I mostly enjoy pale ales and wheat beers.

[bobdbldr]

^^^I'll have to try that one. I'll look for it next trip to the store.

If you add the sugar, make sure you dissolve it well in boiling hot water first so it blends well and doesn't sit on the bottom of the bucket!

[Bassmaster]

I use Costco Shiraz, I like it,, sons and girlfriends like it, free for them, someone who makes really good wine probably wouldn't wash their feet in my stuff,, I call it grog! I add a few things to bolster it, was told to throw in a hand full of dried banana chips to help give it body in the primary fermenter, it works, also add 4 cups of sugar to bump the alcohol up a smidge, gives better flavour! Next I want to get. A press and do it from scratch!

Try a bag full of plumped up white raisins next time (stick 'em in some warm water).....it's all about the natural sugar.

[smellofspentcasings]

I've made beer, wine and other stuff.

[aesopinblack]

I’ve never brewed beer before, is it complicated or expensive to get into brewing good quality beer? I’m only interested if I can make something comparable with the craft brews that I buy.
Can you brew small batches? I don’t drink a lot but I’d like to have a few kinds around. I mostly enjoy pale ales and wheat beers.

Standard beer batches are 20-25 litres, but many home brewers trade their stuff with others to get more variety. There are 2 gallon kits out there, but I haven't heard a lot of love for them. If you're making it from actual grains then you can make as big or little of a batch as you want, but that's a bit beyond the beginner stage.

A lot of people put a lot of work into home brewing (and get amazing results!), but you can also get a perfectly good drink from a simple kit that costs about $100 for all the tools you need (bucket, hoses, etc), and then about $20-$80 for the beer kit ('unfermented beer juice', yeast, etc). Beer from your first kit might cost $3 per tallboy all said and done, but that's still saving money over buying craft beer at the store and this price drops with each kit you make. Making pales/wheat/stout/whatever kind of beer from a kit is the exact same process, just buying a different beer kit.

Brewing from a kit is super easy:
- Wash your bucket and tools with sanitizer
- pour the contents of the beer kit into your bucket, stir
- let bucket sit for a few weeks
- add some sugar to your bucket, stir
- wash out beer bottles with sanitizer
- siphon beer from bucket to bottles
- cap beer
- let sit for a few weeks
- drink beer

If you're hesitant and don't know anyone who can show you how to do it, go to your local 'U Brew' shop where they do the whole process in store. It'll cost you an extra $20-$40 bucks, but think of it as paying for a lesson.

[Gotrek]

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