Hi all,

I'm getting into home brewing because a. I like drinking beer and b. I am poor (full time uni student blah blah blah). It's actually pretty fun and I reckon I will be popular at parties because I'm making them way faster than I can drink them.

I've got my second batch about to bottle, a blonde style, and a lager in bottles that will be ready to drink in a week or so. I started with a beginner brewers kit of basically a big bucket with an airlock and a tap. I've been collecting 450mL grolsch bottles with the flip open lids for easy bottling but those suckers are expensive so most of the brew is in longnecks. I've just been following the instructions of the kits so far.

Who else does DIY beer? Any successes, tips or beer-mares you want to share?

... enter Jefin!

Sailhack said..

... enter Jefin!

Ha your the brewer in a fortnight mate

I thought about brewing my own but as my Mrs says I am good at starting projects but not so good at completing them. It would be on Ebay within a month.
Also I reckon going drive thru bottle-o is just to farkin easy.

www.beermachine.com/

Does anyone know anything about these, brew in it, gas it and pour straight from the fridge.

Hey mate, +1 to everything Jefin said!

I have been brewing for a while now. Starter on kits and bits recipes and then have moved to all grain brewing cause I love a challenge and the beers are sensational.

Typical rookie mistake thinking you should brew beer to save money. All you do is save your mates money cause they come round and drink all your beer!

100% agree with start with John palmers how to brew. You can read it for free on the net or buy it in store. It's a great start to understanding your brew.

As stated, cleanliness is your biggest priority. Get that stuff sparkling and go to a local home brew shop to get some good PBW and a no rinse sanitizer.

Second best thing to do is to control the ferment temp. In the winter I used a heat pad ($60) connected to a temperature controller ($40) you can pick these up cheap on Fleabay or support your local home brew shop. They are not hard to wire up. Search for STC-1000

In the summer time, I used to sit mine in the bathroom in a big esky filled with water. In the morning I would drop an ice brick in there and it was enough to keep the brew at about 20C all day long. Some guys use fridges (I do) with a temp controller cause temperature control is so important.

Second thing I would do is mix up the can recipes a bit. I started out by adding about 250g of crushed specialty grain steeped in 75C water for about 20mins.... I added this with the can and boiled the lot for an hour. I also used good quality hops from the home brew store and this gives the beer a great fresh taste. There's plenty of recipes online or send me a PM and I can give you 5 or 6 crackers that I have made before.

It's a great past time and I have had great parties where I rock up with a keg and a miracle box. I currently have an IPA, an Irish red ale and a golden ale on tap. Also got a little creatures pale clone and a choc porter in the fermenter!

AHB is a good site for information, but be warned they are having some difficulties with members posting crap at the moment. Best off getting the advice from your local home brew store and see if anyone in your area is brewing. In SA, we all meet up on a weekend at someone's place and put a brew on. It's a great community to be in.

Let me know if you have any brew related questions!

Cheers!

In no particular order...

Throw out the airlock, trust your hydrometer.
When you think your brew is done, leave it another week before you bottle.
Temp control, avoid fluctuations.
ignore the cans when they say brew ales at 25 degrees or whatever, go for 18-20
As others have said, trade up the yeast.
Don't ever, ever, ever let dish washing liquid or detergent near any of your brew gear or bottles, use home brand unscented nappy wash (sodium percarbonate I think) to wash,
Get a bottle of starsan to sanitize with, it will last years.

I've heard AHB is going off the rails a bit but I've never looked in there. Try the forum on the Coopers website, they are extremely tolerant of the same newly questions over and over. There are a couple of strong personalities on there but you will learn quickly who knows their stuff and who thinks they know. The best advice is to find the forums, create a login, read the forums every day but wait a month before you post your first question. Guaranteed you will learn bucket loads of the fundamentals in that month.

I've dabbled with cracked grains and stuff and it is taking it up another notch, I ended up taking a step back, I'll have another go soon enough. An alternative is to buy the coopers monthly recipe packs, it's an easy way to dabble with hops and other add ins without flying solo but it does cost about $45 a batch.

shaddup and show us your tits

Bottling, that's old school
2 cartons of Carona $ 100
19ltrs Mexican Cervasa (almost the same) $28
Savings $ =72
Lessons learnt, the more you drink , the more you save!!!
Put saving towards 19ltr post mix kegs ,gas,keg set up aprox $450
Then you can do this-

Ive been brewing for a while know just with the coopers cans , the longer you leave it in the bottles the better ot tastes , it just getting your stocks up enough to leave it that long .
or yer and clean clean clean everything !!!!!