Beer Making Kits-How Easy????

vivw_2

If I buy my husband one of these brewing kits, what else do I need to buy?http://www.woodfordes.smartwebhost.net/

Penelope_Penguin

Hi, Viv, are you looking at on e of the kits lower down the page - around £15??

If so, you'll need a beer bucket with lid, and a pressure barrell or bottles and caps. We bought ours from Boots before they stopped supplying such things.

You might need some sugar, but the better quality ones don't, and rely on malt sugar which is in the kit. These ones look as if they have all the sugar that you need.

Yeast appropriate to the variety of beer should be included.

HTH. Penny. x

vivw_2

THANKS for that. Which is better barrel or bottles? Can he use old beer bottles ...we have tons in the garage [ he was collecting beer labels at one time].

speedyjoe

vivw wrote:

If I buy my husband one of these brewing kits, what else do I need to buy?http://www.woodfordes.smartwebhost.net/

These were the only kits that I found produced anything near drinkable, and I did try several over the years.

In the end I gave up on kits and used to buy cans of just the malt extract and dried hops by the ounce. I boiled them up in a 3 gallon pan, fermented it out the same as the kits and then matured it in a keg with dry hops added. If I didn't let on what it was real ale enthusiast friends would spend ages trying to guess what brewery it came from :-) Even my wife liked it.

I used to have a book by Roger Protz which contained recipes for all the famous beers of Britain. Every one I tried worked out well. This http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brew-Classic-European-Beers-Home/dp/1852491175/sr=8-4/qid=1164038295/ref=sr_1_4/202-0654714-5788627?ie=UTF8&s=books isn't the one but I expect the recipes would be as good.

Edit - This was the book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brew-Your-British-Real-Home/dp/1852491388/ref=pd_sim_b_2/202-0654714-5788627

In the end I stopped doing it because I was cutting down my drinking, the local homebrew store for the hops shut down and Boots stopped selling the cans of unhopped malt extract :-(

I see though that there are a number of online home brew stores now and I quite fancy hauling the kit out of the loft and having another go. Any recommendations for an online brew shop?

vivw_2

Thanks Joe

My ex-husband used to make beer from scratch many years ago but I admit as i didn't drink it I didn't take much notice of what he did.
Present husband [sounds good doesn't it???] loves Woodforde beers esp Nog so I thought it might be a good present since we are now trying to save pennies....

vivw_2

Has any one made/used these? Any tips? any problems? How did they taste

thanks

squeaky

Hi vivw - I've added your post onto an ealier thread to help keep the ideas all in one place.

Luckily you won't need to read back through earlier posts because you've already seen them