Home brewing.

Willowpop

Hi folks, does anyone home brew?
I want to get my DH a starter kit for making beer for Father's Day and not sure what I need to get him.
Can any one tell me what I need to get please?

MrsAtobe

What sort of beer does he like to drink? OH home brews both wine (for me ) and real ale for him, both from kits, and I have to say that you need far more equipment for ale than you do for wine.

As a minimum for beer, you'll need the starter kit, some steriliser, brewing bin , bottles/barrel to age the beer, and a hydrometer. A thermometer is also handy, as is a heat belt if you don't have somewhere warm enough for the brewing bin.

If you do decide to buy him one, get used to the house smelling like a brewery. It can be a hard smell to stomach if you have a hangover go on, ask me how I know

safestored4

I have been home brewing since 1972 and am still here to tell the tale. You used to be able to buy all the equipment you need and supplies from Boots, but since they have given up unless you have a specialist shop nearby then buy online. Amazon have some quite cheap starter kits which include the equipment described above. Try one of these and if he then develops an interest and wants to take things further there are now quite a few companies offering superior products. Make sure that you buy a kit for the type of beer that he drinks. This will generally be lager or bitter, but could be stout or mild. Get that wrong and it will go down like a lead balloon.

nearlytherenow

You could go to wilkinsons for a starter kit. Quite cheap and good for beginners.

skogar

I would go to your local home brew shop they are usually very good at kitting out newbies with the stuff they need.

I would disagree with the poster that said you need more equipment for beer than wine. If working from kits (and not mashing your own) it's not really much different. I only did beer originally - you will need the following as a minimum.

A brewing bucket, syphon tube, brewing steriliser, thermometer, hydrometer, long handled spoon (or something else long to stir with), tin opener, kitchen scales (if you need to add sugar).

A brew belt is useful if you are brewing somewhere quite cool (I have one now but didn't when I started).

You will also need something to put your beer in. I use 1l thick green plastic fizzy water bottles with screw caps. Less hassle to sterilise than pint bottles as you need fewer and you don't need a special way of capping them. This is the point at which the previous poster's point about needing more equipment for beer than wine could easily become true. You can use brown glass beer bottles instead. These should ideally come filled with fine ale! I have heard rumours that they can in fact be purchased empty - but this seems wrong. If you are mean like I am you ask people to save them for you! If you use these you will need some crown caps and a capper as well. Although we bottle most of our beer in plastic bottles it is nice to have some real glass ones for when you want to give a bottle to someone. You could buy a cheap plastic pressure barrel instead however I would suggest bottles are probably best initially.

The most important thing to buy if this is for a present is a good quality beer kit of the type of beer that your husband enjoys. I tend to use the more expensive ones but I think the taste justifies the expense - it is still much much cheaper than the equivalent real ales. Brewferm do some excellent belgian style kits, Milestone 2 can kits are good too. I mostly make darker beers so can't really advise on lighter ones. Check if the kit needs extra sugar adding. If so get some brewing sugar or a suitable type of spray malt so he is ready to go. If you give us some ideas of what types of beer your husband likes someone may be able to suggest some suitable kits.

Hope that helps.

skogar

PS

When I went in Wilko's last week they had a lot of their homebrew stuff with 25% off so could be worth a look.

MrsAtobe

Skogar, my OH uses pressure barrels and a gas cylinder, which is not needed for wine, as I'm sure you'll understand, hence the comment about needing less kit for wine than beer. Screw top wine bottles are easy to get hold of, if you chat up your local publican . I didn't want to frighten the OP though.

SailorSam

I started last year making my own wine ............... i'm drinking cranberry & orange as we speak.
I've got 2 gallon still in demi-johns of plum from the garden and made another two gallon with flavoured teabags.

Update,
That's a site i use,

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/login.php?do=login

skogar

I thought your OH must be using pressure barrels from what you said. I have used pressure barrels and found that I didn't need the gas cylinders as I wasn't tapping it off fast enough to have an issue with the carbon dioxide. All depends how quickly you get through it. I went back to using the bottles as its nice to have a choice of beers to drink and I don't really get through the pressure barrels fast enough.

When we started making wine from kits I only needed to guy a large plastic fermenter with an airlock as we had all the other stuff from making the beer. We scrounged a load of screwcap wine bottles and we were ready to go. So very cheap to start doing the wine. We have since got some corks and a corker as well. People save us the bottles. We also got some of those shrink on foils, completely unnecessary but looks nicer when you give someone a bottle. We have just started trying to make fruit wines now as well.

Willowpop

Guys, you're all amazing, thanks for your thoughts. I have a Wilkos nearby so will go and have a look there.
My DH drinks the bottled ales like Spitfire etc, so if he could make that sort of thing then that would be great.
It sounds like there is a lot of scope to expand his set up if he enjoys it...I just want to get him started. He has mentioned it in passing, but not sure if he would enjoy it or not.I thought it would make a nice Father's day present though.
Thanks again everyone, and feel free to add any other helpful thoughts you remember.

LittleMissWildChild

Hubby is into home brewing and he bought a starter kit - you can get other beer types though.
He also uses it to brew me cider, so win win

I can't post a link as I am a new user, but if you put : coopers home brew uk

into google and then go to the-home-brew-shop .co .uk they have a range of full brew kits there - its the brand we use and its really good.