Home Brew - anyone doing it?

Been doing it years, while the kits go against the grain (pardon the pun) for me, I have to add my vote to the woodfords wherry bandwagon Lovely stuff.

Now is the time to be foraging blackberries to make wine for Christmas 2013. We missed out this year (2011 crop) but last years batch was a real heady dark purple. Too much of it and you knew about it. Still have a bottle somewhere.

My favourite summer brew that you can drink within a few weeks like beer is elderflower 'champagne' it's like the lemonade you used to make as a kid, but with a headspin we made 20 litres this summer in the hope we could store some. Not so, too popular! :?

xerxes":2otzoqt8 said:

Woodforde's do some home brew kits: http://www.woodfordes.co.uk/html/shop_online.html, I had a really good result with the Wherry.

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They have also other interesting stuff...
Like this book:
http://www.woodfordes.co.uk/html/300beers.html

Now I never going to try it, as I had only 9beersinrow and have still bad feeling about that night... :shock: :?

Forget about bottles and get yourself a pressure barrel. Much less hassle than washing bottles etc, worth the initial outlay and gives a much nicer "flavour"

Making good beer at home is a piece o' cake.

Wine is much more variable.

Hic.

dbmtb":3ae5q9jq said:

I make our apples into cider....

But we had none this year!

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Is that a simple Pick/Crush/Extract/Barrel/Wait/Drink process?

Do you use wooden i.e. oak barrels?

bren":2xy4005s said:

My favourite summer brew that you can drink within a few weeks like beer is elderflower 'champagne' it's like the lemonade you used to make as a kid, but with a headspin we made 20 litres this summer in the hope we could store some. Not so, too popular! :?

Click to expand...

I was going to do this this year. I was going to put it on draught i.e. in the pressure barrel. But like you, we had no blossom this year so I decided to make beer!

Bullpup":4f2y0ch2 said:

bren":4f2y0ch2 said:

My favourite summer brew that you can drink within a few weeks like beer is elderflower 'champagne' it's like the lemonade you used to make as a kid, but with a headspin we made 20 litres this summer in the hope we could store some. Not so, too popular! :?

Click to expand...

I was going to do this this year. I was going to put it on draught i.e. in the pressure barrel. But like you, we had no blossom this year so I decided to make beer!

Click to expand...

I made some that must have had some nice potent wild yeast in it. One bottle exploded and took the rest out in a sort of sweet smelling chain reaction.