Homebrew's

[n-fish]

Who here brews there own beer

I have just put down my first batch and now am looking for some tasty brews to make up

With a little one on its way I am trying to cut back where I can and just can't take drinking cheep beer any more

any help would be appreciated

[Shane]

I know this is thinking out the box, don't drink beer

My friend used to brew a very strong ginger beer that was tasty and made you misplace your legs.

[mark101]

Na, but thinking of trying to make my own Rum at the moment

[Squidgee_Man]

I've been brewing for about 2 years now and i have had some shocking brews but mostly classics. A good website to join is the Coopers Club its about $50 and you get a few little gifts. The forum is a great place to get help and ideas and there's plenty of great brew recipes on there aswell. http://www.coopers.com.au/home.php

My tips are try and avoid that urge to crack a bottle after a week for a taste. After bottling leave for a min of 3 - 4weeks, preferably 2 months. Your beer will taste ten times better trust me. Secondly sterilize, i cant stress this enough. Otherwise you will get stuff growing in your wort and that wrecks the whole brew. Ill start you off with my favorite brew.

1x can of Coopers Canadian Blonde (brewed as per instructions on can)
Then i get a dozen lemons and get all the rind of them. Boil the rind for about a minute or two just to kill any bacteria. Strain and add this straight to the wort when you add the yeast. Also 750ml of a good quality honey. After bottling leave for 1 month. This brew is a awesome summertime beer with a lovely honey lemon taste.
Beautifull!

Coopers also have a great ginger beer. Ive brewed this with about 3kg of sugar. It was about 12% and blew my socks off! it was so nice and went down waaayyyy to easy. Killer brew that one.

[n-fish]

Shane are you crazy no beer

Squidgee_Man the coopers club is not taking members till the end of the year , I am not too keen on the lemon beers more of a dark ale , German wheat beer drinker and Coopers sparkling but might have to give the ginger beer ago for summer

[StuKlose]

Been brewin beer for a while now. Look up westbrew.com.au as they have a heap of preprepared recipes and all the big name copies.

I brew straight to a keg so don't have to worry about cleaning bottles. You also only have to wait one to two days before you can drink your brew after fermentation as the CO2 bottle gases your brew.

[Crayfish]

My dad does it, looks like a drug laboratory lol

[Squidgee_Man]

Originally Posted by n-fish

Shane are you crazy no beer

Squidgee_Man the coopers club is not taking members till the end of the year , I am not too keen on the lemon beers more of a dark ale , German wheat beer drinker and Coopers sparkling but might have to give the ginger beer ago for summer

Ahh you would probably like my Kilkenny Clone then. Its has a head the size of Mt Everest

[n-fish]

going down to the brew shop to try and pick there brains and maybe buy some recipe books

[Richo]

I just ring U-Brew-it, throw down a batch, get about 6 cartons for $120-$140 which is great value considering I get Asahi, Canadian Ale copies which are normally $50 a slab. And every batch has been nothing short of exceptional, they sell keg set-ups with a tap on the fridge door, dangerous to have at home though.

cheers

[Brad Y]

Richo, I do my own. Made good ones and bad ones, the key i reckon is limiting the alcohol. The more sugar or dextrose you add i reckon the flavour just goes. Need to wash out the kit and do another too. I want to do a steinlager/tooheys pils hybrid- reckon it will go down a treat over summer.

[Squidgee_Man]

Originally Posted by Brad Y

Richo, I do my own. Made good ones and bad ones, the key i reckon is limiting the alcohol. The more sugar or dextrose you add i reckon the flavour just goes. Need to wash out the kit and do another too. I want to do a steinlager/tooheys pils hybrid- reckon it will go down a treat over summer.

Limit the alcohol WHAT THE! the whole point in making your own brew is to make rocket fuel If your losing your taste Brad when adding more fermentables try using another half can of the Brew. Anything over 1.5kg of sugars and you gotta add a bit more of the Brew mix. Ive always done it this way and ive made beer up to 15% and it still tasted nice. Mind you the next morning i felt like crap

[Hazell]

I agree with keeping the alcohol down to 5-6%. all the home brews i have tasted that had the extra sugar added were pretty bad in my opinion.

I do all grain brewing (start from scratch) and it is great but you can make near commercial quality beers by doing things such as:

1) use 2 cans rather than a can and sugar, or at least use dry malt extract to avoid thin watery beer. but too avoid a double bittered beer, you can use an unhoppped can of liquid malt extract as the second. this will allow you to push the alcohol higher with more sugar as there will be more body to hold the higher alcohol.
2) go to a decent homebrew shop (or online, check out the sponsors of below) and get small amounts of hops and specialty malts to add flavour.
3) its been said but cleanliness/sanitary fermenters etc.


www.aussiehomebrewer.com
Theres no need to pay for a membership to a forum...

I have posted this some where in the beer thread but here is my brewery again.