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- #17
I need to get my next kit, so I'll have to get lookingI always used to bottle some good strong belgian stuff for Christmas. I used to bottle it in summer as it really improved with extra maturing. Lovely stuff.
That's some knowledge! I think eventually I'll move onto bigger and better, but for now I'm golden with it, as said above this will be a expensive hobby....I have made quite a lot of home brewed beer over the years.
I made all my own equipment in order for me to be able to brew from grains.
You can quite easily make a mash tun from a cool box, a boiler from a 5 gallon fermenting bucket. I did however purchase the hope strainer. A fish tank heater will suffice to maintain optimum wort temperature during fermentation. There are lots of references / forums /recipes on the Internet.
It is quite time consuming cleaning and sterilising all your equipment, bottles and barrels etc. But once you get the hang of it all it is a rewarding hobby especially if you hit on a recipe that you like. Most of my beer came out in the 4.5% region. In order to brew it stronger you need more malt and a suitable yeast that is capable of getting the fermentation down to the required SG.
I bought most of my fermentables, hops and yeast from the Internet. Have a look at the malt miller web site, I think there is also quite an extensive range of brewing equipment contained therein.
The sooner you get away from kits the better your beer will be.
Enjoy and have fun.
Cheers
... My aim would be to make a brew as strong as possible, nothing refined, proper tramp juice
That's very much like the gear I used to use to brew beer. I even had two 5-gallon barrels, one ready to drink, one getting ready to replace it. No need for bottles using a barrel, saves a lot of hassle. Ale/Bitter is easier as it doesn't need to be chilled, lager needs to be kept cold but I prefer beer over lager anyway.
They keep popping upIf you are doing kits, my advice is to stick to the two can more expensive kits. Sure they're twice as expensive, but they are twice as nice, and compared to shop bought beer still cheap!
The Woodfordes and St Peter's kits are great.... but I am a little biased as they are local breweries for me!
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