Anyone brew their own beer or wine?

hunnymonster

hunnymonster

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I do but not for the usual (well usualish) reasons - mostly because I like overhopped beer... mostly I start from Hambledon Bard dry kits these days, but jack up the hop content... tonight I just tapped the overhopped "Olde English" (risky thing to do in Scotland ;)) and I feel three sheets to the wind after 2½ pints - I think it's the first time I've felt alcoholically "merry" in about 15 years...

I'll get the inevitable "homebrew went wrong" story out there now....

When I first started messing around with brewing, I was about 16 or 17 and like you do when you're young and silly when it said "2lb sugar" you slipped 2½ in, when it said 1tsp for priming I slipped 2 in etc. So there were 40 bottles in the garage all crown-capped and primed when suddenly at about 3am there was a bang as the first bottle exploded (cap still in place as it turned out) which seemingly set off a chain reaction and over the next 30 minutes about 30 of the bottles "bought it" - each one sounding like a rifle shot as it went off.

Dad wasn't impressed by the smell that lingered in his garage for about 3 months :lol: I was too busy crying over the lost beer to care.
 
I used to help my dad when i was a kid but havent done anything since i moved out, mainly due to a lck of space but i am tempted to get one of these simple brew thingys:

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I use a pressure barrel these days (well since I was a student and bedroom 5 in our shared house was turned into "the brewery" where we had 8 or 9 pressure barrels in various stages of settling & conditioning) - I suspect that the beer machine linked really doesn't save that much space compared to a pressure barrel and fermenting bucket when it comes down to it...
 
I think you are propably correct on the space thing.. but the beer machine fits with my love for gadgets..

Although any home brewing kit doesnt fit with my cutting down on the beer regime..
 
Years ago when I was young and poor I used to make wine from kits and, as you do, took a few liberties with the recommended recipes to make a stronger tipple. I remember one particular Rosé I made. It was a cold winter night and the missus and me curled up in front of the fire with a bottle and a video (no DVDs way back then). Two glasses each and neither of us could move. We were drunk from the feet up - it's the first and only time my feet have been pissed while the rest of me was sober :shock:
 
It used to be a family tradition to make red wine for as long as I can remember. Some good, some terrible mostly indifferent.
When I inherited all the kit, press, crusher and barrels and carboy's I made about 250 litres of red. I brought a little more science to the operation and it wasn't too bad at all, very drinkable palatable table wine. To give you an idea I bought 50 boxes of grapes (approx 14 - 17lbs) and it worked out to be around £1 a litre.
I became a little more ambitious with the next batch and also offered to make some wine for friends...for a £1 a litre and a helping hand it was a steal and great fun. I made approx 450 litres of red a couple of years later, that did turn out as well and that extra 200 litres seemed to magnify the work eight fold. Despite some help it was very hard work plus the grape supplier had now moved a fair distance away and I have not made any since. My tastes have changed and now I just think I could never make anything approaching the quality of good shop bought wine, not a chance. If I could get good grapes easily and had a cellar then maybe I'd think again, my uncle at 70 + still makes his own which I admire but it is awful and nobody except himself enjoys drinking it. I believe he has about 200 litres of acetic acid, now that's a lot of salad dressing.
 
My gran went through a stage or home made wine making about 10 years ago, god the stuff was fowl i always used to turn t-total when she turned up for diner.
 
We make wine. We have about 16 vines, spread evenly over Marechal Foch and Leon Millot. These are 'modern' French hybrids that are mildew-resistant and early ripening (these traits go hand in hand, both come from the inbreeding of American grape species). The most common new hybrid is 'Regent', a German hybrid, that is by far the most common wine grape in these new Dutch vineyards (about 90 according to a recent count). All of these hybrids can successfully be grown for wine as far north as Denmark (and consequently also the south of Sweden, which actually is warmer than Denmark), so could be successfully grown in the UK as well...

Our 16 vines yield about 30 (to sometimes 45) liters of must, which translates to about 25 L of wine. Our current harvest (see my other post) has been pressed today, and is now sitting in carboys. This year BTW looks like a quality year. Slightly above average yield, very ripe, relatively high sugar content (for here), and great colour.

We're planning on moving house in the spring of 2010 -- there we'll have lots more room for vines, so all of the shoots that my SO has been nursing over the last three years or so will be planted; we're expecting that in a couple years time, we'll have about 250 L of wine annually, of our own grapes. We'll have to buy more carboys then...

Henk
 
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