I've just got my first kit for my birthday, Coopers one. Supposed to be easy to use and good beer. Not started it yet but will get it going this weekend.
I've just got my first kit for my birthday, Coopers one. Supposed to be easy to use and good beer. Not started it yet but will get it going this weekend.
I've just got my first kit for my birthday, Coopers one. Supposed to be easy to use and good beer. Not started it yet but will get it going this weekend.
There used to be home brewing and wine-making shops everywhere. Boots even had a wine-making department.
You could buy all the supplies and dozens of different types of yeast.
That was back in the 1970's. I never tried brewing beer, I was into wine-making. My Dad brewed his own beer and seemed to like it. My mother brewed ginger beer.
My favourite wines were apple and rose-hip.
When I was a teenager I used the Geordie home brew kit. Came in a cardboard box and you had to boil up the hops, add the malt etc and I think it made around 40 pints. It was strong stuff too and adding too much sugar meant bottles exploding like grenades. It was consumed in great quantities by visiting uncles. My brother's mate (probably 15) actually climbed onto our house roof to 'get the pigeons' after drinking a single bottle. He sat high up on the ridge and refused to come down for ages.
Used to make ginger beer as well with the ginger beer 'plant' a precursor of the lava lamp as it bubbled away on my parents' tv shelf.
These days try to make cider (so far without success) as I have lots of apples each autumn. Built myself an apple press using a car jack and freeze loads of lovely juice each year but the cider making has got me beat so far.
I used to make my own wine. Just from recipes in a wine-making book. It wasn't that difficult if you could put your mind to it. I made loads of different wines, but the easiest was ginger wine. Once you've bought the equipment needed, it's a doddle. The equipment can be re-used time and again. Give it a go. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. There are loads of wine recipes online. enjoy!
Used to make it in a dustbin with a heating element, 10 gallons at a time. Need to leave it bottled for as long as you can bear (at least 3 months in my opinion), though desparation often shortened the wait significantly, and if you can build up a big enough stock of bottles, you can get successive brewings going. Go for it!