Thanks. That's me £60 lighter...

Best of the bunch is this one for a newbie ...
tesco.com/dir…096

then add

some bottles/barrel to put it in.
if your an extract brewer some good deals.. I'm not so no good for me. But heat added.

Got a couple of kits to try out. Cheers.

Thanks its a while since I did something foolish have ordered, the wife will be impressed I managed to buy so much beer at a great price,have to go now I can hear her speaking in detective mode,heat.

Just bought stuff last week but got more now. That's 160 Pints ready to be brewed.,

Nice!! Thanks for the heads up...a few present sorted! :wink:

Well I'm £100 lighter but should keep me happy till christmas. (_;)

Thanks for the heads up.
Been waiting for
The WineBuddy Sauvignon Blanc Kit, 30 bottles to be on an offer.

thanks OP - some great deals on - heat added

Barrel and a couple of kits purchased, I'll thank you whilst my wife may not...

Really good deals. Many thanks OP

I brewed beer once....it had lumps in and tasted like poopies.
‌ :face_with_monocle:

Cheers op... that's me £53 happier!!

My dad has made homebrew for as long as I can remember, I have never seen it this cheap! Super hot!

Anyone can brew and these kits make it super easy, that kit is how I got started (but the beer that comes with it is pretty poor.) Just bottle in 2L sterilised fizzy drinks bottles and your good to go. It's not an expensive hobby and these kits have improved massively recently, I'd give it another go zx.

You'll be mashing, sparging and boiling next :wink:

The JB TEA kit is one of the best I've tried. I really, really recommend dry hopping with something. East Kent Goldings works well. You can get 100g from Ebay or buyhops.co.uk for about 4 quid. Use 10g per gallon and it'll take it from a middling kit up to a very decent pub pint level. Dry hopping kits improves them so much. And changing the yeast - get a packet from Wilkos, the gervin yeast is Nottingham and a lot better than the s-33 the kits have in them.

If anyone is going to buy the BrewBuddy Starter Kit to get started, go for the bitter kit as true lagers require long fermentation and cool and constant temperatures (9-14°)

The brewbuddy kit will likely be nottingham yeast so to brew at actual lager temps you'd need to substitute this out. Lower end of the scale for notts is 12°

And ignore the damned instructions. I just looked at the instructions on the Brewbuddy starter kit and it says to bottle after 4-6 days. That's nonsense. You want two to three weeks in the fermenter then three in the bottle/keg before you even start drinking them. Before you bottle try and get the fermenter as cold as you can - take it out the shed or somewhere and the yeast will settle out in a few days. You can also use a tiny bit of gelatin to clear - just look up fining with gelatin on google.

Bought the starter kit & a barrel,
Thanks

I spent a childhood 40 years ago watching my parents brewing. We had Parsnip wine, Carrot Whisky, and different beers, wines and sparkling wines (Elderflower Champagne) galore. I was even allowed to brew my own ginger beer which I bottled in Corona bottles until there was a series of bangs in the garage and a chain reaction caused about 18 bottles to explode...... there was glass everywhere...

So a recent clear out of my parents garage and I come away with all their wine and beer kit, filters, demijohns and all sorts of other stuff. I am sitting here deciding what to do about it, whether I am going to use it or car boot the lot when this pops up.............

We have been making Damson Port and Gin, Rhubarb Gin, Sloe gin, Redcurrent gin and all sorts of other things like that, but they are not really brewing so I was thinking I might hang on to it.

So instead of raising £20 or £30 by selling it all I spent £150.01........

Now the only problem I have is how to explain to the better half that the bottom of the airing cupboard needs emptying... LOL

Ian

Legend!

Wow, what did you buy? And seriously, if you got beer kits then look into dry hopping if it's not something you've done before - it's like doubling their worth and even if you end up with some off flavours they mask it pretty well.

Also check out coopers website as there are loads of recipes and changes you can make to the kits - store.coopers.com.au/bre…tml

Errrr...........

WineBuddy Sauvignon Blanc Kit, 30 bottles 1 £11.25
BrewBuddy Starter Kit Lager, 40 pints 1 £15.75
WineBuddy Starter Kit, Cabernet Sauvignon, 6 bottles 1 £11.00
BrewBuddy Starter Kit Bitter, 40 pints 1 £15.75
John Bull Traditional English Ale 1.8kg 1 £6.25
John Bull Best Bitter 1.8kg 1 £6.25
Youngs Harvest Lager Kit, 40 pints 1 £5.25
Beer Kit Enhancer 8 £20.00
WineBuddy Merlot Kit, 30 bottles 1 £11.25
BrewBuddy Lager Kit, 40 pints 1 £7.00
YUB Campden Tablets 100's 1 £1.63
Young's C02 Injector 1 £9.50
Natural CO2 8g Bulbs – 10 pack 1 £2.50
Young's 5Gal Pressure Barrel 2 £25.00
Young's Syphon Pack 1 £1.63

I decided that I am going to try barreled beer rather than bottled and am going to try naturally pressurised as well as gas cartridge. I have a friend who uses Tesco cheap bottled spring water as he says it gives a better flavour and at only 17p a bottle you then get a bottle to use for bottled beer as it is the same bottle that they use for the sparkling water, so I may give that a try as well.

I like the idea of dry hopping as I love Guiness, real ales, Weizen Beer and Leffe so prefer something with a bit more flavour. Going to research yeasts, temperatures and hops now.......

(Don't let the wife see!)

The 17p stuff isn't spring water. It's filtered tap water. You'd be as well putting your tap water through a brita filter

Thanks. I can see this not being a casual hobby........ and harmful to my liver!

As a teenager one of the best jobs was helping to syphon the wines and beers because we always seemed to get a few mouthfuls, and tasting sessions were always more than a sip! I still use my parents glass vinometer to fortify our own ports at 21% but I remember some of mum and dad's wines being 17 or 18%.

Right, never checked - sorry. I guess he just did it for the bottles then. Does the filtering of the water make much of a difference?

Don't be daft, no need to apologies. It could be a good option getting it if your water is hard or full of limescale etc.

Most folk don't filter, what some people do though is add campden tablets to the water a few hours beforehand which removes any chlorine from the water.

It's all about experimenting. Find out what works for you as it might be completely different for me.

That is why I had bought the campden tablets, as that is always what dad did. Think I will stick with that - I don't have a filter.

If you do go down the 17p tesco water route, I don't think I'd bother with the campden tablets.

mikeyblue has started up a Homebrew Discussion Thread so keep us posted with your progress - hotukdeals.com/mis…445

Thanks OP, you have just made my week :smile:‌ :smile:‌ :smile:‌ :smile: Although I'm £80 down now lol

I started with that lager kit 2 years ago and it nearly put me off. I stuck with it though, moved to all grain and have never looked back. I've brewed many can kits but the only one on that sale list is the Canadian Blonde which I can recommend. I've the Cverza in a FV now (bought from geterbrewed with an out of date yeast for more money than it is here) to be bottled tomorrow so can't pass judgement.

As I understand, true lager yeasts are bottom fermenters that require cool temperatures. Pseudo lagers won't be a true lager but will taste lagerish. If you want a true lager then you need a fridge or some temperature control (5L batches will fit in a household fridge). The bitter kit will brew far better imo.

If anyone does brew a kit for the first time, leave it 2 weeks in the fermenting vessel, 2 weeks in bottles in a warm place and 2 weeks in your fridge before drinking your first pint. A good beer takes time.

I've moved to all grain, I've a load of grain stocked up but couldn't resist 4 kits from that list :stuck_out_tongue:

So here you go:

The content of my home made drinks cupboard! The big bottles are 1.75 litres each and are left over Rum Bottles! The Limoncello was made with Pure Alcohol brought back from Italy (95% alcohol).

I have a further 6 litres of Damson port 1 month into the 3 month process and then the damsons will make a fabulous boozy crumble!

66 bottles of wine and 280 pints of beer on their way to me. This site is dangerous, haha!

Was really into my homebrew 6 or 7 years ago and had a full all grain setup, but haven't had the opportunity for a while. So thought this little lot would help to ease me back in. :smile:

Great deal,
Just a little confused tho - duelingDuck says that the kits contain S33 yeast (whatever that is ) and best to get Wilkos Nottingham yeast.
You however are saying that the brewbuddy is Nottingham - although the context is slightly different

Could be s33. They are both general purpose ale yeasts. What I should have said is it'll be an ale yeast in the kit which ferments at higher temperatures than a proper lager yeast. Kit lagers that have instructions to ferment at 20+ arguably aren't actually lagers

Thanks mate. £55 spent equals £55 saved :-)

I don't care about heat but I would like to thank those who were who were good hearted enough to thank me for the post.
Cheers in every way. Those who did not boo to you.

beyond wine kit, what else do i need to buy?

Technically you won't need anything. You can use a 5L water container (£1 in Tesco's) bin the water and the container won't need sterilising. When things have brewed out you can pour into bottles carefully via a funnel but to get going I'd recommend:

A demijohn with an airlock and stopper. You'll also need some sterilising powder (miltons or half a crushed campden tablet and some tubing to filter.

Just doing my tesco shop and thought id do a search on here for any offers and found this. Have never done any kind of home brew before but have bought the bitter kit and the sauvignon blanc!!! Thanks OP, I have a lot of fun ahead of me, both making and drinking hic!!

thank you for the info much appreciated.

So if Ive bought the bitter kit can I use all the bits that came with that to use on the wine kit? In which case I just need to bottle when done, is that right? Can I reuse wine bottles with a screw cap if i sterilise them? Sorry for all the questions, never done this before!!

The bitter kit will have everything to use with the wine like sterilising powder and syphon but the fermenting vessel will be a bit big and you'll risk infection. You'd be better off buying a demijohn, stopper and airlock for wine.

You can use whatever bottles you have for your beer so long as they can withstand pressure. I regularly put beer in 500ml and 2l coke bottles. I've minikegs and corny kegs as well but the plastic bottles are handier if I only want a pint or 2.

Wine won't need pressurised containers (if brewed properly) so you can put this in whatever you want so long as it can't get oxidised. Screw cap wine bottles will be just fine. If you use wine bottles that need corks then you'll need corks and a wine corker. Again if it's only you drinking it then why bother.

The important thing is to make sure everything is sterilised. This is the bit I hate about brewing but it's a necessity.

Brill thanks for the advice, for the wine could I use a 25l fermenter with a bottom tap, will take up less space for me?

I'd buy a demijohn for wine. The thing is you'll have a large gap between the top of the fermentor and the 5L of wine. This runs the risk of oxidation that will spoil your wine. The demijohn is also clear and its easy to see how clear your wine is. For beer a small haze doesn't really matter for for wine it does. Demijohn and airlock will only cost a couple of quid. If you don't want the costs then brew in a 5L water container:



That's a turbo cider I'm brewing. The airlock doesn't work so it's useless. What you can do is unscrew the lid slightly to let CO2 escape. It will do the same job.

An excellent site for any info you need on home brewing.
thehomebrewforum.co.uk/ind…f9e

That looks like what you drink before watching Casualty then going out to the boozer for me.

Good work! For dry hopping I went the route of getting the most common American and the most common UK hop and so I got Cascade and East Kent Goldings. I did tastings with groups of people and even a cruddy Yorkshire Geordie kit dry hopped with 10g of cascade per gallon had my friend Paul who ran a bar for 6 years say he could sell it for over a fiver a pint and it was amazing, and we don't do faint praise. I gave people samples of a cascade dry hopped beer over time and 3 to 8 weeks it's great, then its citrussy flavours die down and it becomes a bit more herbal. I did East Kent Goldings on a John Bull TEA kit and even 12 weeks later it was still present and it cacked on just the plain kit. So cascade for 3 weeks bouncy castle of wow, EKG for late night lingering, contemplating and mastu...

I've got tons of hops on test at the moment but as mad as it seems East Kent Goldings = Good Old Man's Earthy Pint, Cascade = Great Exciting Frooot Frooot pint. And you'll taste them in so many commercial beers you try after having them.

Citra is another hop that's mad out there. It's £6.55 per 100g on ebay but you use less.

I'm just talking on a kit dry hopping level - if you need to go further youtube has an amazing community of British brewers who are really no-nonsense and skip a load of the cack and bluster. And there's a load of websites and don't ever feel like your question might be stupid because everyone goes through it.

Yes. Wine is actually a lot easier to do than beer because the yeast is more aggressive and you end up with less chance of the fermentation going wrong and because the wine ends up about 12% it had much less of a chance of infection later than beer as infections get kicked in the face because more alcohol is there. I've had a few bad beer kits but never wine. But good beer really is where you want to be. Took me a long time realise it. A really good beer is better than a really good wine.

Thanks everyone for all your advise, you're stars!!

Your post was quite informative, thanks for posting. Think Im going to get some goldings. I'm a massive fan of citra, but its too expensive for me to risk just yet...im only just starting out so il probably ruin my first few batches!

OK, so looking at my list of kits:

BrewBuddy Starter Kit Lager, 40 pints
BrewBuddy Starter Kit Bitter, 40 pints
BrewBuddy Lager Kit, 40 pints
John Bull Traditional English Ale 1.8kg
John Bull Best Bitter 1.8kg
Youngs Harvest Lager Kit, 40 pints

I an going to use the Beer Kit Enhancers for all of them.

What suggestions do you have for hops to use? Do I mix and match or just go with one type?

Is there a difference between the loose hops and the pellets? (Other than compression!)

What weight of hops do you suggest for any of the kits so as not to over power them?

Thanks for your help.

Ian

Thank you Duelling.Duck. Just what I needed.

I have 4 hydrometers! Two that came with the bitter and lager kits above and 2 in my box of stuff from my parents, as well as a corker and corks, filters, filter pads and papers, bottle cleaning brushes, a vinometer, syphon tubes, rubber bungs and airlocks by the bucket load! From memory dad used to break a hydrometer about once a year by dropping it into the hydrometer jar when he washed it out! We also had a demijohn dropped onto a stone floor once - full of blackberry wine - nice!

Apart from using Beer Kit Enhancers is there anything else I can do to make the lager kits go well?

Think I will buy the bottled water in Tescos and use that to make up the mash and then reuse the bottles for beer bottles for the first few batches. Would you recommend carbonation drops for 2 litre bottles of beer or the old fashioned way of sugar solution mixed prior to bottling?

Off to order some hops!

Thanks,

Ian

Just give the kit time. Instructions will usually say to give it a week to ferment, I give them at least 2. Try not to disturb it too much either.

Only other thing I can think of is temperature control. That can have a massive taste impact on the end result. Try and find somewhere that doesn't fluctuate in temp too much.

Sugar solution at 5g per litre, which is 23g per gallon. Boil up a little water with the sugar to dissolve which also sanitises it and then add it to your beer before bottling. Chris White at whitelabs (major yeast company) even says to use plain old table sugar for priming. I did experiments with using different priming sugars and it's not worth faffing about with other things. If you did something like a turbo cider or alcoholic lemonade then you can up it to 7g for a more lively brew but I wouldn't go much further.

Can't think of much more to say than temperature control. If you Google fermentation fridge and stc-1000 you'll find plenty on it.

Can't remember who in ebay had a best offer on Columbus hops. Managed to get 100g for £3.80 from them. Store your hops and dry yeast in the freezer and they'll last years.

EDIT: Forgot the obligatory link to howtobrew.com. Palmer's online version is a little out of date but it's used as a primer by tons of people. He's one of the homebrew characters along with a few more you'll find if you stick at things and is on the brewstrong podcast.

I did loads of blackberry wine last year and it was amazing. I was taking it around people's houses and they did the old screw up the face routine and when they had it were glugging it down. My friend's mum drank a whole bottle when she was babysitting.

If you've got demijohns then once your beer has done fermenting you could split it into them and try different hops with each or even adding things like fruit peel, raisins, spices - whatever tickles you. I'd drop them in boiling water first - especially the raisins which I would boil to kill the yeast on them as it'll rip through the sugars that ale yeast won't and leave you with something you don't want. Raisins swell up but sink when you put it in the cold after a week or so and add a really interesting body and flavour - maybe only 15 in a gallon. Don't do stuff like that until you've got a few kits done. Definitely dry hop, though. If you look at hop lists look for them being aroma or dual purpose for dry hopping.

Ok, that's me done.

How did everyone get on with their brews (especially new brewers).

I started late with my stuff, I'm about to bottle a Bulldog IPA and put another kit on. Might also do a full brew today, simple SMASH (Single Malt And Single Hop) to use up some grains I have.

So,

Although the thread is old I thought I would post the results of my first batch of brews. All of the brews were made with Tesco bottled spring water at 17p per 2 litres and then the bottles were used for the bottling process.

1st brew was the Brewbuddy bitter kit to which I added the full 40 pints of water with a beer enhancer. It was slow to get started but eventually had brewed out within 18 days and I bottled it with 8.75g of sugar per 2 litres. It settled out in 4 days and cleared beautifully. It tasted a bit weak but was surprisingly strong at 6.5% abv. Easy to drink and not too gassy, pleasant but nothing special as taste was a bit weak.

2nd brew was the John Bull Traditional English Ale with the full 40 pints of water 1 beer enhancer plus 1 cup of sugar. Brewed out in 9 days and then added 50g of cascade hops and 1 cup of sugar and stirred gently and tasted every day. After hopping for 4 days we thought it was getting a bit bitter so we strained and bottled it. It smelled fabulous and cleared in 5 days and was 9% abv. Poured and gassed lovely, smelled so fruity and tasted fabulous.

3rd brew was the brewbuddy lager kit. I decided to drop water to 32 pints from now on and added 1 beer enhancer and 1 cup of sugar and put in cold garage for 3 weeks for a slow brew. Bottled with 10g of sugar per 2 litres, abv was 6.5%, taste after 2 weeks was a bit like a Belgian Blonde beer, smelled beautiful and was quite sweet with a long after taste. Lovely cold.

4th brew was the John Bull Best Bitter with 32 pints of water, 1 beer enhancer, 1 cup of sugar and stirred after 5 days whist adding 45g of East Kent Golding Hops and 1/2 a cup of sugar. Strained off hops after 7 days and bottled with 10g sugar per 2 litre bottle and was 9.5% abv. Cleared after 4 days and ready to drink after10 days. Smells earthy, but sweet, long lingering taste in the mouth, not as bitter as cascade and really nice served chilled, but not as cold as the lager.

In between time I brewed out all the wine kits. All fierce in brewing but when made with full 40 pints of water they were a bit insipid, so did the last small kit (Cab Sav) with only 80% water but full sugar and it was much better. Problem is, it came out at 16% so packs a punch! Tastes nicer though with the less water.

So now I am converted to dry hopping, and coming from near Burton I have decided to try Burton Bridge Bitter - and it brewed really fast. Same thing with 32 pints and a beer enhancer + 1 cup of sugar. It was finished in 6 days so dry hopped with cascade 60g and 1 cup of sugar and left it on the hops for 7 days before bottling today with 10g sugar per 2l. Measured abv of 9% and smells fab so cannot wait to taste it.

Sorry the post is so long but I wanted to share the results and my experience, but I cannot share the beer! (Unless someone is near Ashby and fancies a glass!)

Thanks for your patience!

Ian.

Great stuff. I just came to check on this thread and was going to look for something you'd posted in to ask how it was going. The dry hopping makes a massive difference. Some work better than others. I did a split batch and in one used 10g of galaxy per gallon and even 160 days after bottling you can't taste the beer, just the crazy pop rocks with a slight bit of lavender taste of the hops.

If you fancy doing a half way between all grain brewing and kits then if you can get some pale malt or maris otter you can do a mash of 2.5kg of that at 66.7c for an hour, strain to get the wort, boil it for an hour and then use that instead of any brewing sugar or enhancer and it really changes the game. It doesn't need to be remotely complicated and you can just do it with an 8 litre saucepan. Look up biab (brew in a bag) and loads of people using the traditional 3 vessel systems are starting to do it because it's just easier. And you get all the sugars for £2.50 a time if you buy a big bag of grain.

If you're doing lighter beers or a wheat have a go at adding some spices. You could take some of the wort from the kit and do a 5 minute boil with it with some coriander seed and orange peel. The first time I did it I just boiled the seed and peel in water and added the water like a dry hop and it was great.

Have you been looking at the nutters on youtube?

And are you sure about those abv numbers? You're subtracting the final gravity from the original on the hydrometer and seeing what that would be - or using something like brewersfriend.com/abv…or/

Well just to update also, I read up so much that I only managed to make one batch so far but its a cracker! I did a Young's harvest dark mild. I'm so happy because I felt for sure my first ever brew would not go well but it's perfect! I concentrated on sterilisation and even brew temps, switched out the sugar for dried malt extract and a brew enhancer (no sugar at all), and brewed slightly short at 20 litres. Fermented for 4 weeks at 22*c then bottled in to 2 litre pop bottles and left them at room temp for another 4+ weeks. Its lovely stuff but I got interrupted mid brew and forgot to take the initial gravity... With the extra fermentables and the fact a feel a bit drunk after one pint I know it's really strong but the % is completely unknown lol. Suffice to say I'm a convert.
Oh I also did some research and due to going gluten free , I bought some clarityferm and dropped that in to the fermentation. Result: zero reaction to the gluten for only £2.50 a barrell!!!!! Seriously happy with that!