* General
* “Diabetic” Beer & Wine Recipes
* Glasses
* Pete’s Pint Pot Problem Page
* Hops
* Alligator wine & Other Recipes
Hoop’-la Department.
This is the small print where I deny everything and refuse to take any responsibility for anything. Any opinions given should not be taken as facts, and any facts given should not be taken as opinions.
E. & O. E.
Copyright www.petespintpot.co.uk 2008. First published 17 October 2008, last updated 7 Mar. 2010.
Pete’s Pint Pot is dedicated to the home production & sensible drinking of beer, wine, cider & meads plus a little bit of china painting & a few bits of photograph tampering.
If you are affected by any of the articles on this site or any of the issues raised in them, I truly feel sorry for you.
Finally the sanity clause: As Chico Marx famously said to Groucho, “Everybody knows there ain't no Sanity Clause!”
WARNING:- Some pages may contain music!
Do not enter this site if you are allergic to nuts!
ike most true Yorkshire folk I am quite thrifty (a word which too many outsiders mistakenly regard as a euphemism for “tight”), so when I’m making a beer or wine kit, I often produce another batch of my own stuff at the same time, I refer to this “piggy-back” brewing. These procedures can save both time and money (the cost of a packet of yeast & a bit of left-over beer!).
BEER
When fermentation is almost complete I rack my beer into a clean, covered fermenting bin & leave for a week to “rest”, this allows some time for a lot of unwanted sediment to settle out before the bottling process, resulting in a lot less sludge in the bottom of the bottles. After this first racking the sludge left was previously discarded into my compost bin. Now I collect some of it, & most of the beer dregs, in a small sterile bottle. The bin can now be cleaned and used for a brew of my own, usually it is of a similar style to my kit as some manufacturers use different yeasts for beers & lagers etc. When the recovered yeast is added to the new brew fermentation starts very quickly as it is still quite active. After bottling the “rested” kit, any leftovers are put into the fermenter with my brew (this is why I sometimes end up with more beer than I started with!). This beer is then racked into a cleaned fermenter & left to rest for a week before bottling.
Some “piggy-back” beer recipes.
WINE & CIDER
My usual first step in wine kit making is to re-hydrate the yeast in about 50ml of slightly warm water (20-30°C), after 15 mins I double the volume by adding some fruit juice such as apple or orange, making sure the temperatures are similar as yeasts do not like sudden temperature changes. While the yeast is re-hydrating & multiplying, I can make my kit as normal, I can also make up my own wine or cider concoction(s) at the same time. When ready, the yeast can be divided more or less equally between the musts. Three or more lots can be made simultaneously but, to a simple soul like me, making two is at once is quite complicated enough.
(A cheap-skates guide)
A Few Sums The Next Step Running Costs What Next?
When I first seriously contemplated making my own beers, wines & ciders I had four main concerns:-
1) How much will it cost to produce the goods?
2) Will the taste be acceptable?
3) Would I need lots of expensive equipment?
4) What if I get disheartened & pack it all in?
For the moment we will just consider kits, my answers the above questions are:
1) Cheap beer kits are available for about £8, these need about 1Kg sugar costing less than 90p and will initially produce 40 pts. This equates to less than 23p a pint. “All malt” kits (no sugar required) cost around 50p a pint.
Wine kits start at around £7 for a 4.5l (1gall); these normally require up to 500g sugar, total cost: less than £1.20 a bottle the best wines come from the better kits at around £10, or about £1.70 a bottle.
2) It is very hard to find a bad kit to-day. If you read the YoBrew Reviews page you will see that the main reasons for buying one product rather than another is largely a question of personal taste and value for money. There are quite a few internet sites that review kits, read these as well for a more balanced overall opinion.
3) Six bottle wine “starter kits” are available from around £20 including a can of grape concentrate (wine kit). As far as I know, all you need to provide are bottles, corks, sugar and, most importantly, a tub of sterilizing powder.
Beer “starter kits” start around £34 including a malt extract kit.
If you buy both a beer & a wine kit you may find that you have some equipment duplication. You may wish to buy your equipment separately.
NOTE: I have never seen a “starter kit” & so my information is automatically very limited. Your friendly neighbourhood home brew shop is a good place to seek further information but be warned, it is their job to sell stuff to you & could take advantage of your vulnerability & flog you £100’s worth of clobber when all you needed could be obtained for £25.
4) Don’t rush into anything; seek advice from the internet, friends & homebrew shops. Buy the minimum of equipment and buy not only a good kit, but a suitable kit, I saw a complete beginner buying a Woodforde’s Admiral’s Reserve kit, nothing wrong with that, an admirable kit, but it is very bitter, I would personally have recommended the Wherry or Great Eastern. For a first time kit I think a lower priced kit may be advisable, just in case anything did go wrong, not that it should, just follow the instructions & you will enjoy the results. Should you not persist with the hobby there are plenty of charity shops willing to re-cycle your old gear, that’s where a few of my demijohns cam from, a couple more were kindly donated by friendly neighbours.
If you wish to start from scratch, the table below shows what I consider to be the minimum equipment to start your own beer & wine making, it assumes that you have basic kitchen equipment such as weighing scales, a measuring jug and a few assorted spoon sizes. The prices given are approximately correct during June 2008 and are rounded up to the nearest 50p.
NOTE: Where alternatives are given, only one item is required.
By adding the totals from the relevant columns we can see that for about £18 we can start brewing beer (plus the cost of the kit & any required sugar). Similarly we can do wines & ciders for less than £16 & the whole lot for under £24. To put this in perspective, if we made 40 pints of beer using an £18 kit, the total outlay would be £36 which equates to about 90p a pint. A second or subsequent similar batch would cost only £18 or 45p per pint as there is no more new equipment to buy.
The “mailonline” beer page quotes “Homebrewing equipment is not expensive and you shouldn’t need to spend more than £75.” Approximately four times my estimate & a beer kit or sterilizer is not included. The (dodgy) instructions include “COOKING THE BEER”! The accompanying photo depicts a glass of murky, almost lifeless beer. Are they trying to put people off home brewing?
Visit www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1080305/Your-step-step-guide-home-brewing.html for a snigger sorry, for more details.
With the "essential equipment" mentioned in the above table, you should be able to make almost every kit available and lots of your own recipes, the beers however, will be limited to those made with hops, malt extracts, crystal, black & chocolate malts & roast barley (this is nowhere as near restrictive as it sounds).
Once you have gained confidence & wish to continue/improve brewing/wine making activities further equipment can be bought:
With the additional fermenting bin, a beer that is nearing the end of its initial fermentation, can be racked (siphoned of all the debris) into the second bin & left for about a week, this allows the beer to “rest” & lets a lot of un-wanted yeast to settle out before bottling, resulting in less sediment in the bottles.
The hydrometer measures the Specific Gravity of your brews & is a good indicator of when fermentation is complete (amongst other things).
A wine that has finished fermentation can be racked into an additional demijohn & allowed to "mature in bulk" for about 3 months, this improves the taste & helps give you "star-bright" wines. Alternatively, if you only have one demijohn, rack the wine into your clean, sterilized bucket while you clean out your demijohn, the wine can then be transferred back for maturation.
The natural progression in beer & wine kit making, assuming of course that you want to take this step, is to make your own “brews” from readily available ingredients. Initially the brewer would probably use malt extract & the winemaker use supermarket fruit juices &, possibly, some tinned or fresh fruits. Cider can easily made from cartons of apple juice but it may be better to try making 4.5 litres initially rather than 23 litres. Our "essential equipment" will be perfectly adequate but a hydrometer will be of great use &, for the beer a colander or sieve (200mm or greater diameter) will be needed for straining the hops, you could possibly find something suitable if you search your kitchen cupboards. The following table is based on "typical" recipes & prices; they may be rounded-up for simplicity.
* 1.5Kg of dry un-hopped malt extract could be used.
** “Incidentals” covers the cost items such as Campden tablets, Bentonite, acids & pectic enzyme etc. wherever used. They are usually bought in small tubs & so it is not really practical to give actual costs.
Running Costs
Apart from the bottles, most of the equipment should last for years but our plastic bins & demijohns will get scratched with normal use & may want replacing say every two years. The plastic tubing gets discoloured with use &, whilst perfectly clean after sterilization, you may wish to replace it after six months or so. A tub of sterilizer will last around a year & the “incidentals” will probably work out at less than £3 per annum.
What Next?
|
ESSENTIAL EQUIPMENT | |||||
|
BEER ONLY |
BEER WINE & CIDER |
WINE & CIDER ONLY | |||
|
Fermenting bin (23l) Beer paddle Bottles (PET recycled “pop” bottles)
Total |
£8.50 £1.50 £0.00
£10.00 |
A new, unused white plastic bucket Sterilizer (100g) or (400g) Plastic tube (2000mm) Siphon Siphon tap Funnel 125mm dia. or so
Total (cheapest option) |
£2.00 £1.50 £4.00 £1.00 £1.50 £1.00 £1.00
£8.00 |
Demijohn (4.5l) glass Plastic Airlock & bung 6 Glass wine bottles (recycled) (for cider use PET bottles) Bottle stoppers (25) (better than corks)
Total (cheapest option) |
£5.00 £1.00 £0.00
£2.50
£5.50 |
|
USEFUL ADDITIONAL EQUIPMENT | |||||
|
BEER ONLY |
BEER WINE & CIDER |
WINE & CIDER ONLY | |||
|
Additional fermenting bin (23l) |
£8.50 |
Hydrometer |
£2.50 |
Additional demijohn (4.5l) glass Plastic |
£5.00 |
|
MATERIAL COSTS | |||||
|
BEER ONLY |
WINE ONLY |
CIDER ONLY | |||
|
*1.8Kg Malt extract (wet) 1 Kg Sugar (£0.9/Kg) (inc. primer) (depending on the type) Yeast
Total |
£11.50 £0.90
£3.00
£1.20
£16.00 |
3l Fruit juice (£1.00/l) 500g Sugar (£0.90/Kg) Yeast **Incidentals
Total |
£3.00 £0.45 £1.20 £0.30
£4.95 |
3l Apple juice (£0.75/l) 200g Sugar (£0.90/Kg) (inc. primer) **Incidentals
Total |
£2.25 £0.20
£1.20 £0.30
£3.95 |