Beer garden

[Zebrade]

Hi all I'm Scott from Manchester I'm new to brewing but next year I won't to brew My own from my garden I'm gonna grow barley hops but so far that's all the ingredients I've found I'd like to know what else I can grow to produce beer any help much appreciated

 

[TartanSpecial]

Welcome Zebrade. Wow..thats impressively ambitious. Most of us start on kits then gradually progress to all grain...but few of us grow barley and hops. That's probably all you can and need to grow...and the main technical hurdle I guess will be successfully malting your barley into pale malt and speciality malt yourself to a suitable quality...but why not!. :thumb:

 

[J4mie]

Welcome to the forum

 

[ManseMasher]

Don't forget the yeast tree.....

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Welcome to the forum. :

 

[brisboy]

Don't forget the yeast tree.....

Don't mind mansemasher, he's just feeling helpful. ;p

You can harvest your own yeast from the air but it's more luck of the draw whether you get something that makes tasty beer or something with lots of undesirable flavours.

 

[JapanBrew]

Or duplicate some yeast from a craft beer you like. There are a few YouTube vids showing how to do it.

 

[Godfather50]

Welcome to the forum. This year I attempted to grow my own hops. We had such a cold Summer that I only managed 10 small flowers. But I'm convinced that even here in The Scottish Highlands it is doable. My best was First Gold which is a dwarf. Good luck with the grain harvest!

 

[Zebrade]

Thanks guys for the chat still wondering wot else would be good

 

[Birkin]

Thanks guys for the chat still wondering wot else would be good

Ambitious!! Maris Otter is a good grain choice, but don't forget you need to malt it before you can use it.

Google Reinheitsgebot.

Interestingly the 500th Anniversary of the Reinheitsgebot falls on St Georges day next year, I expect the next Oktoberfest to be a good one.

 

[Zebrade]

Googling it now

 

[clibit]

Fruit, if you like fruit beer. Raspberries for example. And get a hive, produce your own honey. :thumb:

I'll nip round and take any surplus off you.

 

[Zebrade]

Does any body know how to home malt barley then

 

[TartanSpecial]

see this article from beersmith. Haven't read it myself yet. You could also grow wheat and malt it, and sugar beet, extract the sugar (not sure of process) and make into belgian candy syrup.
http://beersmith.com/blog/2009/12/05/malting-barley-grain-at-home/

 

[TartanSpecial]

Fruit, if you like fruit beer. Raspberries for example..

This Bacchus Framboise is remarkably nice if you like fruit beer.. may be a clone recipe somewhere online.

 

[Zebrade]

Tartan special thanks for ur advice I've now done some more research and your right I will only need barley and hops so excited. I've looked up and malting doesn't seem so differcult. I'm just sitting here with my auntie and she's had an early Christmas And were going through this foragering book with lots of the different ingredients I'm looking for but I meant variety SO there's sloe gin Bargnolino And burdock beer And wot I'm gonna try next year cause its in me garden already Is dandylion beer.

Good evening to to
J4mie, chippy tea, brisboy (thanks for having me back the other day I had a private message of him the other day which wasnt nice) Japan brew I'll look up wot u said sounds interesting, god farther good evening and last but not least birkin hope ya all good .

 

[TartanSpecial]

I looked into barley yields, and the higher quality spring sown barley which they use for malting (vs winter barley which goes to animal feed etc)...and if I've done the arithmetic right commercial yields are around 0.5kg per M2. ... so for 5 kg barley you'd need 10m2 which is a 2m x 5m veg patch. Commercial barley to malt yields are approx 1.25 kg barley to give 1kg malt so you'd need to grow 6.5kg barley to get 5kg malt. I expect yields from the garden will be lower (just guessing) so if I were doing it I'd probably plant out approx 25m2 to cover myself for lower yields in the hope that I could end up with 5-10kg malt.
On the hops, I've see youtube videos of people using fresh hops, but fresh hops seem to give a lot of grassy flavours, and you need massive quantities vs dried to get the same bittering effect...and they absorb lots of the wort .. so if I were doing it I'd dry the hops first. Ther's stuff on line on how to do that.

 

[Zebrade]

Very helpful I reckon I've got the space so that's not a problem and now I know I'm looking for spring sown barley thanks and I'm looking on google later to see how to dry my hops lots for me to do thanks again :)

 

[johnnyboy1965]

Its nearly impossible to grow barley and malt it on a small scale. The cost and labour involved would run into thousands of pounds, and i mean THOUSANDS or you could phone Maltmiller and have a sack delivered for £30.00

 

[johnnyboy1965]

Welcome to the forum. This year I attempted to grow my own hops. We had such a cold Summer that I only managed 10 small flowers. But I'm convinced that even here in The Scottish Highlands it is doable. My best was First Gold which is a dwarf. Good luck with the grain harvest!

Im afraid your a bit too far north to get a decent crop of hops.