brewing beer in demijons

[markinwidnes]

Hi. I'm new on here. I've only ever brewed wines, occasionally. Now i'm looking at moving onto beers. i'm not a wealthy man at the moment so buying new equipment tends to hurt my pocket.

what i want to know is can i brew beer in a demijon, actually 3 demijons. approx 3 gallons.

thanks. Mark

 

[abeyptfc]

you can brew beers in demijohns yeah, if you were going to do beer kits to start with then it would be a bit of a problem as the kits are usually only 23 ltrs, u could brew it short but then you would have quite a task dividing into 3 seperate demijohns.

 

[markinwidnes]

thanks for the speedy reply. yeh i see what you mean about dividing. My 3 demijons are about 5 litres. so if i divide the kit into 5ths, i should be good to go using 3 5ths? is it that easy?

 

[timbim]

For brewing kits, I'd be tempted to get two new demijohns and then you'd have 25l capacity, enough to do a kit. Dissolve all the liquids into a volume of boiling water, add equal amounts to each demijohn and top up. Could even compare different yeasts across all 5, make for an interesting and probably quite well controlled expriment there.

You can do a demijohn very cheaply. The PET ones are just supermarket 5l water bottles (you get the bonus of the mineral water as well), get an airlock online, drill a hole through the lid of the bottle, 13mm electrical grommet seals with the airlock. Smear of vaseline around the seal and the thread and you're golden.

Tim

 

[abeyptfc]

yeah if you do that it might be quite interesting, it will be a pain in the arse bottling it though. for the cost of 2 new demijohns u can get a 25 litre brewing bucket on ebay , a bit oy syphon tube wont cost much and will make it a hell of a lot easier.

 

[Virgilartois]

My wife makes wine and I make beer so between us we have buckets, demijohns, siphons, funnels, hydrometers and everything else in abundance. On occasion, I will start a kit in a fermentation vessel/bucket and then transfer to demijohns as a secondary. If you have access to one FV, this is the route I'd go although, as abeyptfc says, it will be a bottling nightmare. You'll also need an airlock for each demijohn, BUT in a demi, you can see/hear the progress of your brew a lot better and taking hydrometer samples is quite easy. 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. Good luck!

 

[Lobes]

yeah if you do that it might be quite interesting, it will be a pain in the arse bottling it though. for the cost of 2 new demijohns u can get a 25 litre brewing bucket on ebay , a bit oy syphon tube wont cost much and will make it a hell of a lot easier.

What he said. For less than a tenner you're gonna save yourself a load of hassle. Also gives you the option of brewing big batches of wine in the future

 

[Chealehay]

Why not put an advert in your local freegle or freecycle forum. Many people no longer brew and are happy to clear some space, I now have several FVs and over 40 DJs from the same, plus lots of extra equipment including 4 pressure barrels that came along with them.

 

[Alan Robinson]

I tried demijohns some years ago and gave it up again. I've struggled to find a use for the demijohns in fact, because I am crap at making wine - and I don't have the patience either - and demijohns are useless for making vinegar. Last winter I tried storing nettle tea in them (for the kitchen garden), forgot about the demijohns, and last March realised the ice had shattered them. There. I've done with demijohns.

I suppose you could use demijohns for a while, but I think sooner or later you'll buy a couple of buckets instead.

 

[markinwidnes]

Wow. Thanks for all the replys. This is a really good forum. You've given me a lot to think about, guess i'd be best going for a brewing bucket then just to get started. Then maybe further down the line i can experiment with different yeast and that in the demijons.

I'll let you know how my first brew goes. thanks. Mark

 

[markinwidnes]

Got my first brew on the go. I got a youngs starter kit for my birthday so i'll see how it goes in the next few weeks

 

[shearclass]

Good luck with this Mark!

Like you, money is a big consideration fr me, but i've made quite a big outlay getting all the equipment together, knowing that i'll break even within 6 months or so, and should have saved money compared to buying supermarket booze and pub booze by the end of the year
.
What kit you got on? Bitter? Stout? Lager?

 

[shearclass]

So, if this is true, why is wine or cider brewed in demijons rather than in a plain old bucket?

 

[robsan77]

So, if this is true, why is wine or cider brewed in demijons rather than in a plain old bucket?

I think its all about quantity. I'm pretty sure moley does a lot of his in buckets but I stand to be corrected.

By buckets we are talking 23litres +, not builders 1 - 2 gallon buckets. :thumb:

 

[Aleman]

So, if this is true, why is wine or cider brewed in demijons rather than in a plain old bucket?

it is down to quantity. if you are brewing 1 gallon of wine does it make sense to do so in a 5 gallon bucket or a 1 gallon container? . . . that 4 gallons of head space can contain oxygen that will spoil a wine.

Of course if you are making 5 gallons of wine . . .have you seen how big and heavy a 5 gallon demi john is?? And would you like to drop one :shock:

Fruit wines fermented on the pulp are often fermented in a big bucket for the 'pulp' phase, before being racked into sealed fermenters to reduce the airspace for the rest of the fermentation.