Half a brew

[Secret brewer]

Hi all just starting in the art of brewing and wondered if i could pick a few grey cells.

I have chosen a Muntons 2 can kit so my first shot can be half a brew. ie 20 pints instead of 40. My reason for this choice are

a) i dont drink too much beer so dont want a vast stock.
b) if it all goes wrong i have only wasted half a kit and can try again.
c) if it all goes ok i want to experiment or evolve the brew i can in half the kits.

If this is a big no no then please tell me but also please tell me why as i like to know.

I have also chosen to go for 1 pint (500ml) bottles as i dont want to disturbe a barrel every weekend just for 2 pints.

One reason i like the idea of home brew is i can control the content of my beer and as such want to avoid chemicals as much as i can. to this end i want the water chemical free without resorting to putting other chemicals in is this possible? (ie boiling )

 

[Runwell-Steve]

The water that comes out of your tap has chemicals in.
The water that was used making the kit will have chemicals in.
Even if you brew from raw ingredients you can't escape chemicals.

The question is what do we mean by chemicals and how do we define which ones are nasty or not. The content of beer that does you most harm is alcohol, but without alcohol it wouldn't be beer. Non alcoholic beer is a lie, it's just bad tasting fizzy pop.

You can find out whats in your tap water, generally there won't be any horrible nasties, but it is likely to contain some chlorine and chloramines, which can leave a nasty TCP taste in beer, you can remove the chlorine by boiling, but not the chloramines. The only way I have heard of removing these is by adding a Campden Tablet to your water, this is Sodium Metabisulphate, a chemical I suppose.

Sodium Metabisulphate is used a lot in beer making, and even more so in cider making and even more so in wine making. It's used for stopping the yeast from working. I have to be honest I don't know what it is, but everyone seems to use it so how bad can it be?

If you really want to avoid it then you could buy bottled water, but I personally think thats going to extremes.

I brew from Grain in just the same way a big brewery would, I usually brew in 12 gallon batches which means starting with about 18 gallons of water. It would not be practical to buy bottled water for that much so I use tap water, because of the make up of my local water I have to add a chunk of Acid to it so it will react with the Grain in the Mash Tun correctly, I also have to add Gypsum and Epsom Salts to get the correct balance of chemicals in the beer for everything to work correctly, without any chemicals beer just wouldn't happen.

Chemicals can be good or bad, and it all depends on the quantity in which they are used, I know that I would not want to drink the Acid that I use in my brewing water, I wouldn't even want to get it on my skin, but once the beer is produced there is no problem at all.

 

[Secret brewer]

I am new to this art so will go with the flow for a few brews and build my experiance. The reason i dont want the campden tablets is as follows An extract from Wikipdia


Sodium metabisulfite is used as a preservative and antioxidant in food and is also known as E223.[2]

It may cause allergic reactions in those who are sensitive to sulfites, including respiratory reactions in asthmatics, anaphylaxis and other allergic reactions in sensitive individuals.

Sodium metabisulfite and potassium metabisulfite are the primary ingredients in Campden tablets, used for wine and beer making.

The acceptable daily intake is up to 0.7 mg per kg of body weight. Sodium metabisulfite has no side effects; it is oxidised in the liver to harmless sulfate and excreted in urine.

I dont suffer from any of these problems but dont like adding stuff to get rid of stuff i didnt want in the firs place.

 

[Secret brewer]

I did it with bottled water in the end. I only spent £1.20 on 12 liters so for my size of brew it wasnt too expensive.

I had some water left over in the kettle and made a cuppa from it, I might be doing that more often as the cuppa was great.