Hi all from North East UK

[Richy25]

Well been brewing wine for ever but just fancing entering the beer brew world. Learnt loads from lurking already here.

Just bought a Wilko's PB and have a festival golden Stag on the way as I wanted a success first time round

Does anyone have a recommendation for any cheaper kits thats a bit like becks?

Already thinking my second one and 1st not even landed yet.

Happy brewing everyone.

 

[chrisb8]

Welcome Yes once you get bitten by the bug it snowballs very quickly!

 

[MickDundee]

North East UK? Isn’t that called the east of Scotland?

Oh, and welcome!

 

[Gerryjo]

Hi and welcome to the forum....

 

[Richy25]

Cheers all

 

[Chippy_Tea]

A belated welcome th the forum. :thumba:

 

[An Ankoù]

Good morning Richy and welcome to Valhalla. There are plenty of cheaper kits on the market that purport to to turn into lager of some sort. You might try Cooper's European Lager at half the price of your Stag or even get a lager kit from Wilco and play around with it. I don't do kits anymore, but I think the basic ones, at least, use isomerised hop extract to give a level of bitterness, but not much hop character. You could spice it up a bit with a hop tea of one of the "noble hops" like mittelfrueh or tettnang. I should probably replace the yeast with a saflager yeast, too. That's already knocking the cost up, but 100g of hops will go a long way and you can harvest the yeast for later brews. Many lager yeasts will also make good ales, but not vice-versa. Do a bit of research into what hops go into your target lager, how to make a hop tea and harvesting yeast for future use (MyQul in this forum is good on this) and Bob's your uncle.

 

[Richy25]

great advice an ankou thanks.

 

[Richy25]

Ok so my golden stags in my FV.
Yes that was a whole lass hassle that wine making.

Starting sg was 1030
I was thinking about using a 75w fish tank heater in this blue tub.

Do you think I have enough space with this setup or is my blue tub too small. ? Thanks

 

[terrym]

Ok so my golden stags in my FV.
Yes that was a whole lass hassle that wine making.

Starting sg was 1030
I was thinking about using a 75w fish tank heater in this blue tub.

Do you think I have enough space with this setup or is my blue tub too small. ? Thanks

You appear to have a the basis for a water bath like this
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/how-to-set-up-a-water-bath-for-your-fv.66407/
I suggest you calibrate your fish tank heater before you use it in the water bath , since the adjustment on the these items is very crude. There is a short method on that in the linked item above.
I use a 50w heater in my water bath and it is more than adequate even in winter in my unheated garage.
And I also suggest you cover the top of the heater although make sure you dont put too much water in the bath or your FV might float and tip over.

 

[Richy25]

Well that G.Stag turned out lovely, not much head on it or fiz from the keg, maybe priming temps were a bit low.
3 pints had me sozzled the other night, really decent lovely hoppy taste, even with no head or fizz :)