Hi from Witney

[Darkskythe]

Hi there, the wife and I decided to sign up after finding this forum and seeing the plethora if information available on here. We both rarely drink, generally will have a beer on new years eve and have a couple at our annual pilgrimage to the Download Festival in June. She enjoys a G&T occasionally and for the last year or so have slowly been working our way through the abundance of ipa's out there. The ones at the top of our list (so far) are Brewdog Punk and their Elvis Juice. She was watching one of her random youtube videos and beer making came up as one of her suggestions. It's something that has interested us for a while but we thought we did not have the space for a full on setup and with the little we do drink it would not be worth brewing up gallons of the stuff for a lot of it to just go to waste. Anyway (and it's probably something that has been around for a very long time), we just found out you can get 1 gallon kits which would be ideal and the clincher came when we saw there are 1 gallon kits available for 2 of our favourite beers (Punk and Elvis Juice) so we are considering taking the plunge and investing in one after watching some 'how to' videos.
I can remember my friends and i, back when we were in our late teens (in my mid 40's now - where does the time go!) pooling our money together and picking up one of those kits you could get from Boots the chemist of all places where you boiled some extract stuff from a tin, added water and sugar and left it to ferment for a couple of weeks before drinking. All i can remember from that is it tasted foul (probably due to our inexperience) and got us hammered, lol. Again, could be due to not really reading up much on the subject over the years but things certainly seem to have come along a lot since those days.
Will hopefully look at ordering up a kit in the coming months, as well as bottles and caps etc. and will document the experience. Will hopefully find a shop close by (if there is one) as we are kinda old school (personally, ordering online is always a last resort for me).
Pity did not discover this sooner as would have been great to have been able to brew a batch to take with us to Download but with it being 6 weeks away (not that we are counting!) have left it a bit late this year, at least by next year we will hopefully have our kit and learned to brew a half decent batch to take with us next year.
Sorry for the ramble and thanks for reading.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Welcome to the forum :thumba:

 

[An Ankoù]

I've never made it to Download, but the festivals I have been to all frisk you down at the gate so you can't bring any alcohol in and you have to drink their overpriced stuff from a limp plastic glass.
I reckon there are two sides to brewing: brewing because you want good stuff to drink at an affordable price, and brewing for the joy of experimenting and perfecting a recipe and the good feeling you get when you know your beer is better than the commercial one you've just copied. If you tend towards the latter you're going to need to increase your intake or have a beer festival for your friends every three months or so.
In the day, I used to get all my equipment from Boots. Still using the pressure barrels.
Welcome to the forum.

 

[Hoppyland]

Welcome to the forum!
My first thought, though, is why do you want to brew beer if you rarely drink? I'm certainly not trying to put you off!! However, for me, brewing your own beer is something that requires a lot of time and repetition, so you're gaining experience as you go.
As I see it, there are basically 2 reasons for brewing:
1. To make cheap alcohol, so you and your mates can get pissed and it won't cost very much.
2. To make quality beers, that suit your tastes, and are at least as good as anything available commercially.
By the sounds of it, you are firmly in category 2!
But there's the rub. It is easy to make cheap alcohol, if quality is not your main criterion.
Not so easy to make top-class beer. You need familiarity with your equipment, your methods, and only repetitive experience will give you a genuine feel for your craft. For that is what it is. For me, brewing beer to a high standard (i.e. rivalling or exceeding commercial brews) is a bit like cooking to a high standard. You can't just pick up a recipe book, with no prior experience, and suddenly produce top-class meals. You need to learn your craft - and if you aren't producing very much, so you're brewing infrequently, then it makes it a lot more difficult.
Again, I don't want to put you off, but I mentioned this thread to my wife, who instantly said "Why not ferment bread instead of beer".
I'm quite heavily into sourdough bread (my Australian son-in-law is a true expert!), and this has been to me a similar journey to brewing. It has taken me a long, long time to produce the loaves or baguettes that I wanted. Like beer, so much variation in taste. with bread, produced by different flours, different sourdough starters, different timings and baking regimes. But, I produce all of our own bread now (not all sourdough), and this means I can bake 2 or 3 times a week. Result - I'm actually becoming very good at it (after 18 months....)
I've got many years of brewing experience behind me, so I don't need to brew weekly to develop my skills. But I'm still learning!!
However - as I seem to keep saying! - don't let this put you off if you really want to try brewing beer. I'd still choose beer over bread if I could only make one of them.

 

[Hoppyland]

Well, having done my best to put you off, I'm now finding myself quite intrigued by your suggestion! I normally brew 20 - 25l batches and keg them (I've 4 on the go at the moment) so a 1 gallon brew would be something completely different, and got me thinking as to how I would go about it.
I might have a go at something like this using dried malt exract and steeped grains, a single hop variety, and ferment in demijohns to see how it turns out. It certainly feels like something that could be achieved with minimal equipment, and therefore little set-up expense.

 

[Darkskythe]

Erm, i have no idea what mini-mash is (got a long way to go with terminology etc. hopefully it comes with time), the kits i was looking at are all grain if that helps.
The main reasons are we do not have a great deal of space and since we rarely drink, even if we had just a bottle or 2 of beer a week, we would be brewing at least once or twice a month (more practice).
Even if we had the room, would still prefer to 'start small' as i imagine it's a lot less painful pouring a gallon of spoiled brew down the drain than several gallons, lol. Long-term, if we do enjoy it and manage to brew up something that tastes amazing, we will have a bit of a sort out to make some extra room for a 25l fermenting bin but that's a long way away, learn to walk before you can run and all that :)

 

[Hoppyland]

This tiny-brew idea definitely intrigues me! I think I might give it a go, just as a challenge, to see if I can brew a really good beer on a tiny (and very cheap) scale. It helps that you like absurdly hoppy beers (and so do I!).
I'm off to the Isle of Skye for a week on Saturday, but when I come back I'll give it a pop. If you like, I'll put up a thread on "Brewdays" so you can see what I do & how I get on. I'm pretty certain I can more or less put myself in your position as a beginner, and a produce decent, very hoppy gallon of beer for less than £10 ingredient cost using very basic equipment.

 

[An Ankoù]

Hoppyland is right.
Why do you want to start brewing your own beer?
If darkskythe starts calling me Betty, I'll know there's something not quite right going on here.

 

[Darkskythe]

Why do you want to start brewing your own beer?

I'll be totally honest, it looks to be an interesting little hobby and will be pretty nice to enjoy a beer you have brewed yourself.

 

[Benjamin Tolmer]

It's totally dependent upon your choice if you want to open your own beer brew then go for it...

 

[Hoppyland]

Well, if you fancy a go then why ever not?
My advice would be to buy a decent book early doors, to give you some real insight into what you are doing and why. My personal recommendation is "How to Brew" by John Palmer. I've got the Fourth Edition, which came out in 2017, & I've found it extremely useful. It is up-to-date and comprehensive, going from total basics to some fairly advanced stuff. Kits and extract brews are covered as well as all-grain, and there is a really handy early chapter taking you through the steps of making your first brew. This uses minimal equipment, and uses dried malt extract plus steeped grains - so is pretty much along the lines I suggested in post #5. A new copy will probably set you back £15-20 depending upon where you buy it, but I reckon it will be well worth it. There is a free version of the First Edition online at http://www.howtobrew.com/ which is very useful. However, I do like an actual book in my hand - plus you're getting a more modern take on things.
Second bit of advice: don't start with an all-grain kit. You are way more likely to make a good beer first-up if you start with malt extract and steeped grains (and I do mean good beer, not just something drinkable). Anyway, I still intend to try making a one-gallon batch of a very hoppy, but not too strong, beer in the IPA style when I get back from holiday.
I've started looking at possible recipes, and I'm targeting something with a nod to Brewdog's Punk IPA. My beer will be less strong (maybe 4-4.5% ABV instead of 5.5%, and a little less bitter. I'm looking at similar amounts of flavour and aroma hops, though. The actual hop varieties will have to be more limited (either one or at max two), otherwise it becomes uneconomic for brewing an occasional very small batch, but this should not be an issue. Brewdog reckon they use 6 different hop varieties!
I'll post my progress on the forum.
Oh, and if you don't like buying online, I'll be amazed if there isn't a decent homebrew shop in Oxford.

 

[GerritT]

I guess you already found this place online: https://brooklynbrewshop.com/
Specialists in 1-gallon brews, and nice persons over all. And they updates, there's all kinds of things now they sell: cheese and pickle kits. All nice to make yourself.