I am very green to home Brewing!! Help!

[Tomo]

Hi all,
I have just inherited my uncles old brewing equipment and have brought some ale mixture for brewing.

I do hope you can help me out on some minor issues I have:
1, Do I peirce the mixture tin before place into a boiling pan of water?(to me this very dangerous if you don't?)
2, Once I add all the mixture and water into my brewing bin when do I add sugar to the mixture and how much?
3, On the instructions it tell me to transfer the brew into a bottles or a Keg, do I add more sugar to the brew again at this point too?

I did say that I am very Green to all this!

Thank you for your advice in advance.
A very green wannbe brewer!
Tomo

 

[Moley]

Hi Tomo, and welcome to the forum :


No, you don't pierce the lid. You don't need to stand it in boiling water, just as hot as you can get it out of the hot tap, and there's no airspace in the tins so it's quite safe.

If it's a one-can kit you usually pour the contents and a few pints of boling water into your bucket, mix 1kg of sugar into that and then top up to the required volume with cold water before pitching the yeast. Two-can kits don't require sugar.

What are you brewing? That could affect how much sugar you add when bottling, but it's usually half to one teaspoonful to the pint.

 

[adrianmole72]

Welcome, Tomo...

Also, there is a good "how to" guide for kits :thumb:

Stephen

 

[Moley]

Here's the guide AM72 mentioned:
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=4022

That's about the two-can kits, but the principles are the same.

 

[adrianmole72]

Cheers, Moley... should have added that link :whistle:

Tomo, thats a great guide; helped me a lot !

Good luck, mate..

Stephen

 

[commsbiff]

In fact Moley's inital reply has just prompted me to nip down to my LHBS (who kindly agreed to stay open for an extra 15 mins) and pick up a Brupaks, Pride of Yorkshire, IPA kit. Should move to AG soon (seems to be taking months to get there), but thought that I've got empty FVs when they'd be much better filled with wort/beer. :thumb: and it really does take just minutes to get going!

Welcome btw :

 

[Dieseljockey]

Welcome to the forum. :clap: .

You'll be ok...the guys will help with any problems you may have..just remember...patience :whistle:

 

[Tomo]

Wow, cheers guys!

 

[nickmcmechan]

Wow, cheers guys!

Welcome Tomo, I'm new to this too. You'll enjoy this, homebrew is better and cheaper than commercial!

 

[luckyeddie]

Welcome to the forum, Tomo.

We'll soon have you addicted to brewing and moving over to the Dark Side.

 

[stevander74]

Hi Tomo, welcome to the forum.
Im a kit brewer.
Submerge the kit can in a sink of hot tap water, this is just to soften up the extract and make it easier to pour, then rinse out the can with boiling water and add it to the mix, add your sugars, give it a good mix, make it up to volume with cold water and pitch yeast. Its really that simple.
Your other question about bottling, yes you do add more sugar. If your bottling, once youve sterilised the bottles, add half a teaspoon of sugar per pint and syphon in the beer. This is called priming and its what gives carbonation(fizz). If you dont like a fizzy beer use a bit less sugar but dont use more than halftsp per pint or it could blow the top off the bottles. Same with kegging, add the required amount of sugar (im not sure what that is cause i bottle but ive read it on here somewhere before and someone will be able to tell you) then add your beer and leave for at least a week but for as long as you can I normally cant beat the temptation and start drinking it after a week. :lol:

I hope this helps, any more questions just ask. The search functions not bad either.

good luck
Steve :