Newbie kit help please

[Mikethenewguy]

Hi All

I have been loving real ale since I started drinking, and have had the pleasure of a couple of home brew kits which I thoroughly enjoy doing and drinking!!

I am trying to encourage some family members to have a go at kits, but I just wondered if anyone knows of a kit or recipe that I can produce in a single bottle!!

I am thinking along the lines of add water, yeast, cork, and leave. Then open and enjoy? Even if the brew is spread over 6 bottles at most.

I know this may sound simplistic, but it would be ideal for some of my mass produced lager only enjoying family to try and enjoy. So just a 1 or 2 step easy brew.

Any help here would be greatly received.

Many thanks in advance

Mike

 

[calumscott]

Hi Mike,

Firstly welcome!

I'm afraid not. The trouble with brewing is that to get a decent brew and create something with alcohol and enough flavour you need a lot of sugars - that creates a lot of CO2 and in a sealed environment, that's going to go bang...

Also you need to remove the beer from the bulk of the yeast after the first ferment is finished to make sure that you don't get any "off" flavours as that bulk of yeast dies off and breaks down.

So you need to ferment all the sugar in a vessel from which the CO2 can escape, then take it off the yeast, bottle it with a known small quantity of sugar to produce a known amount of CO2 which gives you a safe fizz.

 

[Mikethenewguy]

Thank you for the really quick response.

I knew it would be a long shot!!

Can you recommend a good starter kit, again trying to make it all as simple simple as possible. Something with everything in it.

I am thinking I can arrange a couple of 'get togethers', first to make the kit, 2nd to bottle and distribute.

Many thanks again

Mike

 

[mattyhall22]

The Balihoo Starter kit (link above as forum sponsor) and Coopers starter kits are both very good.

The coopers starter kit comes in a choice of beer styles and reusable Plastic bottles which you may prefer.

:

 

[Sone]

Not sure if this is the sort of thing you are after but I've heard some decent reviews of these home brewing caps - http://homebrewingcaps.com.

No idea if they are any good personally but there is even a beer recipe on the website and it could be good as a very basic starter to get people into brewing?

 

[CaptainMallard]

The ibrew kits includes what looks like a couple of pressure barrels that you can put into the fridge. This saves you from having to prime and bottle. I have not tried this myself so I've no idea if its any good.

I bought a coopers kit for a friend because it comes with bottles, which can be a hassle to acquire when you're just getting started. If he gets catches the bug, he can get some proper bottles.

Some of our sponsors sell boxes of PET bottles, so you could buy a different kit and add the plastic bottles.

BTW the coopers kit does not seem to come with a steriliser.

 

[Markdon]

Something like 5L water bottles? Get four and spread a kit over all four? Hole in lid for airlock, then prime bottles and syphon into them?