There is nothing like a silly question, or so they say!

[Froggie Simon]

I live in France, and although there are probably brewing shops here, my French doesnt stand up to complex conversations. So I tend to buy what I need when we pop back to the UK for sausages and proper beer.

I had ideas of brewing beer as the French beer isnt the best. I thought I would start off simple and build up to spending more and getting profesisonal(ish)

I decided to start homebrewing and bought a few kits, and some basic equipment in the UK. I brewed a Ginger Beer, added priming sugar, syphoned into a 25 litre plastic keg, left in the kitchen (20 degress underfloor heating) for a few days and then outside on the patio for 2 weeks. It tasted sweet, not overly sweet, quite nice actually, but as flat as a pancake. I dont have any equipment to fix it, if I knew what equipment I needed.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of the empty fermentation bin I brewed a Citra, which stopped fermenting 2 weeks ago but I have nothing to put it in now, so its sat in the fermenting bin in the kitchen on the 20 degree floor.

So my questions are:
1. Can I do anything with the flat Ginger Beer.
2. What equipment do I need to buy on my next trip in 3 weeks time
3. What should I do about the Citra?
4. Should I find another hobby?

Merci mes amis

 

[Buffers brewery]

Re the flat ginger beer. I’m guessing the plastic keg is a plastic pressure barrel? These are prone to gas leaks around the lid and gas valve and I’m guessing that’s what’s happened. Do you have gas cylinders (CO2) to top up the gas pressure? If yes, pressurise the keg/barrel and spray around the lid with soapy water to check for leaks. You can add more priming sugar to re-carbonate it but make sure there are no leaks first.

I started with one pressure barrel and quickly realised I need two. One dispensing beer to drink while the second had beer that was conditioning. You need to decide if you’re going to continue with plastic pressure barrels or go for corny kegs that are more reliable but come with a set-up price tag. Your choice. Alternatively you can bottle. This may be a quicker option for your citra ale.

If you like beer it’s not a bad hobby

Bon chance mon ami

 

[Clint]

The flat ginger beer suggests that your keg is leaking the C02 generated from the priming sugar. This is usually a problem with the seals. There is an extensive thread on here how to deal with this. Your other beer will keep quite happily for a couple more weeks in the bucket as long as you don't mess about with it,keep the lid on and the airlock topped up. It obviously needs packaging. You have options...get another keg or bottle it. You can use empty beer or cider bottles or even plastic pop or water bottles but in all cases the bottles you use must have held fizzy,carbonated liquid to start otherwise they will explode. Perhaps your easiest option is to buy cheap fizzy water and either drink it or tip it to get the empties. Or if you know anyone who drinks a lot of pop ask them to keep the bottles.

 

[Froggie Simon]

Thanks guy, so all is not lost.

I am happy to invest in a proper keg system, but I would rather know I can make beer first. I am back in 2 weeks and will get another keg for the Citra, and try and get some CO2 capsules to pressure the plastic keg, and then when I come back in June if it has worked I will be in my van, so will bring back a proper keg system.

 

[Clint]

You need to sort out why the keg isn't holding pressure as injecting it with gas will be a waste of time.

 

[Froggie Simon]

You need to sort out why the keg isn't holding pressure as injecting it with gas will be a waste of time.

Yep, I am on that, will get the seals sorted.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I live in France, and although there are probably brewing shops here, my French doesnt stand up to complex conversations.

You can buy online from the likes of www.brouwland.com or geterbrewed.ie if you want to stay inside the Eurozone, Brouwland has an English version of their website. They're in northern Belgium, I guess the likes of @An Ankoù maybe able to advise on French online retailers.

 

[stripeyjoe]

Buy the latest edition of ‘how to brew’ by John Palmer, I think it’s the fourth edition. . A lot of the questions you’re going to have are answered in there.

 

[Twopan]

Buy the latest edition of ‘how to brew’ by John Palmer, I think it’s the fourth edition. . A lot of the questions you’re going to have are answered in there.

Agree - my son bought me that book and it's what got me established in techniques. And nipping across to Belgium for beer supplies would be good, staying in the Eurozone.

 

[Froggie Simon]

Nipping across to Belgium (600km from here) isnt quite possible, but they deliver which is good. Deliveries from the UK tend to have tax added arbitarily by the Poste, often the tax costing more than the item. But Brouwland.com looks like a darn fine solution. I can order what I need now rather than wait, and take up precious space in the car which I can fill with Screwfix stuff and sausages. I will get the book on Amazon, and get back to brewing with enthusiasm again.

 

[dad_of_jon]

You can buy online from the likes of www.brouwland.com or geterbrewed.ie if you want to stay inside the Eurozone, Brouwland has an English version of their website. They're in northern Belgium, I guess the likes of @An Ankoù maybe able to advise on French online retailers.

Brouwland do good stuff, I'd vouch for them. Used to get quite a bit from them and brewfferm kits always turned out fab.

 

[hoppyscotty]

If you're looking at getting professional(ish) then I assume you're looking to invest some amount of money on kit to achieve what you want. I would suggest that getting a pressure capable fermenter would be very useful...something like a Fermzilla will not break the budget and means you can both ferment and carbonate in the same vessel - you don't need to get into pressure fermentation to carbonate, you can pressurise the vessel after fermentation to carbonate, or transfer into Corny kegs and carbonate in those if you want to free up the fermenter for another brew.

From that you can then either keg your product or, with a counterflow pressure bottle filler (which can be had dirt cheap off AliExpress) to fill bottles. You'll also need a CO2 cylinder, which would be best to source locally from wherever your local bars source their CO2 from.

For me it was a game changer getting a pressure capable fermenter...no more faffing around with syphons and taps...you can just push things through with CO2 pressure and keep air and oxygen away from your product.

Lots of good stuff on YouTube too like David Heaths Channel and the Homebrew Network which is Australian but Suggs has been at it for decades so many hours of excellent instructional videos to while away many an hour on.

If you have the means to mash/create the wort then I'd focus all your efforts on fermentation and packaging. Its the yeast that makes the beer not the brewer so you need to make sure the yeast has everything it needs to do its job to the best of its ability...then once the yeast has done its job you, the brewer, doesn't want to go an ruin all that hard work done by the yeast by not being able to package the beer well to ensure it is the best possible product you can produce. So many decently brewed beers have been ruined by poor packaging...senseless. And it doesn't cost that much to get that capability and is actually less faff and effort than faffing around with buckets and syphons and the product will be better at the end of it.

Anyway good luck and if you're worried about silly questions then I've posted more than enough on here so you're in good company....

 

[An Ankoù]

You can buy online from the likes of www.brouwland.com or geterbrewed.ie if you want to stay inside the Eurozone, Brouwland has an English version of their website. They're in northern Belgium, I guess the likes of @An Ankoù maybe able to advise on French online retailers.

@Froggie Simon
Good advice, @Northern_Brewer , But I find Browland 's delivery charges prohibitive. Go instead to Braumarkt , they start with a standard price which reduces slightly the more you spend. A 25 kilo sack incurs a delivery charge hike of about €6, but their prices are good enough to make up for this. Their local malt is Swaen, which I've heard mixed reports about, otherwise it;s Bestmalz and others. Their customer service is First Class and they speak English. Again, geterbrewed used to be my goto supplier, but I find thehomebrewcompany more competitive. They will deliver 30Kg for £12,95 if you loc onto the .uk site, or €18 is you use the .ie site. Avoid Rolling Beers and Autobrasseur- they're expensive, delivery can be expensive and I don't think all their products are of the same quality as the others I've mentioned. If you need any help, don't hesitate to PM me.

 

[Wynne]

I spend time in France and have come across the following suppliers:

https://www.brewandbeer.com/https://www.microbrasseur.com/https://www.saveur-biere.com/fr/lpn/123-brassagehttps://www.rolling-beers.fr/fr/https://www.biere-boutique.fr/https://www.microbrassage.com/https://www.autobrasseur.fr/
In your position, I would consider getting some 500ml PET screwtop bottles and bottle the ginger beer and Citra with priming sugar before returning to England. They’ll be ready for drinkjng when you return and PET bottles are cheap and useful to have around e.g. for bottling beer that won’t fit in a corny.

Bonne chance!

 

[hoppyscotty]

might be worth priming with some additional yeast too. If secondary fermentation did kick off before and you just leaked the gas through your keg then there might not be sufficient active yeast to do another secondary fermentation (or tertiary fermentation?). So re-priming with some additional yeast might be a good idea. A good yeast for this for beer is Lalbrew CBC-1 which is a specific bottling and conditioning yeast and will kill off any other active yeasts already present and re-inoculate your brew.

 

[Froggie Simon]

Thanks for all the advice. To update, I have just placed an order with Brekegtap for about £500 quids worth of kit so that I can do this properly. They deliver to France. I will also buy a CO2 cylinder and some bits from Brouwland. Fingers crossed it all works out and the wife doesnt ask too many details.