Very new newbie

[Parkranger]

I have decided to give home brewing a go, so started looking around the interweb at what basic equipment I will need. from what i have read I think i will need a fermentation bin (25 litre) which I can buy on ebay for about £7 or would a demijohn be better? I will start with wine but will move onto beer once I am comfortable with what i am doing. I have collected a few wine bottles, not many but enough to do an initial brew of a few bottle. These are glass, screw top. I have seen many plastic bottles on sale from home brewing supplies, so i'm not sure if these would be better. I will start with a small kit, probably from Wilkinsons they do a red wine which will be a good place to start. How advice on how to get started will be very appreciated. I can buy other equipment as and when i need it so i don't want to go a mad spending spree at first.

 

[alanywiseman.]

Hi and Welcome!

I depend how much you want to brew. If you are going for gallon batches a 25L bin is too big and could get infected. I would advice on also getting a thermeter, hydrometer and Syphon tube.

:thumb:

 

[Barticus]

Hi, week old newbie myself so cant say much, but I would say as well as the great advice on these forums, I find it very useful watching instructional videos on YOUTUBE.

Good luck with it.

 

[Darcey]

Buying a starter kit for beer or wine is a great way to get going. Usually they come with a beer or wine kit included and all the instructions on how to use the equipment provided. Equally check out the How Too... section on this forum. Great advice from the basics to advanced all grain methods with too many acronyms to comfortably be doable by most of us! :lol:

I started off with the coopers DIY kit. Cost me about £80 but I think they are slightly cheaper now. You get a very good quality fermenting bin, good quality hydrometer, brewing paddle, ~40 plastic bottles with caps a beer kit with sugar, a bottling stick and even sugar drops to carbonate your bottles when its done. You also get a DVD of an Aussie bloke in shorts showing an attractive blonde lady the basics of getting your kit up and running.

I cant really speak for wine kits as I havnt got round to doing one yet

There are a few kits from UK online suppliers that are note worthy as well :thumb:

If you can get to a homebrew shop go and have a chat they'll be more than happy (in most cases) to put something together and explain any bits face to face.

D

 

[graysalchemy]

You also get a DVD of an Aussie bloke in shorts showing an attractive blonde lady the basics of getting your kit up and running.

Finar finar

:rofl: :rofl:

Have a lokk at our sponsors at the top and bottom of the page, they are all pretty good. :thumb: :thumb:

 

[new brewer 2012]

Welcome..I only joined yesterday.I am making a strong lager at the moment..Good luck with your wine.. :thumb:

 

[Mckevvy]

I have decided to give home brewing a go, so started looking around the interweb at what basic equipment I will need. from what i have read I think i will need a fermentation bin (25 litre) which I can buy on ebay for about £7 or would a demijohn be better? I will start with wine but will move onto beer once I am comfortable with what i am doing. I have collected a few wine bottles, not many but enough to do an initial brew of a few bottle. These are glass, screw top. I have seen many plastic bottles on sale from home brewing supplies, so i'm not sure if these would be better. I will start with a small kit, probably from Wilkinsons they do a red wine which will be a good place to start. How advice on how to get started will be very appreciated. I can buy other equipment as and when i need it so i don't want to go a mad spending spree at first.

Hi Parkranger, what's the volume of wine that you're looking to make? The best way to start is with a kit for sure. The instructions inside are comprehensive and clear. What I will add to them though are two things you must have; cleanliness and patience. Don't get sloppy with either of these or it will only lead to problems and frustration.
Keep an eye out on ebay and gumtree for people who actually give the hardware away for free (you must collect of course). There's no shortage of people getting rid of kits for a variety of reasons.
I'd recommend that you buy the wine bottles new and just keep them for yourself. If you're like me and traditional then you can buy corks and a corker (it's easy to use) instead of screwtops. You can also get little stumpy corks with plastic tops on them and these are for regular use compared the traditional one-off cork.
I'd also recommend two books to you (again, look on ebay, gumtree and amazon - in particular amazon have a great 2nd hand resale area). One is the Boots Book of Home Wine and Beer Making and the other is First Steps in Wine Making by C.J.J. Berry (yes, that's his real name!) The info in these books is all you'll ever really need to get good wines and beer results.
As for glass demijohns Vs. plastic bottles there's no real difference but, again, I'm a kind of traditionalist and prefer the demijohns.

Happy fermenting! :drink:

 

[oldbloke]

You don't want a 25l bin for wine unless you're making an awful lot. You can manage with 1 5l bucket or a demijohn, but it's useful to have two. And then you'll want more as you'll want to make more stuff while your vessels are still in use - if you use fresh fruit intsead of kits any time, a lot of it comes to harvest in a big rush in the autumn so you need a lot of capacity then. Or a big freezer.

There are lots of all-the-basic-gear kits on the market, if you have a local homebrew shop go and ask, and/or search online.
Eg. - http://www.biggerjugs.co.uk/gift-winema ... -1017.html
Even if you can pick up stuff from friends/freecycle/the tip, this will remind you what you need.
You can't have too much gear!

For bottling I'd always go for glass, for wine, as it may be in store for a long time and plastic is ever so slightly porous to gases. Also screwtops may fail to seal properly after a few uses (but quite a few), so I'd save up for a corker and then switch - not urgent though! Screwtop bottles will take corks anyway.

 

[Parkranger]

I have ordered a small wine starter kit from Tesco. This seems to contain all the basic equipment to get me going. The syrups I have seen in places like Wilkinsons are for 30 bottles which is more than enough to make in one batch, so that would be my limit. When I am ready to step up to that, I will invest in a large bin. I will use the bottles I have for the initial attempt but in the long run I will buy new bottles and also look into cork types.

In the future I would also like to make beers, i will read the forum for info nearer the time.

Thanks for the tips on looking for free stuff on ebay and gumtree, I didn't think of that. :) I will also look around for books, maybe there are free ebooks.

 

[dennisking]

Hi and welcome.