What got you into home brewing and why do you continue.

[ricardo]

Cost was one of the main reasons.......
Oh & shi**ty rotten headaches after drinking bought beers & wines.
Don't get them ever now even after partaking of too much.
Its about time wines had the ingredients listed on them. We could then see what was
ACTUALLY in the stuff.
:thumb:

 

[Hirsty]

I love beer, total beer nerd infact, so I wanted to understand it better. That and I get to make some fun beers.

 

[Frisp]

On the recommendation of my mental health support workers...... Oh and the voices told me to as well...

 

[pedronet]

Initially for me it was hating to see much of the apples on my tree going to waste. I couldn't bare to see them getting binned, so I bought a press, much to the wife's utter disgust.

Having made a couple of batches, I've got the bug and now I want to learn the craft to the best of my ability.

What with all my fishing stuff as well I do pity my wife sometimes. You can't move for gear in this house

 

[bluebell]

Between jobs and short of cash with loads of free/ cheap fruit around it was a natural progression from jam and other preserving. Only started this summer but love the something for nothing aspect and just starting to enjoy some of my first fruit wines.

 

[Crastney]

started making cider with friends, and realised that it was a lot cheaper than shop brought.
decided to make my own press and scratter, and then found this forum, and started on some plum and damson wine.

 

[calumscott]

I like good beer but good beer gets expensive when you sup a few!
So when you can make a pretty fine pint from effectively a big can or two and a bucket for pennies a pint its a no brainer.
My folks always made fruit wines and the odd barrel of beer so it wasn't totally new to me.
A friend asked me not so long ago if I'd ever brewed my own and convinced me that it wasn't difficult, it's all his fault essentially.

Why do I continue?

1) It's a hobby that results in a net income. Let's face it, I was never going to stop drinking beer. So the difference between what I would spend on commercial beer and what I spend on homebrewing is effectively profit. I get good beer = happy me. I spend less on good beer = happy SWMBO.
2) It's really very interesting and enjoyable and I haven't even started on *real* brewing, I'm still on the kits! Frankly its great fun.

 

[The Goatreich]

My friend started brewing from kits about a year before me, and after I had tried a couple of bottles of his I decided that I needed to join in. Cost wasn't really a factor, but I have to say it'd be very interesting to get a spreadsheet on the go balancing up the amount of equipment and ingredients bought against the amount of beer/wine brewed and see the cost per pint going downwards as each brew goes into the bottle. Anyone fancy an excel challenge?

Also, brewing has re-ignited a previous love of chemistry.

 

[calumscott]

Anyone fancy an excel challenge? .

*ahem*

According to my very carefully kept records...

238 Pints Bottled in 276 bottles, all from kits, much of it drunk but that's not important right now...

Total cost including all ingredients, equipment, caps, steriliser and even a few packs of bottles to get me started: £253.12

Price per pint: £1.07
Price per bottle: £0.92

Now, given that Tesco prices for decent bottled ale averages £1.80 a pint I'm already a couple of hundred quid to the good! The more I make, the more I drink. The more I drink the more I save... :

...or something like that.

 

[The Goatreich]

Nice work. If I get some time I might knock up a quick excel sheet myself which will continue to calculate the expenditure. The only problem I can foresee is dividing the equipment costs between beer, and wine/cider.

 

[calumscott]

Hold fire Goat! I'll just rip the data out of mine and chuck it on my website. Should get you started at least...

C

 

[The Goatreich]

Cheers Calum! :

 

[calumscott]

Faster than a fast thing!!!

clicky

Totally Kit oriented of course because that's all I've done so far but at least all the worky-out stuff is there. You'll just need to figure out how to stick in grain/hop costs, I guess you could just use the kit cost/Sugar/Spraymalt fields and name them more appropriately - or hack in another sheet so one for kits one for grain...

...if you turn it into something useful please make it available to the forum for others.

 

[Ardwyn]

We were out on the boat in September, and all along the canal were trees sagging with elderberries & damsons. We spent an hour or so picking them with the thought of making our own wine.

Got home and decided to look up what we needed to do and found this forum. Ended up giving away the damsons, (which ended up exploding and decorating a friends kitchen), and took up Moley's How To... on WOW. With that and Tea Bag wine haven't looked back. 180 bottles by Christmas.

I don't drink, but really love the processes, and the wife likes the results. The feedback from others who try the wine is fantastic.

Roll on later in the year and the damsons will be turned into wine and there will be enough stock for the wife for her to leave it alone to mature.

Thanks to Maoley and all the other contributors for the interest you create, and the support and encouragement!

 

[HLA91]

My great grandmother used to make 'small beer', my grandad started making wine on the advice of a builder fixing his retaining wall when he saw all the spare fruit in the garden, my father (not my grandads son) and his father and 2 brothers both worked for Watney's and my dad did some wine and beer when he changed jobs but stopped just before I was born, I used to watch and help my grandad making wine, picking the apples, elderflower/berries so when he couldn't do it any more and a decline in health forced him to move in with us, I picked up a copy of Mr Berry's book dug out grandad's DJ's and set to work.

 

[alphacento]

Having studied in Bristol I really go into Cider.As a foreigner I started with more mainstream less authentic ciders (although fizzy alcohol pop might be a more suitable name) such as Strongbow and Scrumpy Jack. Then I visited a couple of pubs serving real traditional cider and from that moment I started drinking the real stuff.

Going back to the original question I started brewing a couple of years after I moved to Germany as here there no real English Cider. Living in Frankfurt I am lucky enough to be able to enjoys Apfelwein but traditional English Cider is far a better drink in my mind therefore I started brewing my own!

 

[Phil R]

Wanted to do it for ages, not really down to cost but just fancied having a crack at it. Just got my first ever one on the go right now about 10 days in.

I love cider so its perfect for me, anyone recommend any particularly good ciders/recipes ?


Thanks

 

[oldbloke]

I love cider so its perfect for me, anyone recommend any particularly good ciders/recipes ?
Thanks

You can do turbocider 1 gallon at a time, and this lets you start with a very basic recipe and vary the juice/yeast/extras every batch, so you get to learn what does what and what you like. As a yeast packet will happily split between 2 demijohns, I tend to do 2 gallons at a time, with slight differences in the recipe, so I can compare them.
Unfortunately my tasting notes are incomplete due to drunkeness, so I'm starting again this year.
You'll get a perfectly good cider with Lidl apple nectar or Morrisons Saver juice, half a mug of Earl Grey per gallon, a bit of nutrient, and Young's cider yeast if you like clean and crisp, or a wine yeast if you like them a bit more scrumpyish (which fades to leave just more 'body', I think)

My first batch of the year will be (per gallon) 4l Morrisons saver juice, 0.5l Morrison's cranberry juice, half a mug of Earl Grey, nutrient, and Young's yeast. One of the demijohns might get a clove or two, or maybe an inch of vanilla pod, or both.

 

[The Goatreich]

I've got my first turbo cider in bottles waiting for the summer. Out of interest, how long do you usually leave it to condition? I've read 4 months, and I've also read that people just tuck straight in, but I have no problem with waiting as I've got plenty of other brew to drink in the meantime.

 

[oldbloke]

I have sneak taste when starting the syphon when I bottle, and guess from that what the minimum wait is.
When I started, we'd get stuck in very early, but now we have some stock built up we wait at least 3, usually more; and of course the stockpile is now at varying ages up to about 5 months.
Generally you want 3 weeks (1 warm, 2 cold) for conditioning, and you may as well have one then to see what it's like. It's always been drinkable, if not great. We tasted my first one quite young and even then ErIndoors said "We can stop buying shop cider".
It will change, virtually always for the better, as it ages, so make a few straight away to build a stockpile.