[aNoBVsUW]

There are loads of kits and pre-made malt cans for just about any type of beer out there. They aren't all that cheap though.

[zCLadw3R]

Look up Home Brewing Supply in your local phone book and go talk to one of the owners. I'm sure they can set you up with a nice beginners kit just don't get a big fancy thing until you know its a hobby you want to keep. The basics are pretty cheap and easy so start with that and see if you like it.

[ayWCZ7VT]

The Great Zkribblo predicts:

1) Your friends will indeed brew beer.
2) It will be really bad beer.
3) The beer will be guzzled regardless.
4) Everyone will get very drunk.
5) Someone will vomit.

I has spoken!!

[autolubitelone]

My father does this. In his garage he has shelves of 1.5 litre coke bottles filled about 3/4 full of home brewed beer. You cannot leave it too long, it'll explode.

He uses a large barrel, loads it up with water, mixes in heaps and heaps of sugar, puts in the malt.

According to him, he likes it home brewed because it won't make him drunk.

[Htb48JBf]

My father does this. In his garage he has shelves of 1.5 litre coke bottles filled about 3/4 full of home brewed beer. You cannot leave it too long, it'll explode.

He uses a large barrel, loads it up with water, mixes in heaps and heaps of sugar, puts in the malt.

According to him, he likes it home brewed because it won't make him drunk.

The reason they explode is because he puts to much priming sugar when he bottles them or because he hasn't racked the beer long enough before bottling it. He shouldn't feel bad because most people make mistakes and that's part of the fun. Hell, when I tried to make English Scrumpy I made the mistake of filling the carboy to full so when I had a vigorous fermentation going so junk blocked the airlock and the entire thing went off like a volcano. I had apple junk caked on my ceiling and I swear **** was stuck to the drapes a dozen feet away. It was a mess.

You can easily let a brew sit in the fermentation container for two weeks as long as you did a good job sterilizing things and have a good fermentation lock in place. The benefit for doing it so long is that the fermentation slows tends to slow down at the end as there is less and less food for the yeast so a long racking time allows the brewer to be sure that all the sugar has been fermented. Normally, I'll do a two stage fermentation; one week to ferment in one carboy then I'll transfer everything except the loose junk at the bottom to a second carboy for another week to clarify the beer. Just make sure you sterilize EVERYTHING because that's the main reason batches go bad.

[Yessaniloas]

No meat?

[denSmumbSes]

No meat?

Says the guy who wouldn't even taste a proper scumpy.

[StincPriene]

Mine?

[Unamannuato]

Mine?

Yeah.

[Nutpoode]

I took a bottle home with me. It was quite good. God knows how the **** Oerdin managed to smuggle half a dozen bottles of home-brewed alcohol with him onto an airplane.

[CULTDIAMONDS]

I strained it before drinking.

[Greactbet]

A friend of mine brewed beer for a long time before his wife got tired of not having her basement. First batches were awful but he got really good at it. He did always ***** though about being careful with the bottles and having us return them.

[pymnConyelell]

So they gave up and tossed it. I Don't think it wasd doing anything.

We could have added yeast up to Tuesday, I Think, we didn't know that... it was recoverable!

I only spent 5 hours eating and helping them today. Yeah, that was a lot longer than I would think, but most of the time was spent eating and chatting and joking around just now.

I think that they spent 12 hours.

This time multiple sets of yeast were bought, and the first one didn't seem to take, but the second one did. This put in, and it was already showing happy signs when we left to eat a bit and hang out a couple of hours ago.

JM

[Illirmpipse]

They have read several books.

12 hours really is long, but most of that time was spent boiling/etc.

Our previous 'beer' hadn't fermented at all in about a week.

JM

[infelconi]

Just put the lid back on. If the Krease is still there (I think that's how it is spelled; I'm talking about the foam on top of the fermenting beer) then there is a 90%+ chance your beer is fine. Just remember no matter what you do it will never be perfectly sterile so just make a best effort and if the lid comes off, and they do blow off from time to time, then put it back on but less tight so that the gas can maybe escape through the threads. The idea is just to give the beer yeast a head start. Just follow the directions (and 12 hours of boiling seems a really, really long time), then let the stuff cool and using a thermometer pitch the yeast when the temperature is right. The beer will do the rest.

BTW the foam makes a nice barrier which protects the beer so don't worry about the lid being off as long as it isn't off for hours and hours.

[in4wikiu]

Apparently our lid blew off.

Help?

JM

Why am I not surprised?

[MADwanker]

BTW you said your first batch's fermentation got stuck (meaning the fermentation process didn't seem to be continuing or at least continuing at a very slow pace) and there are lots and lots of reasons this could happen. The yeast packet could have been old so that the yeast had died before you put it in, you might have pitched the yeast into the wort while the wort was to hot thus shocking the yeast, some of the sterilizing agent you used to sterilize your equipment might have left a residue which shocked or killed the yeast, you might have over cooked the wort caramelizing the sugar instead of simply breaking the grain starches into simply sugars, etc... There are as many reasons as there are people brewing beer.

Unsticking fermentation can usually be easily done though. Add fresh yeast, maybe a bit of sugar & yeast minerals (which promote yeast growth) and give the whole thing a good gentle mixing (don't aerate the beer though as getting outside gases mixed into the beer can introduce bacteria or fungus; just a good gentle steering) and 90% of the time that will restart fermentation.

Here's some more advise on unsticking fermentation: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/un-s...ntation-55150/

[xkQCaS4w]

How full did you fill your carboy? If it gets to full then when it starts bubbling and foaming solids might block the tip and prevent gases from escaping. Did that happen?

[nmnrIjGB]

I take it that all of you aren't sitting around dry, waiting for this to happen.
Also, I wouldn't want to be the first to drink it.

[Quvwcxqx]

In your homes or not, A) Is everyone abstaining until it's ready? B) Then I guess the guy with the closet is taking the first drink?