Yellow Zombie blog » Home Brew

Brewferm Gallia Beer Kit

mark — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 08:41:00 +0000

Got the Brewferm Gallia Beer Kit bottled yesterday, 21 bottles of varying shapes and sizes including my new swing top bottles from Youngs Home Brew. The process was fairly straight forward siphoning the brew into a bucket to mix 100g of sugar then into the bottles. For some reason during fermentation this kit almost escaped the 5 gallon fermentation vessel with the froth almost reaching the lid of the bucket despite the brew only being 12 litres.

The Brewferm Christmas beer has had one week of fermentation and should be ready to be bottled next weekend.

Bottling Brewferm Beers

mark — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:38:59 +0000

Last week I bottled my Belgium Brewferm home brew beers, I made 19 bottles of Diablo and 21 bottles of Framboos. The whole process was fairly straight forward, with cleaning the bottles being the most time consuming part. The final gravity was 1.012 for the diablo and 1.013 for the framboos, despite warnings on the hydrometer and the brewferm instructions I was recommended to bottle it at these levels as it had over 2 weeks of fermentation and other people’s experiance had seemed to work out well with breferm home brew. There’s been no exploding beer bottles so far! The more I research around home brewing the more I reaslise how poor the instructions that come with the kits are.

Highly recommend the rotating bottle drainer, it made sorting out the clean bottles a lot easier. The beers have had a week at room temperature and now have been moved to the coldest place in the shed. The beers will be ready at the start of July.

Next up Brewferm Gallia.

Brewferm Framboise Beer

mark — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:42:53 +0000

Started the Brewferm Framboise Beer kit (I would link directly to the kit but I can’t because the site is entirely in flash, not good for SEO!) at the weekend which had been sitting in my kitchen since January. Another purchase from Brewgenie, although Wilkinson’s now has a good range of home brew supplies which is useful to pop in and stock up.

The kit was easy to get going with good instructions, better than the last Yorkshire brew I did. This time the beer kit will make about 12 litres which I am going to bottle with my Emily capping machine. Pictures from the brew -

Next up the Brewferm Diablo beerkit.

Kegging it!

mark — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:01:45 +0000

Last weekend I put the beer into the keg after the hydrometer sat at the correct level for the Yorkshire bitter. Here are some photos from the fermentation bucket to the keg.

Home Brew Day 5

mark — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 22:17:28 +0000

Here’s my home brew, I don’t think it’s looking good, the guys in the office will be disapointed.

If this is right post a comment and let me know…

Home Brew Day 4

mark — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:36:23 +0000

The home brew is going ok I think, the foam at the top seems to have stopped and the black stuff at the bottom seems to be disappearing. Hope this is useful to any first time brewers out there! My brew belt seems to be working a treat!

Home Brew Day 3

mark — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 14:39:35 +0000

I haven’t a clue if this is looking right as there’s not much info about home brewing and what it should look like, this is what mine looks like after 3 days:

There have been quite a lot of bubbles and the top of the brew has gone foamy. I think this is right!

Hope this helps someone if they’re starting home brewing.

Brew Belt

mark — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:04:24 +0000

Got my Brew Belt today from Brew Genie, it’s a bit cold in my house due to crappy storage heaters so my Brew Belt should keep the brew bucket at a steady temperature. It was easy to wrap around the bucket about 4 inches from the bottom was recommended. Whether it works only time will tell, but I’m surprised its still in the living room now it’s got its own heater…

The Brew Belt in use:

Brewing Bitter

mark — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:14:09 +0000

Started work on my home brew kit this week, I got a starter kit from Brew Genie in Hall Green, Birmingham. Interestingly the owner of the shop has had more trade through his website than his 3 shops combined. His website isn’t fancy, just a basic online shop which could be optimised much more for the search engines through content, page titles and incoming links. If he spent more time on his site I’m sure he could generate even more business through the website.

Anyhoo, the beer kit is Young’s Yorkshire bitter, haven’t a clue what this will be like but should be fun.

I’ve got the up and running – pictures below:

I think this is set up right, the instructions weren’t very clear. It’s currently fermenting in my living room, for how long? I’m not sure…

Things I’ve learnt so far:

Plan what you need first, sounds boring but I dived straight in and had to get the sterilizer out again to sterilize more equipment.
Sterilize everything absolutely everything
Be careful with measurements, again I dived in and I think I have a bit too much water in the fermentation bucket.