*Walks in, nods at the locals, heads to the bar

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Welcome. Ask has many questions has you want. Someone will have the answer whilst others will want to know the same info. That kit looks good to get started, you will need those with whatever method you decide to do.
 
jayjt29 said:
haha your safe, went off footy in Euro '96!

sanitise, just means clean everything and use a steriliser to sanitise it, when I started I just used Milton tablets the stuff you use for sanitising baby bottles, the problem with that though is you have to rinse it off after. have a look at Starsan, about £12 a bottle but will last you years :)

Cheers
Jay
Click to expand...

I get the point of sanitising. I'm just trying to work out what needs sanitising and how. For example, bottles...how much sanitising solution do you make, and do you just fill the bottle with sanitiser then pour it out after a minute or so then rinse?
 
Basic rule is anything that is going to touch your beer should be sanitised.

Rereading my post below I am possibly over the top with my cleaning/sanitising routine but have had no real issues to date.

I keep a washing basin of sanitising solution when brewing and drop things in there and rinse before use.

When bottling I fill.my bottling bucket (a fv with a tap) to about 2/3 full and drain this into all the bottles (so they're about half full) and give them a quick scrub with a bottle brush. Then as I use vwp I have to rinse the bottles and the bottling bucket.

Others put there bottles in the oven and or use starsan (which is.non rinse). Bottling day can be a real chore but brings the excitement of new beer to drink (in about 4 weeks).
 
Pope said:
I get the point of sanitising. I'm just trying to work out what needs sanitising and how. For example, bottles...how much sanitising solution do you make, and do you just fill the bottle with sanitiser then pour it out after a minute or so then rinse?
Click to expand...

Hi and welcome. It's probably best if you look into no-rinse sanitisers, they're less trouble. If you have to rinse it I assume you need to use boiled water, rinsing with tap water would defeat the whole purpose of sanitising before.
When I bottle, I usually make around 10 litres [I use Chemipro Oxi] and fill all the bottles with it, let them sit for a few minutes then drain them.
For brew day 5 litres are normally enough since I only need it for the FV and few other small things.
 
wfr42 said:
Basic rule is anything that is going to touch your beer should be sanitised.

Rereading my post below I am possibly over the top with my cleaning/sanitising routine but have had no real issues to date.

I keep a washing basin of sanitising solution when brewing and drop things in there and rinse before use.

When bottling I fill.my bottling bucket (a fv with a tap) to about 2/3 full and drain this into all the bottles (so they're about half full) and give them a quick scrub with a bottle brush. Then as I use vwp I have to rinse the bottles and the bottling bucket.

Others put there bottles in the oven and or use starsan (which is.non rinse). Bottling day can be a real chore but brings the excitement of new beer to drink (in about 4 weeks).
Click to expand...

Thanks WFR42, what you said here is probably really obvious to yourself and other experience brewers, but to me that's really helpful.
 
Alan_H said:
Hi and welcome. It's probably best if you look into no-rinse sanitisers, they're less trouble. If you have to rinse it I assume you need to use boiled water, rinsing with tap water would defeat the whole purpose of sanitising before.
When I bottle, I usually make around 10 litres [I use Chemipro Oxi] and fill all the bottles with it, let them sit for a few minutes then drain them.
For brew day 5 litres are normally enough since I only need it for the FV and few other small things.
Click to expand...

Thanks Alan H, this is also really helpful to me.
 
I've only been brewing about a year...

A lot of it becomes common sense and the only daft question is the one you don't ask. I've picked up a lot from here. The most important bits being:
1. Do what works for you.
2. Have fun!
 
Welcome to the wonderful world of brewing. You couldn't wish for a more knowledgeable and helpful bunch. Ask questions, all are answered with experience and salient wisdom. I shall leave you with a quote from my uncle.

"Man has been brewing beer for thousands of years, and its really hard to f**k up, not even you can manage it"

Everything you make unless you are really unlucky will be drinkable, and most of it will likely be better than anything you've had for a while... Just watch out, cos this hobby is seriously addictive (Says the man who's been doing it for 3 months and has 4 brews going currently, and a sudden interest in demijohns and wine...)

Oh, I assume you're a Utd fan... Hello from a Liverpool fan! :p
 
My wife-to-be runs a pub, so I reckon she could sort me out with bottles.
Click to expand...

I give it a year before one of you suggests a microbrewery!

Most upgrades fall into 3 categories:
*Stuff that makes brewing easier - star-san, bottle washers and drying tree's, corny keg and kegerator sytems etc.
*Stuff that makes better beer - going all grain, or extract brewing rather than kits, fermentation fridge.
*Stuff that makes it more 'pro'. Stainless or conical fermenters (or even stainless conicals), big gas fired all grain setups, plate exchangers your own yeast lab, etc.

There's something in homebrewing for everyone, which rabbit hole of endless upgrades you want to fall down is upto you:
Biologist - start a yeast lab
Electrical engineer - Fully PID controlled all grain setup
Accountant - tax code around setting up and selling beer from your 'microbrewery'
Quality Control - go become a beer judge / somelier

And the best bit, thanks to the internet we can now argue about it almost constantly, can you taste star-san, are plate exchangers really a workaround for commercial brewers rather than being the best solution and do immersion chillers produce brighter beer, how many times can you re-use the same yeast, is XXXX yeast really just re packaged Nottingham??
 
ElChemist said:
Welcome to the wonderful world of brewing. You couldn't wish for a more knowledgeable and helpful bunch. Ask questions, all are answered with experience and salient wisdom. I shall leave you with a quote from my uncle.

"Man has been brewing beer for thousands of years, and its really hard to f**k up, not even you can manage it"

Everything you make unless you are really unlucky will be drinkable, and most of it will likely be better than anything you've had for a while... Just watch out, cos this hobby is seriously addictive (Says the man who's been doing it for 3 months and has 4 brews going currently, and a sudden interest in demijohns and wine...)

Oh, I assume you're a Utd fan... Hello from a Liverpool fan! :p
Click to expand...

Your Uncle sounds like a wise man.

I have a lot of time for mickey's, I have always got on well with them...I also go to Liverpool John Moore's University on Fridays and I like the City.
 
Pope said:
That's one of the things which I'm not sure about...as silly as it might sound...how do you sanitise stuff?
Click to expand...

I've got the same kit as wfr42 linked....it has a tub of sanitizing powder in (I'm sure all the kits do tbh) that has instructions on it. I just used the fermentation vessel as the main container, filled it up with warm water and enough powder and dropped all the little bits and bobs in there....there's also general instructions on there (e.g add 1 tsp per 5 litres of water) for if you wanted to do other things like bottles or larger boil pots - for those I suppose you could do it in the bath (once cleaned) and there's an adequate amount of warm water and sanitizing powder/solution......just be sure to rinse off thoroughly with cold water (some people advise that this water is pre-boiled) unless it's a no-rinse solution like Star-San
 
There's a wealth of knowledge on this forum, and we all remember not knowing where to begin, so you'll find many people will answer the simplest and most basic of questions, no one will tell you to go away and Google!

I never really got away with Kits, and more or less went straight to All Grain, most people stick to kits to begin with.

On the subject of the capper, I would avoid those wilko cantilever cappers, I had one and it was awful. They work well if the bottle neck grip is square, which if you reuse bottles it may not be. I got sick of decapitating bottles and binned it in the end.

You can buy bench cappers for 25 nuggets now and they're infinitely better.
 
Birkin said:
On the subject of the capper, I would avoid those wilko cantilever cappers, I had one and it was awful. They work well if the bottle neck grip is square, which if you reuse bottles it may not be. I got sick of decapitating bottles and binned it in the end.
Click to expand...

After reading a few similar posts to this I went out and tried my new Youngs twin lever capper on an old bottle (new cap of course!) and it worked easily with hardly any effort. Perhaps I had a lucky bottle? It was on old Sharps Atlantic which appeared to be fairly standard size/shape.
 
Hobgoblin bottles are notoriously tricky with a lever capper, I've just avoided them.
 

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