Hi everyone,
I stumbled across this forum a couple of months ago and now decided to register, introduce myself and give you my brewing life story. Iâm Adrian, 29, live in Bucks and just converted my third bedroom into a brew room.
About 2 years ago my misses bought me a beer brewing starter kit for my birthday (something she has come to regret) after I mentioned that I wanted to brew my own beer. It took me about 6 months to finally get round to brewing it and the results were promising, it tasted pretty good and was nice to have a full keg sat next to the sofa. The only problem with the beer kit was the process is quite boring, just mixing some syrup with water and chucking the yeast in.
A few months went by and I decided to go out and pick some sloes for some sloe gin. My parents used to make it and this was my first attempt at doing it. I started picking away but the fruit I was picking was slightly larger than a sloe, had softer flesh, slightly elongated shape and tasted nice. I moved onto a few more bushes that had some proper sloes on them. After some research I discovered that I had found a patch of damson trees and that they were good for making damson gin and wine. That was the catalyst I needed for my new hobby, free fruit to make cheap drinkable beverages. After I whipped up some sloe and damson gin with the first batch of fruit I went back to the bush and picked 7lb of fruit and knocked up my first wine following online recipes with the equipment I already had. Results of wine have been favourable, it tastes like a quality red wine and is quite drinkable, problem is Iâm not a fan of red wines!
Since then I have been making all sorts:
Spiced Mead
Alcoholic ginger beer mk1
Alcoholic ginger beer mk2
Cider
Sloe wine
Raisin and black beer wine
Alcoholic ginger beer mk3
Spiced Sloe Mead
Straight Mead
Cyser
Kiwi Wine
WOW
The ginger beers have been an obsession of mine. It has been my plan to make an alcoholic version of the soft drink and I think I have created a recipe Iâm very happy with. The first one I made like a wine and came out with a high ABV and not enough ginger. The mk2 had good ginger heat, about 3.2% but lacked taste. The mk3 was very good, was about 3.5%, had a bit of bite with some mild ginger heat that then got replaced by a secondary burning in your ears. Next plan for the recipe is to up the ABV and tweak some of the basic ingredients, mk4 is going to be a winner.
The meads have also been a bit of an obsession. Theyâre simple like the beer kits but easy to tweak to give it a bit of a personal touch. The sloe mead came about as I had some sloes in the freezer that were left over from the wine and the misses wanted her freezer back. Initial tasting of all the meads are good but I canât be bothered to wait the recommended 12 months aging time.
I love Gales raisin and black beer wine so decided to try and make my own but after failing to find a recipe I decided to make one up based on the small amount of info I could find. This turned out to be a major disaster due to one comment I found on the internet that said to use treacle, it just tastes of treacle and is way too sickly. I think I know what I did wrong and could probably fix it but after such a disaster Iâm reluctant to try again. I now have 5 bottles of booze that is too grim to drink but I canât bring myself to pour it down the sink, maybe I can cook with it!
The cider I made with a friend from apples and a lot for hard work. I got some dessert apples from my in-laws and some cookers from my mate and started to pulp and juice them. The results were excellent but very hard work for the 8 litres we made. This year I plan to up production and bring in some help and hopefully make around 35 litres.
Thatâs pretty much it for now. Future plans are nettle wine, turbo cider, proper cider, proper perry, sloe wine, damson wine, parsnip, more meads, cherry wine, apple wine, blackberry wine, summer fruits wine, ginger wine, ginger beer mk4, partial and all grain beers and others.
This hobby is great.
I stumbled across this forum a couple of months ago and now decided to register, introduce myself and give you my brewing life story. Iâm Adrian, 29, live in Bucks and just converted my third bedroom into a brew room.
About 2 years ago my misses bought me a beer brewing starter kit for my birthday (something she has come to regret) after I mentioned that I wanted to brew my own beer. It took me about 6 months to finally get round to brewing it and the results were promising, it tasted pretty good and was nice to have a full keg sat next to the sofa. The only problem with the beer kit was the process is quite boring, just mixing some syrup with water and chucking the yeast in.
A few months went by and I decided to go out and pick some sloes for some sloe gin. My parents used to make it and this was my first attempt at doing it. I started picking away but the fruit I was picking was slightly larger than a sloe, had softer flesh, slightly elongated shape and tasted nice. I moved onto a few more bushes that had some proper sloes on them. After some research I discovered that I had found a patch of damson trees and that they were good for making damson gin and wine. That was the catalyst I needed for my new hobby, free fruit to make cheap drinkable beverages. After I whipped up some sloe and damson gin with the first batch of fruit I went back to the bush and picked 7lb of fruit and knocked up my first wine following online recipes with the equipment I already had. Results of wine have been favourable, it tastes like a quality red wine and is quite drinkable, problem is Iâm not a fan of red wines!
Since then I have been making all sorts:
Spiced Mead
Alcoholic ginger beer mk1
Alcoholic ginger beer mk2
Cider
Sloe wine
Raisin and black beer wine
Alcoholic ginger beer mk3
Spiced Sloe Mead
Straight Mead
Cyser
Kiwi Wine
WOW
The ginger beers have been an obsession of mine. It has been my plan to make an alcoholic version of the soft drink and I think I have created a recipe Iâm very happy with. The first one I made like a wine and came out with a high ABV and not enough ginger. The mk2 had good ginger heat, about 3.2% but lacked taste. The mk3 was very good, was about 3.5%, had a bit of bite with some mild ginger heat that then got replaced by a secondary burning in your ears. Next plan for the recipe is to up the ABV and tweak some of the basic ingredients, mk4 is going to be a winner.
The meads have also been a bit of an obsession. Theyâre simple like the beer kits but easy to tweak to give it a bit of a personal touch. The sloe mead came about as I had some sloes in the freezer that were left over from the wine and the misses wanted her freezer back. Initial tasting of all the meads are good but I canât be bothered to wait the recommended 12 months aging time.
I love Gales raisin and black beer wine so decided to try and make my own but after failing to find a recipe I decided to make one up based on the small amount of info I could find. This turned out to be a major disaster due to one comment I found on the internet that said to use treacle, it just tastes of treacle and is way too sickly. I think I know what I did wrong and could probably fix it but after such a disaster Iâm reluctant to try again. I now have 5 bottles of booze that is too grim to drink but I canât bring myself to pour it down the sink, maybe I can cook with it!
The cider I made with a friend from apples and a lot for hard work. I got some dessert apples from my in-laws and some cookers from my mate and started to pulp and juice them. The results were excellent but very hard work for the 8 litres we made. This year I plan to up production and bring in some help and hopefully make around 35 litres.
Thatâs pretty much it for now. Future plans are nettle wine, turbo cider, proper cider, proper perry, sloe wine, damson wine, parsnip, more meads, cherry wine, apple wine, blackberry wine, summer fruits wine, ginger wine, ginger beer mk4, partial and all grain beers and others.
This hobby is great.
and Welcome!
