Brewing from scratch

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JAM 08

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Hi and thanks for allowing me to join. I usually make wine with foraged ingredients, dandelion, berries and the like so beers are a completely different realm. I've successfully grew brewer's gold and phoenix this year, and would have had a a bucketful of hops if I'd harvested. I let them be this year to develop strong roots but next year I'd like to take the same approach as with wine. I'm a complete novice so fairly clueless. What other ingredients would be needed for beers? Do recipes exist for DIY lagers , would additional equipment be needed as well as that for wines? Thanks for reading : )
 
At its most basic all you need to brew beer is malt,hops, water and yeast.
Single malt and hops is called a SMASH and a good way to start.
You'll need a pan, a heat source ( gas ring, stovetop or induction hob ) and a grain bag.
Then you'll need steriliser, a hydrometer and a fermenting vessel all of which you probably already have.
Take a look at this thread
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/have-a-go-at-simple-ag.51779/
 
At its most basic all you need to brew beer is malt,hops, water and yeast.
Single malt and hops is called a SMASH and a good way to start.
You'll need a pan, a heat source ( gas ring, stovetop or induction hob ) and a grain bag.
Then you'll need steriliser, a hydrometer and a fermenting vessel all of which you probably already have.
Take a look at this thread
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/have-a-go-at-simple-ag.51779/
That looks a great start one to start with and looks relatively simple, thank you for sharing that, there's a lot of jargon and abbreviations online which I must admit I don't understand yet.
 
Compared to wine the main differences will be mashing and boiling, learn about why and how the malt is mashed and the wort is boiled and you're most of the way there.

I'm not sure how much thought goes into yeast choice and management for wine but for beer it is paramount.

You might be able to forage and grown your own hops but the malt will be tricky!

Have a read of the simple all grain brewing thread and give it a go, it's easy really :beer1:
 
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Hi JAM 08 and welcome.
Making wine from foraged ingredients is a relatively simple process compared with Making beer, but all the skills and knowledge acquired with winemaking will be used in beer making too.
There are several ways of making beer: ranging from using pre-hopped extract kits to all grain recipes. I'd recommend you get a book that's not too simplistic, but not too complex either, and give it a good read. Anything by Graham Wheeler would be ideal. The earlier editions are better than the most recent so second-hand off Amazon.
 
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