Homebrew

[Philpepe]

So obviously everyone on here has at least one hobby (unless you're here to observe, troll or attempt to spoil our fun!), but myself, I tend to have multiple hobbies, that usually seem to be highly unrelated to each other, all that the same time. That's why my wife came up with the name "Phil's Next Kick" for my blog.

Anyway, since I am now about to embark into the world of Homebrew, I thought I would see if anyone else on here (of legal age of course) is into homebrew or has ever experimented with it. I have tried a couple things before now (like hard cider and "redneck wine", both made with bread yeast), but I'm getting ready to jump full on into beer. I'm so excited to be able to start creating my own brews with their own unique tastes!

Ok, anybody else?

[QueenBex]

Ooo I've always wanted to try home brewing! The closest I've got is making mulled wine at christmas. Have you got a kit or did you get the bits separately? There are some all inclusive kits around that i'd love to get but they all seem so expensive

[Philpepe]

I haven't bought the kit yet, but I found the one I think I want at a place about 45 minutes from here. It's just under $90 for the equipment, and then the ingredient kits are around $30, so I'm figuring I'll end up spending around $130 or so. I thought about ordering it all online, but I just don't want to have to deal with shipping and all that.

[Servotron]

We do a bit of homebrew at our house, it seems that the kits do better than the fruit ones we have, but that may be because the fruit ones take longer.

I currently have a batch of sloe wine going that i started about a month ago, it's just finished fermenting and I'm going to move it to a new demijohn next month.

[Philpepe]

Yea, I'm wanting to do a mead too, and I've heard those take long, like wine does. I did do a "redneck wine" that I saw a video of on youtube, and I tasted a bottle of it the other night and it wasn't half bad.

[RMDC]

My spouse's parents have made wine and mead for years. They're beekeepers, so the mead is made with their own honey. They made a custom wine for our wedding that was incredible - we still have a couple of bottles in safe storage in case the world ends.

[SofaraStarfyre]

My husband and I did this for a couple years about 6 years ago or so now and the very first thing he did was a porter (one of his faves is Yuengling Porter which is brewed in PA), and it was so think that he said it was basically a fork and knife porter. He really liked it and wasn't able to duplicate it. We're not sure how that one happened lol. He has tried other stuff too but I don't remember what they were. We've not done any kind of homebrew other than beers I don't think. My husband enjoyed it very much and I think he's been looking at possibly getting into it again, but not sure.

[acidMiasma]

I have been reading up on this recently, really want to start! We just bought our first house, so it is not currently in our budget but I am thinking next year is a possibility.. I will be following along with your adventures!

[BooChocoBoom]

A bunch of my friends and I are beer nerds so we have a beer appreciation group (called Sue's Brew Congress) that meets up at various breweries and brewpubs to try new things. I also have some friends that have a rather large homebrewing operation and they have made all kinds of awesome (http://www.metalmonkeybrewing.com/). I am trying to find a Sunday when they are brewing or kegging or such to start learning how to do so. As we do find ourselves at beer related venues often, we've made friends with some of the microbrewery brewers as well and their best advice was to try homebrewing on your own to start. Living in Chicago, it's still a dream of mine to go to Siebel Institute for a diploma in brewing science but alas, time and money are not in my favor for that just yet. Good luck with the homebrewing - there are tons of resources popping up all over the place!

[arkani]

I haven't done homebrewing myself, though I want to do beer. My in laws brew the smoothest spirits i've ever had though - all for free! (and oh, the chilli bourbon. *So* good.) If we want a batch of something special, we just ask when they're doing a brew, and we pay just for the flavours. most commonly it's bourbon, whiskey or black sambuca
my dad used to brew his own beer - that was.. interesting. (most failed due to 'help' from my brother, who would have been about 7 at the time.) I can't remember if he got a kit or the individual pieces, though.

My aunt up in Cairns home brews spirits as well, but hers are more.. burny? if that makes sense. They taste more like the store bought ones, with a bit of fire as it goes down.