So a month has passed

And still not got any more brews underway.

I was away on holiday in July and also at another festival at the end of the month, so not really had time to get anything going unfortunately. I did take some of my cider to the festival for others to try, and it went down well.. apart from one person who didn't like it.. I was shocked haha!

Anyway, I've bottled the rest of the Zinfandel Blush wine today for Gillian, so there is 4 bottles there for her.

I also decided to sample the 3 Turbo Ciders I have sitting, they are about 3 months old now so thought it was taste time.

1. Apple Turbo Cider - Lovely, but maybe a bit dry so might add some sweetner to it but drinkable
2. Apple, Blackcurrant & Cranberry - Delicious and will be very easy drank
3. Apple & Fruit Cocktail - Not sure, needs something but it is drinkable.. might sweeten it a bit as its strong!

Away on Wednesday for a month too so will need to plan something to start as stocks of the Raspberry & Lime are low and so is the 1st batch. 

Though the 2nd batch I done hasn't been touched, but sadly needs some cordial in it as has a bitter taste to it, still does the job though ;-)

New Tasting

Again, no updates as was down south for 3 weeks working.

Got home on Tuesday night, and tried one of the Raspberry & Lime bottles. It was lovely, plenty of fizz and easy to drink.. nice refreshing summer drink so will be having more of that this weekend!

Not planning brewing any more in the near future due to going on holiday for a week from the 10th and then there will be more working away pretty much all of August.

Though might have time to start some Festive Turbo Ciders if I find the time and more DJ's!

Apologies for no updates for a while, currently working away for a few weeks so nothing brewing or being drank anyway..

Nothing happening

Nothing really to report, though I wanted to update this blog at least once per week.

I am working a lot just now so nothing new brewing as could be away from home at times, but the Raspberry & Lime Cider I bottled last is clearing nicely.. might try one in a few days.

Wine Tasting

Ok so with the lovely weather we have been having over the past week, we decided to have a BBQ on Sunday.

I put some of my 1st batch into the fridge and also bottled two of the the Zinfandel Blush Wine.

As you can see on the picture, it has cleared well and with it being 1 month old, was ready for drinking.

Gillian had one bottle in the evening, and from what she has reported it is lovely, I tasted a little bit but am not a wine drinker anyway.

The other bottle is sitting chilling in the fridge, not sure how long it will last though ;-)

More bottling

The Apple with Raspberry & Lime kit I had on was ready for bottling. I had been collecting 2 litre juice bottles, so decided that I would use them for this brew.

Once all cleaned and sterilized, I added the priming sugar to the FV along with the flavour add-back. This is basically what gives the cider the Raspberry & Lime flavouring though would be better with real fruit!

It should hopefully be drinkable within a couple of weeks, but again the longer you leave it ageing the better it should get. Fingers crossed!

Productive Day!

After a few days away down south at the Bearded Theory Festival in Derbyshire, to which I did take a few bottles of the 1st batch of homebrew which seemed to go down well, I had some work to do today.

So first today I racked off the Apple, Blackcurrant and Cranberry which ended up at 1.000 so making that around 7.2% ABV. Tastes nice and fruity too, but perhaps a bit sweet.. might need to fix that somehow!

Also racked off the Apple & Fruit Cocktail TC, which didn't look too clever with all the pulp/sediment in it but it looks all good now. Tastes very strong though, and if my readings are correct it seems to be about 8.5%.. ooft!

Also the rose wine was looking a lot clearer, so racked that off again and that is that ready for drinking, so will bottle it shortly. Gillian took a little sip, and seemed to like it.. so a success I think!

Finally, the third batch of kit cider was fermented out, so transferred that to my other FV and will bottle that tomorrow.

Productive day :-)

Apple, Blackcurrant and Cranberry TC - Update

So after the slow start (see HERE), and now being brewing for 19 days, I have noticed the bubbling from the air lock has slowed down quite a bit.

Decided to take another hydrometer reading for this cider which read as 1.006 so still to come down a little bit before racking off. Ideally it should be about 1.000 so ends up about 7% ABV.

I sampled a bit of course, and was really sweet but could definitely feel the alcohol on the mouth.. nice though!

As you can see in the picture below, it is a lovely colour and should clear quite a bit more too hopefully.

Stock so far!

So below is a pic of what is brewed so far.

• 23 Litres of Brewmaker Deluxe Cider (14 Litres left)
• 23 Litres of Youngs Brewbuddy Cider (21 Litres left)
• 23 Litres of OTR Raspberry & Lime Cider (Fermenting)
• 5 Litres of Apple TC (Ageing)
• 5 Litres of Apple, Blackcurrant & Cranberry TC (Fermenting)
• 5 Litres of Apple & Fruit Cocktail TC (Fermenting)
• 5 Litres of Zinfandel Blush (Clearing)

Not bad considering only started 10 weeks ago :-)

Wine Update

So the wine has stopped fermenting, finishing up with a SG of 1.000 so this means it will be quite dry to taste, so  I have added some Youngs Wine Sweetener to sweeten it up.

I've racked it off into another demijohn and added the Wine Finings that come with the kit to clear it. The wine needs agitated a few times over the next 24 hours as this helps it clear, and it should be ready to drink in 7-10 days. Again, like cider, this is minimum time to drink it, and of course gets better the longer it is left to age.

On The Rocks - Apple with Raspberry & Lime

So while I had racked off the Apple TC and made the Fruit Cocktail TC, I thought I might as well start the other cider kit that I had bought a couple weeks ago.

With kit ciders, it really is as simple as following the instructions supplied with the kit, and all you really need to add is sugar and water. This kit comes with a flavouring sachet which gets added before bottling.

Water & Yeast added

Sugar & Can contents

No recipe required

So as you seen in an earlier post today, I got some more ingredients and equipment for making another 1 Gallon brew.
I didn't have a recipe in mind when I went to the supermarket, just that I was planning to try another one with another variety of juice.
I went to Sainsburys and got 3 litres of Apple Juice (56p each) and looked for something different to make it up to the 5 litres.
I saw in the chilled section, a 2 litre carton of Fruit Cocktail Juice for £1.39. This was from produced  from concentrate which is important for the fermentation progress and contains no preservatives so didn't need boiled off.
I just followed the same receipe for the previous two TC's I did the other week, adding Malic Acid, Pectolase, Tannin and Yeast.
Also added an extra 160g of sugar to make this around 8% once again :-)
No idea how this one will turn out, but then it's not exactly costing much anyway if it turns out disgusting!

Racking off the Apple TC

As mentioned previously, the Apple TC was pretty much fermented out so I had to rack it off to another DJ.

In the pictures below, you can see the sediment at the bottom of the DJ so the idea behind racking off is to transfer the brew into another DJ leaving most of the sediment behind.
Using a syphon hose, I transferred it to the clean and sterilized DJ and as you can see on the picture on the right, left the sediment behind.

Now it's just a waiting game with this brew, it could be drank within a few weeks but it is far better to leave as long as possible, preferably 3-6 months to get it to its best.

More? Ok why not!

Ok so I needed to get hold of another DJ to rack off the Apple TC that was ready. So I went to my LHBS and managed to get one plus a few other bits and bobs..  along with another Plastic Demijohn to make another 1 Gallon brew.. more on that later.

So all in I got some rubber bungs, a funnel, syphon clip, plastic corks, DJ brush, Sterilzer and more Cider Yeast. Oh and a huge bag of sugar plus some juice for the next brew! 

Readings

So took a hydrometer read today from both the Turbo Ciders.. even though the fruity one is still bubbling away.

This will give me an indication of what % ABV they are at the moment.

Ok so first the Apple, Blackcurrant and Cranberry TC. The starting specific gravity reading was 1.054 and the reading today was 1.012 which when put into The Homebrew Forum Calculator gives 5.2% but this is still fermenting away and should hopefully end up about 7%.

The Apple TC had a starting specific gravity of 1.060 and the reading today was 1.000 which means it's pretty much fermented out. This gives an ABV of around 8%... nice :)

Never done the wine as never got an accurate SG to begin with, but should end up around 11-12% I think.

Still Fermenting

Been away working all weekend, and it's now been 10 days since starting the last 3 brews.

The Apple, Blackcurrant and Cranberry TC is still bubbling away every second or so, as is the Zinfandel rose wine.

But the Apple TC has slowed down quiet a bit, so will take a hydrometer reading in the next couple of days for that one. Then it will need racked off into another DJ and left alone for a while.

Enjoying and Sampling

Decided to try another couple of bottles of the first batch last night. This batch is 8 weeks since first brewing, and a couple of weeks since I tasted the last one from it.

Got to admit it is rather lovely, easy to go down and plenty of fizz in it even after the pint sitting for a bit.

It is definitely getting better over time and despite being tempted to drink the rest of it, I am going to try and keep spreading out the tastings for this to check on how good it actually gets.

After enjoying the above cider, I thought it might have been time to try the 1st bottle from the 2nd batch.

This one is 4 weeks from when it was first started, which is actually a bit older than when I tried the first one from the 1st batch.

As you can see, it is a lot lighter and crisper than the first lot, but definately not ready for mass consumption. There was very little fizz in the bottle, but this will improve and I reckon it will be lovely if left for another month or so.

It's been saved!

Looks like good news!

It looks like adding a little bit of yeast and cranking up the heating a couple of degrees has kick started the fermentation in the Apple, Blackberry and Cranberry Turbo Cider.

As you can see they are all fermenting away nicely now, what's suprised me is the colour that the Apple Turbo Cider has gone.. pretty much bright orange! That will put hairs on yer chest haha

Some good and some not so good news

Well 3 days later and both the wine and the Apple TC are bubbing away like mad. So these have both been topped up to just near the top and as you can see on the video below are fermenting nicely.

Unfortunately there seems to be a problem (I think) with the Apple, Blackberry and Cranberry TC. There has not been much visible activity at all and maybe has one small bubble every 5 minutes or so.
I added a bit more yeast to see if that would help, and despite that there isn't any life to it.
Looks like I have either not killed off the preservatives in the Blackcurrant juice by boiling it too quick or I have killed the yeast by not allowing it to cool down before mixing it in.
Will keep an eye on it over next couple days.. and hopefully it can be salvaged :)

Time to fill up those Demijohns!

Today was brew day!

As per my previous blog, I had all the equipment and ingredients required so I began as usual by cleaning and sterilizing all the necessary equipment. I just filled one of my 25 ltr fermenting vessels with warm water and some sterilizing powder and soaked everything in there for 10-15 minutes and making sure everything is thoroughly rinsed after.

 

So first to get done was the Youngs Zinfandel Blush style wine. This was a kit wine, making 6 bottles and cost £9 from my local homebrew shop.
With a kit wine, it's simply a case of following the instructions provided and all you need to add is water and sugar. Not sure on the ABV of this, around 12% perhaps as I don't have a wine hydrometer.
It comes with wine yeast, stabilizer and fining's so no need to buy anything extra for it.
As you can see on the picture on the left, there is still some water to be added which is on Day 3 of fermentation.. updates to follow.

Next up was the Apple Turbo Cider, which I am making using a recipe I found on the forums I use by Marrsy86. It can be found HERE and I did tweak it slightly though.
Pretty much all this is made with is Apple Juice (from concentrate), some Cider Yeast, Pectolase (to help it clear), Tannin (or a strong cup of tea to give it some bite) and some Malic Acid (which is found in apples and helps it mature nicely) I added extra sugar though to give this a final ABV of 7%.
After the yeast has dissipates I will top this up with the rest of the apple juice to 1 inch from the airlock.


Finally I made the Apple, Blackberry and Cranberry Cider. This was pretty much the same method as the Apple Cider, as you can see by the recipe I used HERE.
Again this one will be topped up with 1 litre of Apple Juice once the yeast dissipates.
Although this one states an end ABV of around 5.5%, I added the same amount of sugar as the previous one so should end up around 7% though I used Aldi's version of Ribena so I think it might have more sugar content = more % ABV as the end result.
Guess that happens when you tweak the receipes it gets more interesting ;-)



So with all 3 demijohns filled, I just moved them upstairs to my brew cupboard, though I seriously need to think about getting a shelf put in soon so I can free up a bit space.. well at least till I drink some more.

The wine takes 3-4 weeks to be fully ready to drink, and the Turbo Ciders can be drank after around 1 month but from everything that I have read, they are best left 3-6 months to mature and they taste even better.... we will see if they last that long!!

So what next?

So after 2 batches of cider kits brewed and bottled, I fancied making something different and decided to go shopping today. 

I went and got 3 x 1 Gallon Demijohns, with bungs/airlocks.

And a few extras such as Cider Yeast, Tannin Powder and Malic Acid.

I also got a Raspberry & Lime 40 Pint Cider Kit and a  6 bottle Zinfandel Blush Wine Kit.

Oh and some juice.. well lots of it actually :)

Got the equipment from a local home-brew shop in Glasgow, called Inn House Brewery on Dunbarton Road. Nice, well stocked shop and the lady working seemed to know her stuff.. will be a frequent customer I reckon! 

So the plan with the demijohns is to make the wine, and also a couple of turbo ciders.. one just with apple juice and the other with apple, blackberry and cranberry juice. I will put up the recipes when I blog about them.

Will make a start to that lot shortly, should keep me busy!

2nd Batch Bottled

Well after a nice relaxing trip to Amsterdam, I returned and set about preparing to bottle the 2nd Batch.

Only difference I went with this time, was instead of batch priming with the Coopers Carbonation Drops, I decided to just use ordinary granulated sugar.

Mixing around 160 grams into some boiling water, I put this into the FV and syphoned the brew into it mixing it to ensure the sugar was well dissolved.

Once that was done, it was just a case of using the bottler again and this time I managed to fill 22 x 1 Litre bottles.

2nd Batch                                     1st Batch

As you can see on the photo above, there is quite a bit of colour difference between the batches. 

Brew Update

So it's been fermenting 12 days now, took a reading yesterday and it was at 1.004.

Decided to transfer the brew to the second fermentation bucket today, took another reading and was at 1.002 which means it's nearly finished.

Off to Amsterdam tomorrow for 3 days so will bottle this batch when I return.

But before that, going to have another bottle from the 1st batch, it's 6 weeks old tomorrow so will see if it has improved since the 6th April.

Quick Update

As mentioned in my last blog, I did start brewing the 2nd batch last Thursday.

So it's been on a week now, and still slowly bubbling away so will leave it till the start of the week then test the SG.

Still hardly touched the 1st batch, had 2 bottles last Friday night and it was very enjoyable. Going to leave the remaining 17 bottles for another few weeks and try a couple more :)

4 weeks since starting..

And I've only had one bottle myself...

Though I did take a bottle up to my friend on his 40th, and it went down pretty well I think.. people seemed to think it tasted nice.

And since it has been 4 weeks since I started my first batch, I went out today and got the second lot. This time went for the Brew Buddy Cider Kit which I will make a start on tomorrow!

1 Week Later

Well due to me being away to the Isle of Skye since last Wednesday, there has been no updates to either this blog or the brew itself.

It's been sitting quiet happily in the cupboard.. I was going to move it into the shed but due to the really unusual weather here the last few days, the shed was like a sauna! *ohhh gets idea for next project*

The bottles seem to have some fizz in them now, and can feel some pressure in the bottles but nothing to worry about as these PET bottles can hold up to 100 PSI anyway.. no bottle bombs here!

So they are just being kept indoors, same place but with the temperature a bit cooler in the room.
I have however, moved 2 bottles into the fridge earlier this afternoon and now they are nicely chilled.

I had marked the first bottle poured.......

Couldn't resist... so had to open it!!!

Looks - Well it's relatively clear, bottle had some fizz but that will improve over time.

Taste - It's drinkable, not really got a bad after-taste and goes down pleasantly enough.

I would say it would definitely needs a bit longer sitting to improve and my plan now is to leave it a few weeks and get started on the next kit.

Though I am going to finish this bottle, would be rude not too!

Fill 'em Up

And the time has come, the last stage that I actually have to do anything with the brew.. well before drinking it!

The picture on the left shows a device I ordered to make bottling simple and reduces the chance of bubbling. It is called the Little Bottler and has a cut off valve to allow you to easily stop the brew flowing into the bottle.

As you can see in the centre picture shows how easy it is to fill the bottles with just one hand, I've held the bottle at a slight angle to reduce the air getting in by letting the brew slide down the inside of the bottle.

And the picture on the right was the first bottle that I filled, you need to leave a gap at the top of the bottle to ensure there is room for the brew to ferment any of the priming sugar... albeit I did leave a bit too much gap on that one. 

I've marked this bottle just so I can enjoy that one as my first bottle of 'Home Brew'.

So after filling all the bottles, which for this I have used 21 x 1 Litre bottles, there we have it.. now it stays in the cupboard for a few days again at a steady temperature just to allow any final fermentation to take place. 

Once it's been in the cupboard for 3-4 days it will be transfered to somewhere cool, the shed will be ideal for this and this will allow the brew to settle and clear. Although it can be drank in around a weeks time from now, it's best left for a few weeks and longer if possible... as if that's going to happen! 

And now everything has been cleaned and ready to start again, unfortunately I need to wait a while as am away for the next week. 

But as soon as I get home, I will be purchasing another cider kit, might go for a pear flavoured one next time!

Bottling Day

So after a few days in the 2nd FV it was time to bottle the brew!

Again, before anything it was time to clean the FV, syphon hose, little bottler and bottles/caps. I just filled the FV  with warm water with the sterilizing powder and then left the equipment to soak in there for 10 minutes.
Once I removed the items, and gave them all a good rinse, I just used the solution to dip the bottles in a few at a time and leave them for a few minutes before removing them and giving them a good rinse a couple of times.

This was probably the most time consuming task so far, but of course worth it all to ensure no bacteria or sterilizing solution remained in the bottles. Nothing worse than an off tasting cider after all this effort!
Once this was all done, it was back upstairs to the cupboard to syphon into the clean and sterile FV.

At this stage, the brew needs to be primed at the bottling stage. There is 2 methods to do this

• Batch Priming
• Bottle Priming 

I got some Coopers Carbonation Drops with the kit I ordered, though you can use ordinary sugar. 

With batch priming you add the sugar or drops to the FV and once this has all dissolved bottle it. 

And with bottle priming you just add the sugar or drops to each bottle, but needs to be done in equal quantities to make sure they are not overally fizzy once capped. 

I chose to use the drops and put them into the FV before syphoning, where they would just dissolve. 

Transfering the Brew

As I mentioned in the last post, my main reason for transferring the brew is to try get rid of most of the sediment from it. This all sits at the bottom of the fermenting vessel and with some careful syphoning, the brew can be transferred without disturbing the sediment.

In the picture below (sorry it's a bit out of focus), you can see the end of the syphoning tube I am using inserted in the brew just below the letters R and I of the writing on the FV.

As you can see in the photo, the sediment is lying at the bottom of the FV, and by carefully ensuring that the syphon hose doesn't disturb this, this will allow the brew to transfer over cleanly.

Obviously you can't take all of the brew over as this would disturb the sediment, but I reckon between the few samples I have taken for a hydrometer reading, plus what was left behind in the FV, I have probably lost around 1 litre out the 23 litres that was brewed.

But I would rather do it that way, than have a load of sediment being disturbed when I bottle it from the tap on the FV I used for the initial fermentation.

And as you can see below in the short video, the transfer process was pretty easy, if a bit slow but didn't need to do much until it got near the bottom anyway.

So now just to leave it a few days and then transfer it back into the other FV before the bottling.

Preparing to transfer

 Started off today by taking another hydrometer reading and that was the same as yesterdays reading of 1.0002.
This means that fermentation has stopped and I will end up with a cider at around 5% ABV.
So now I could prepare to transfer to the secondary fermenting vessel (FV). The reason I have decided to do this was to try and remove as much of the sediment as possible before bottling.
After cleaning and sterilizing the 2nd FV with lid and the syphon hose, it was just a case of using gravity to syphon from one to the other as you can see which was easy to do with the cupboard am using being above floor level. 
A tip given to my by a forum member on The Home Brew Forum was to make sure the end of the syphon hose was at the bottom of the 2nd FV to ensure minimal air was getting into the brew.

Day 8

Quick update - No sign of any bubbling coming through the airlock for a couple of days now, so I reckon fermentation must be pretty much complete. Took another hydrometer reading today, and it has dropped to 1.002 now which is good.  

Can also see the brew is clearer than it was a few days ago, so will take another reading tomorrow and if it remains the same, it's on to the next stage.

Day 5

So after 5 days fermenting, I decided to take a Hydrometer reading today to see how the fermentation is going.

Before doing this, I needed to sterilize the turkey baster, trial jar and hydrometer to be on the safe side.

On opening the lid, as you can see in the photo above, it has cleared up a lot in the 5 days and looks good. Also got a lovely cidery smell when the lid was taken off.

After taking some of the brew out with the turkey baster, I put this into the trial jar and then dropped in the hydrometer to get the reading. As you can see in the photo below, the reading has went to 1.004 which is a good point to be at this stage.

Obviously it is still cloudy, this will stay like this until the bottling stage where hopefully it will clear up nicely over time.

Am going to leave it another 4-5 days then take another 2 readings a day apart and if they remain the same, I will transfer it to a 2nd fermenting vessel before the bottling stage.

Fingers crossed but it looks to be going well so far!

24 Hours Later

Just a quick update, and as expected not much happened in the first 24 hours which is perfectly normal.

But now it seems to be slowly fermenting and there is air bubbles coming out the air lock.. am happy that it seems to be going to plan so far.

Time to begin

So it is all about to start, I have read up on some information I need for starting my first batch, received all the equipment, found a location and it is now time to prepare the batch!

One of the main things I have read that is vital to the process is cleaning and sterilizing. I got some Wizz Oxy Stain Remover for cleaning, which was done in the batch and equally important is to make sure its well rinsed.

Then the sterilizing process, which needs a bit of planning to ensure everything is completely free from any bacteria that might make your brew go horribly wrong. I soaked everything in the sterilizing solution and then rinsed it in preparation for the mixture.

Soaking of the equipment in sterilizing solution

Then it was time to mix the cider kit by carefully following the instructions on the kit and cross checking on the   Home Brew Forum and in particular THIS thread by Calumscott so many thanks to him for doing that guide.

It is pretty much mixing in the kit with sugar and hot water then stir well till it is all well mixed in. Then top up to the 40 pints (23 litres) with cold water and mix well. Then you add the sachet of yeast (also supplied in the kit) 

The mixture once all the ingredients have been added

Yes it looks disgusting at the moment, though doesn't smell to bad at the moment. Certainly not for consumption at this stage.... patience is a key to this process. 

The photo below left is the mixture ready for fermentation, this should stay like this now for around 7 days to allow fermentation to take place. 

The photo on the right is the testing of the gravity of the mixture which starts off at 1.040. 

After the 7 days are up, I will take another reading with the hydrometer and then again the day after. Once the readings remain the same, it will be time to move onto the next stage which is preparation for bottling.

  

Location

Well obviously am going to need a fair bit of storage, especially if I plan to do 2 maybe even 3 batches on the go if all goes well with the initial test batch.


Brewing cider needs to be kept around 18-22° for best results, and luckily we have a spare bedroom with a huge cupboard which is ideal. Once the fermenting process is completed, it can be moved to a cooler location for which I will use the shed.

Temperature is around 20° as I have a digital thermometer in there to keep an eye on it.

As you can see, 2 fermenting buckets fit nicely in there, and on the top shelf there is plenty storage for empty bottles.

I plan to put a shelf in the cupboard, and this will be perfect for up to 4 large fermenting buckets or perhaps a mixture of them and some smaller 1 gallon Demi-Johns for brewing some wine if I feel brave enough.

If I do have an issue with keeping the cupboard a constant temperature, there is a few options available to me including heated mats, heat belts or even fitting a temp control system into the cupboard... ooft sounds a bit technical though!

Delivery Time

I must begin by saying the service from Hop Shop was fantastic. I decided I wanted to add extra bottles to the order and after a quick phone call to them, they sorted that out.
The order was placed late on Sunday night, dispatched Monday afternoon and delivered by Tuesday afternoon.. brilliant service and would recommend them to anyone looking to get into the Home Brew game.

The picture above is the main equipment received, along with another box of bottles which will allow me to get two batches on the go once I have tried and tested the initial batch.

The order I placed was as below -



1 X Cider Making Starter Equipment Pack for bottling
1 X Campden Tablets [Pack Size: 50]
1 X Hydrometer Trial Jar - Glass
1 X Brewmaker Deluxe Cider


Kit Contents:


A Large 25 Litre Food Grade Fermenting Bucket with lid An Air-lock. 
A 'Little Bottler' bottling device 
20 x 1 litre clear PET bottles with caps 
A Hydrometer 
A Thermometer 
A tub of Steriliser 
A 1 kg of Brewing Sugar 
A pack of Carbonation Drops 
A Mixing Paddle

This along with a few extras I picked up from Tesco which included a second Fermenting Bucket for pre-bottling fermentation, a Turkey Baster for taking out a sample of the brew to test the gravity of it, some Wizz Oxy Stain remover for cleaning, a syphoning hose and an extra tub of sterilizer.

On that note, the large Tesco store near us have a decent sized section dedicated for the Home Brew market and will be handy to pick up spares.

Total cost of everything I have purchased so far is around £90.

While this may seem a lot of money to spend on something that could all go terribly wrong, I see it as a worthwhile investment.
This cider kit I have got will make 40 pints at a time, and with me having enough equipment to make two batches at once now, the initial outlay will soon pay for itself as all that I will need to purchase in future is the cider kit and sugar which will cost around £15 for 40 pints which is under 40p per pint!

So now I had everything I needed to begin the process... 

Sourcing the Equipment

Ok so first task was to get myself some equipment. I checked out the link my friend posted, and then looked what sort of starter kits were available.

Hop Shop UK

There seemed to be two options of kits on most websites I looked at :

• Bottling
• Barrelling

Obviously being the utter amateur that I am and needed to know the differences, I used the power of Google plus asking on the conveniently located thread on eFestivals.*

Another great source of information is The Home Brew Forum and they are very friendly and helpful to n00bs like myself.

I decided that the Bottling method would suit me more due to being able to store them easier, transport them easier and drink them easier. 

After checking out that the kits were all I would need, I got some tips on a few extras that would make the process of home brewing easier so after pricing it all, the website linked above seemed to be the cheapest option. 

So in went the order!

* Many thanks to the people on eFestivals for the advise so far.. don't worry there will be more questions am sure!

Thought Process

So why Homebrew?

Well anyone that knows me, already knows that I do like the occasional Cider. Well, honestly I bloody love the stuff.
But you know how it is - recession, cost of living increasing, wages not increasing, festival season approaching.
Not long ago, a friend posted a link to a homebrew kit on Facebook and that got the old grey matter going.
What if I could make my own cider? How messy can this summer get?
So after looking into these kits, I decided it would be at least worth an attempt.

And this blog will follow the progress.. through the rough and smooth.. and the hangovers hopefully!!