Brewing From a Kit: The Basics

Having truly now been bitten by the brewing bug! I thought it best to share some of the little wisdom I have learned along the way.....so far.

I have only made a 40pint beer kit and a 6 bottle red wine kit to date, but I have learned a thing or two which hopefully will help anyone getting into the home brew hobby.

One of the first things I discovered is that there a loads and loads of brewers/wine makers out there! Some will drink pretty much anything and some take it very VERY seriously!

Before brewing anything I thought wort was the same thing as a wart! Beer and wine making were the same thing and I didn't know there was a difference between sterilize and sanitize, although I still regularly use the wrong word!

Let me address some of the points:

So what is Wort?
Well it seems that wort is the liquid or brew before it is fermented. Once fermentation has taken place it magically is beer, wine or spirit etc.

All home brew is the same thing, or process........WRONG! I never had a clue that the processes in beer, wine and spirit making were so different. It seems that each area has specialist equipment and to be extremely knowledgeable across all areas will take some time. Certainly longer than I've been doing it!

Do you sanitize or sterilize?! Well generally the equipment is sanitized, which in lay mans terms means cleaned very well. Sterilized means it's perfectly clean, which is pretty hard to achieve....but I still prefer to say sterilized! And does it really matter? Well in the grand scheme of things probably not but sanitized is probably the word I should be using.

I also got hung up on what is a PET bottle, 'cos I'd never heard of one before and the most confusing (for me) the hydrometer test.

Please click on the links above to see my videos on them.

Also if your starting out, stick to the ingredients, recipe or guides. Don't go all maverick too early or it may become an expensive hobby with poor results. If you have any good, easy recipes then please share them, as I find them I'll try the ones that I fancy the most and review them etc.

It may also pay dividends to invest in the right equipment, I still don't have a funnel.....and it would really help!

Thanks for reading and happy brewing! :)