Making home brew on board

[Michele]

Do any of you make home brew beer/wine/cider on board your narrowboat?

How do you deal with the lack of space? the movement of the boat? etc etc?

[Nightwatch]

I don't, but am willing to try anyone elses brew!

 

Martyn

[Chris J W]

Moley has recently re-entered the world of Homebrewing, but can't remember if he does it on-board.

[AlanJ]

I've never tried it but would have thought getting it to settle would be a challenge.

When I made my own wine it was always a pain when I had to move a demijohn - there would be whisps of sediment flying through the clearing liquid

[Lady Muck]

I've been told by my aunt (wine importer), that a narrowboat is a bad place to store wine, because of engine vibrations. It ruins the structure, apparently. She often recounts the tale of a Japanese company that spent £1000's on a fancy temp. regulatored wine cellar in their office complex. Too bad they sited it adjacent to the buildings' airconditioning plant - the vibrations, subtle as they were, wrecked the wine.

 

Have to drink it instead - oh well!

[greywolf]

buy a butty store it there

[Nickhlx]

Well I intend going back to brewing on board imminently - I use a 40 pint brewing bucket and decant straight into a 40 pint pressure barrel - cant be bothered with bottles - too fiddly with too much cleaning of bottles etc.. You can also filter through an ultra-fine filter to remove much sediment..

 

Nick

[AlanJ]

Have to drink it instead - oh well!

 

Can't see that being a problem really

[Mrs Strads]

I've been told by my aunt (wine importer), that a narrowboat is a bad place to store wine, because of engine vibrations. It ruins the structure, apparently.

 

The wine we store on the boat tastes just as good as the wine we store at the house

 

Have to drink it instead - oh well!

 

Perhaps thats it we drink it too quickly

[GeoffS]

I would have thought getting a constant,temperature for fermentation may be tricky too. I used to home brew 20 years ago and still have some equipment, this may jog me to give it a go again!

[Machpoint005]

I've never tried it but would have thought getting it to settle would be a challenge.

When I made my own wine it was always a pain when I had to move a demijohn - there would be wisps of sediment flying through the clearing liquid

 

Don't see the point of brewing wine any more, it's so cheap at Morrisons.

However, as for beer, I've only brewed onshore, but the gentle movement and occasional vibrations would be good during fermentation, bad during maturation. Use plenty of finings and decant carefully at the point of consumption!

 

Mind you, the best homebrew beer takes 6 - 9 months to mature, so a cellar is a far better idea. You can store it in mine if you want!

[AKULA]

i use corneilius kegs quite slim and can highly recomend woodfordes

[Machpoint005]

i use corneilius kegs quite slim and can highly recomend woodfordes

 

KEGS? Anathema to the purist! Why remove the beer's character when you can have perfectly good bottle-conditioned ale?

[Sven_8t4]

I do home brew cider at home but will continue on the boat. See Below

 

How To Make a Simple Cider

By The Guv’Nor

Well, apple season is once again upon us. For those who are interested in dabbling in the Art of Brewing, this provides an excellent opportunity to make a very simple, but nonetheless fine alcoholic beverage - hard cider.

To begin, you will need the following equipment:

• Two 1-gallon glass jugs (the kind you get cider or juice in at the supermarket)

• Eight "Grolsch" style bottles (actually, any bottles 2 litre coke bottles are great or a Demi jon from Wilko’s)

• Fermentation lock

• One-holed rubber stopper (in Wilko’s)

• At least four feet of food-grade plastic tubing

• Sterilizing material

Also needed are a very cool, very dark space where your cider can ferment and one gallon of freshly pressed cider (obviously). THE CIDER MUST NOT BE PASTEURIZED OR HAVE ANY PRESERVATIVES IN IT! You want the natural wild yeast culture that came with the apples. Otherwise, you'll have to do some extra work and add a yeast culture, which can get messy.

If you can, buy your cider late in the season. Give the apples the chance to get as much flavor as possible before they get pressed.

When you have everything together, sterilize one of the jugs and pour the cider into it. Don't strain out the sediment; that's where most of the yeast is. Put the fermentation lock on it and put it away. I put mine in the refrigerator. There are two competing processes going on in cider: yeast that make alcohol and bacteria that make vinegar. Since you aren't doing this to make vinegar, you need to suppress the bacteria. As it happens, they can't work in carbon dioxide, which is a by-product of fermentation. I reasoned that by putting it into the refrigerator, I would slow both processes to the point where the yeast had the chance to get ahead of the bacteria and therefore prevent vinegar formation. It also prevents blowoff - the first rush of fermentation where excess yeast and other sediments foam over the top of the container, clog the fermentation lock, and make your home smell like a bad apple pie.

About once a week you will have to rack the cider. You don't want it to sit on the sediment for too long; it can pick up bad flavors from it. This is what you have the second jug and the hose for. Sterilize them and siphon the cider into the empty jug. You may want to get some help from an experienced brewer for the sterilization and siphoning until you are comfortable with what you are doing. You will lose some liquid in the process. Top off the cider with a little water before you leave it to ferment some more. You don't want the fluid level to be more than two or three fingers below the lip of the jug. Again, reducing the amount of contact with the air reduces the chance that you will wind up with a gallon of vinegar.

After it looks like no more sediment is forming and fermentation has stopped, take it out of the fridge and put it into a closet. Now that it's at a warmer temperature, fermentation may start up again. You will have to keep racking it, but not as often.

When things have really come to a stop, it's time to bottle it. Sterilize the bottles and fill them to the base of the neck. If you prefer still (non-carbonated) cider, you can fill them to about halfway up the neck or top them off with water. If you want your cider to be sparkling (carbonated), top them off with a little bit of 100% pure apple juice. This will give the little bit of yeast in the cider some more sugars to work with.

If you started at the end of October, you should be bottling around Christmas, and the cider should be aged enough to drink by the next summer. Of course, you can really drink it anytime after bottling - but if you wait, the flavors will have time to mellow out. The final alcohol content should be around five to six percent, just like a strong beer.

[ThePiglet]

Moley has recently re-entered the world of Homebrewing, but can't remember if he does it on-board.

It must be good stuff if he can't remember where he makes it!

[jake_crew]

Been brewing aboard for years, easy peasy.

 

The vibration (less now with the new engine) actually helps to settle the brew.

 

Its just the same as doing it at home.

 

Never had a problem with it not keeping either !!

[Moley]

Moley has recently re-entered the world of Homebrewing, but can't remember if he does it on-board.

True, I've recently started brewing again, but it's all done at home. I've done five kit brews and have now graduated to All Grain. All of mine is bottle conditioned, has a few days in the kitchen after bottling before being moved down the cellar (Victorian houses can be a PITA at times but have their 'plus' points).

 

I've then taken a couple of dozen bottles to the boat where they stand in the base of the wardrobe or beneath the double bed and have found no problems with sediment being stirred up by the short road journey or vibration / movement of the boat.

 

A couple of nights ago I got drawn into a towpath banter with 3 crews I've never met before, and had a most excellent evening. One of that group, Annie, a no-nonsense, salt-of-the-earth blackcountry woman, has been involved with boating for most of her life and has lived aboard (near Factory locks on the BCN W'ton level) for 17 years. She kept going back to their boat, or sending someone else to refill the jug, brews onboard (but only from kits) and reckons to usually have around 100 2-litre PETs distributed around the boat.

 

Tell you what though, with pub beers approaching three quid a pint in some places, I've saved a fortune this past week!

[alan_fincher]

Tell you what though, with pub beers approaching three quid a pint in some places, I've saved a fortune this past week!

Count yourself lucky that in your area they are only approaching £3 per pint.

 

If you think that's expensive, I'd suggest you take a large supply of home brews if you ever venture on to the Thames.

[Moley]

Count yourself lucky that in your area they are only approaching £3 per pint.

Yes Alan, I am aware of regional variations, but this is just beer (and I make no apologies for associating those two words).

 

To me, £2.50 a pint is getting expensive and £3 is totally unacceptable, I would rather go without.

 

To cite an example, we moored by The Lock at Wolverley (scene of a previous Banter) a couple of weeks ago, I nipped in for a pint and was horrified to find their guest beers are £2.95. Quite simply, I will not drink there again.

 

In contrast, the Dry Dock (South end of Netherton Tunnel), Enville Ales at £2.05 a pint, and a few of those slip down quite nicely

 

I can brew something quite quaffable for 25p/pint and something really rather decent for 35p, so if Talpidae ever ventures near the Thames or destinations South, she will be adequately provisioned.

[alan_fincher]

As I said, you are lucky to be based in the Midlands, in this respect, even if you feel some pubs are taking the p*ss.

 

Most "standard" bitters in pubs around here start at about £3 per pint, and work up from therre

 

It's not hard to see why the likes of Wetherspoons are doing so well - I was drinking in one in central Guildford yesterday where the cheapest, (but perfectly acceptable) beer was just £1-29 a pint, with a selection of stronger ones at around £1-59 to £1-79.

 

We hear so much about the poor, hard done by, pub trade, but they are pricing themselves out of my market.

 

As I said, lovely to sup a pint by the banks of the Thames, but for what we paid for a drink for me and 'er, I might have expected food to be included too.

[GeoffS]

I was charged £3.20 for a Fosters Shandy in a canal side pub in Hertfordshire last week! (The IPA had run out and that was £3.00)

[Mick_B]

How I would love to pay 3.20 for a pint.

 

4.15 in my local for a l*g*r just less than a fiver half a mile down the road..... (€5 = £4.32 today)

 

I shudder to think how much a pint is in Dublin's Temple Bar these days as it was over €5 when I was last there nearly 4 years ago.

[GeoffS]

Thing is of the £3.20 only half of it has any Duty on it, the rest is fizzy water!

[carlt]

I was charged £3.20 for a Fosters Shandy in a canal side pub in Hertfordshire last week!

I'd have got my cat to p1ss in your glass, for a quid.

 

Would have tasted nicer, too!

[bridgit]

I make wine and store it in bottles under front deck. I did an invertry last week and have 90 bottles. I usually only have a couple of demi johns on the go at any one time.