I started homebrewing in the mid 80's because I was a student on a low income and We all had a thirst for cheap beer.
I saw a kit called Sarah's Bitter that was being sold in the homebrew section of Boot's the chemist. It consisted of a can of malt extract/crystal malt/hops and yeast if My memory serves Me correctly. The crystal,sugar and hops were boiled for about 30 minutes in a large saucepan and then added to the malt extract in the brew bin. Cold water was then added up to the five gallon mark and the yeast deftly thrown in. I'll never forget the rocky head that developed on the top of the brewbin along with all the brown bitter tasting crud that was totally unexpected.
I got to drink most of this lovely first brew as most of my flatmates had gone to Glastonbury Festival. It kind of made up for missing Kate Bush live.
I made a few more brews using the Malt Extract in a can type kits but then stopped brewing for about eight years.
Fast forward to 1992 and as I walked along the high street I noticed a homebrew shop called Fermenters. In the window was a plastic boiler/mashtun. I could not afford the 60 pounds that it cost but saved up for a couple of weeks and then went back and bought it and Dave Line's book brewing beers like those You buy. I chose to brew Dave's recipe for Royal Oak and so bought all the ingredients for My first brew.
The problem was I knew nothing about mash and hop filters so the first brewing was a slow and quite stressful affair. I managed to boil all the wort with the hops and get it into the fermenter and after a couple of weeks had My first all grain beer in My plastic beer barrel and what a fantastic feeling that was.
Fast forward to 2007 and I'd outgrown the five gallon capacity of the old equipment and built a 100 Stainless Steel Brewery.
I sold this in December 2007 and began another project to build another.
I have sold 11 * 100L 1 * 70L and 1 * 33L version to date.
I sell the breweries I make on Ebay View My Ebay Feedback
I've taken to using Cornelius kegs rather than the five gallon plastic ones. The advantage to these is easy cleaning and closed transfers of wort/beer. The CO2 is a lot cheaper if you can find a dealer or publican willing to let You buy a 20 pound bottle.
Page last updated 02/05/09