The message
from Stephen Howard contains these words:

My hop was selected for its colour - but I pretty sure that there are
varieties out there bred for flavour, so your friend might be better
placed to advise you on that score.

I favour Fuggles and Goldings as beer varieties. I can't advise on lager
varieties.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

The message
from "David W.E. Roberts" contains these words:
"Jaques d'Alltrades" wrote in message
...

snip
Best of luck with the beer. Oh, a word of warning: if you are going to
use any sugar in the brew, check on one of the proprietory beer kits how
much they recommend. ON NO ACCOUNT exceed this as a ratio to the malt
they use, as too great a proportion of sugar in a malt brew will lead to
severe headaches and can kill you.
snip

Are you sure about this?

Yes. I've been brewing beer since 1955.

Given that sugar is turned to alchohol by the yeast, which won't ferment
above a certain concentration of alchohol, all you risk AFAIK is that not
all the sugars released by mashing are turned to alchohol.
This will tend to give you a sweet beer, but not AFAIK a deadly brew.

I'm talking about proportions, not concentrations. You mustn't overstep
the adjuncts (sucrose, dextrose, fructose etc) when brewing with
maltose.

What is this fatal product of which you speak?

Products. The higher alcohols, 5 ppm of which can be fatal in some cases.

ISTR in my student days beefing up malt extract beers with additional sugar,
and never killed anyone.

It depends how much you drink. Around 1970 two blokes made fice gallons
of stout and beefed it up with a lot of sugar. They drank it over a
weekend: one died and the other was vegetablised.

Beer kits used to have a warning on them in the days when I sometimes
used them, but usually I make my beer from malt and hops, and never use
any sugar at all. The idea of using sugar is to make something
approximating to keg beer - and why anyone should think that is a good
idea beats me.

A slightly puzzled

HTH then.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

The message n6Z0c.2523$zu.1929@newsfe1-win
from "Andy Hunt" contains these words:

Might be OK - I've been looking for something to climb up the back of my
house, it's not the best looking back of a house you've ever seen. Could be
just the job! And if it's fast-growing . . . all the better!

Fast growing? I'll say. You can also eat the young shoots - they are
said to be very tasty, treated like asparagus.

Best of luck with the beer. Oh, a word of warning: if you are going to
use any sugar in the brew, check on one of the proprietory beer kits how
much they recommend. ON NO ACCOUNT exceed this as a ratio to the malt
they use, as too great a proportion of sugar in a malt brew will lead to
severe headaches and can kill you.

Blimey . . . I had no idea. Right, I shall watch out for that one!

We've got a really good real ale pub here in Bury . . . I was in there last
night, and had a pint of Ramsbottom Brewery "Windfarmer" - even beer is
going renewable these days. 'Twas a lot better than a brew they had in their
called "Old Disreputable", in any case!

Is it best to grow the hops from seed, or buy a vine from somewhere?

Which Bury? If it's St Edmunds, you could go and dig a seedling out of
the car park behind Diss Woolies....

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

The message
from martin contains these words:

pssst! want to buy the same type of water that Heineken use? I thought
not :-)

I think you mean ****sst.....

Heineken - plumbs those depths that other beers avoid.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

The message
from "David W.E. Roberts" contains these words:
"Jaques d'Alltrades" wrote in message
...

snip
Best of luck with the beer. Oh, a word of warning: if you are going to
use any sugar in the brew, check on one of the proprietory beer kits how
much they recommend. ON NO ACCOUNT exceed this as a ratio to the malt
they use, as too great a proportion of sugar in a malt brew will lead to
severe headaches and can kill you.
snip

Are you sure about this?

Yes. I've been brewing beer since 1955.

Given that sugar is turned to alchohol by the yeast, which won't ferment
above a certain concentration of alchohol, all you risk AFAIK is that not
all the sugars released by mashing are turned to alchohol.
This will tend to give you a sweet beer, but not AFAIK a deadly brew.

I'm talking about proportions, not concentrations. You mustn't overstep
the adjuncts (sucrose, dextrose, fructose etc) when brewing with
maltose.

What is this fatal product of which you speak?

Products. The higher alcohols, 5 ppm of which can be fatal in some cases.

ISTR in my student days beefing up malt extract beers with additional sugar,
and never killed anyone.

It depends how much you drink. Around 1970 two blokes made fice gallons
of stout and beefed it up with a lot of sugar. They drank it over a
weekend: one died and the other was vegetablised.

Beer kits used to have a warning on them in the days when I sometimes
used them, but usually I make my beer from malt and hops, and never use
any sugar at all. The idea of using sugar is to make something
approximating to keg beer - and why anyone should think that is a good
idea beats me.

A slightly puzzled

HTH then.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

The message
from Kay Easton contains these words:
In article , Jaques d'Alltrades
writes

Hop (Humulus lupulus) is a relative of the mulberry. Hemp used to be
considered to be a relative of the mulberry, but is now more commonly
placed in its own group.

So when did that happen? Stace - the standard flora of the british
isles, has Cannabis and Humulus in the Cannabinacae, and Morus and Ficus
in Moraceae.

Blamey, Fitter and Fitter, Wild Flowers of Britain and Ireland, pub
2003, also has Humulus and Cannabis in the same family.

Before 1983....

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

The message
from martin contains these words:

pssst! want to buy the same type of water that Heineken use? I thought
not :-)

I think you mean ****sst.....

Heineken - plumbs those depths that other beers avoid.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

The message
from "David W.E. Roberts" contains these words:

This is not something to attempt lightly if you mean *REALLY* from
scratch. You need strictly controlled temperatures when chitting the
barley and malting it, also it must be turned (gently) regularly or it
goes sour.

Not rocket science - at one time loads of smallholders made their own beer.

But they were there 24 hours a day, and probably had a family to help.
Making malt and turning it into alcoholic drinks was a way of using
profitably surplus grain that rodents might otherwise nosh. Beer doesn't
keep too well, but when distilling was discovered.......

Malting the barley is a difficult part of the process because you need to
control the temperature and humidity and turn the grain over a long period.
Not something you can do in a couple of hours, or leave for a few days then
come back to.
However there is an excellent description on how to malt barley on page 69
of "The Complete Book of Self Sufficiency" by John Seymour ISBN
0-7513-0426-3
This description implies to me that 'kilning' the barly (cooking it at above
120 F but below 140 F to prevent it growing further) is more difficult than
the initial malting.
It is also important to get the colour right, from pale to dark, depending
on the beer you want to produce.
You will also need some kind of mill to crush the malt before brewing.

Old mangle with wooden rollers... Wish I still had it!

So you will need a certain amount of infrastructure - a plot to grow the
barly, a floor to malt the barley, a suitable kiln or oven to cook the
malted barley, and a coarse mill to crush the malt.

You will also need to dedicate quality time to it - malting seems to take
about 14 days.


Then when you mash it, the maltose has to be extracted within a very
tight temperature band, about ±1°F for lager malt and ±1°C for English
type beer malt.

Here is where Rusty/Jaques and I part company.
Real home brewers use fresh malt, and can make outstanding beer with home
mashing. You can get mashing tubs with electric heaters and thermostats
which can turn the art into more of a science. You may not get the same
extraction rate as a commercial brewery, but then you just accept that you
are going to be a little less efficient and allow for that in the
quantities.

I don't see why we part company here - I'm talking about mashing cracked
malt grains. Mashing tubs aren't that easy to get hold of - at least, in
this part of Norfolk no hooter has one in his catalogue.

If the growing and malting is too complex, find a supplier of organic
crushed malt.

e.g. from http://www.beersunlimited.co.uk/grains.html

"Also offered is the organically grown Golden Promise, primarily grown for
distillation but which produces excellent beers."

It is much more sensible to buy spray-dried malt extract.

The (not good but vaguely competent) brewer in me recoils from this heresy
:-))

I, on the other hand, aged fifteen and having started by drying hops
from the garden and buying a sack of cracked white malt from Romford's
Ind Coope Brewery (and split it into smaller portions to take home on my
bicycle) would still recommend the beginner to begin with the extract.
Success with that may lead to better brewing. Failure with a traditional
mash and boil brew may nip interest in the bud.

I *HAVE* made beer starting from barley and going through the whole
process, but that process took several days to make ten gallons of beer.

snip

Cheers

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

The message
from Kay Easton contains these words:
In article , Jaques d'Alltrades
writes

Hop (Humulus lupulus) is a relative of the mulberry. Hemp used to be
considered to be a relative of the mulberry, but is now more commonly
placed in its own group.

So when did that happen? Stace - the standard flora of the british
isles, has Cannabis and Humulus in the Cannabinacae, and Morus and Ficus
in Moraceae.

Blamey, Fitter and Fitter, Wild Flowers of Britain and Ireland, pub
2003, also has Humulus and Cannabis in the same family.

Before 1983....

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

The message
from "David W.E. Roberts" contains these words:

This is not something to attempt lightly if you mean *REALLY* from
scratch. You need strictly controlled temperatures when chitting the
barley and malting it, also it must be turned (gently) regularly or it
goes sour.

Not rocket science - at one time loads of smallholders made their own beer.

But they were there 24 hours a day, and probably had a family to help.
Making malt and turning it into alcoholic drinks was a way of using
profitably surplus grain that rodents might otherwise nosh. Beer doesn't
keep too well, but when distilling was discovered.......

Malting the barley is a difficult part of the process because you need to
control the temperature and humidity and turn the grain over a long period.
Not something you can do in a couple of hours, or leave for a few days then
come back to.
However there is an excellent description on how to malt barley on page 69
of "The Complete Book of Self Sufficiency" by John Seymour ISBN
0-7513-0426-3
This description implies to me that 'kilning' the barly (cooking it at above
120 F but below 140 F to prevent it growing further) is more difficult than
the initial malting.
It is also important to get the colour right, from pale to dark, depending
on the beer you want to produce.
You will also need some kind of mill to crush the malt before brewing.

Old mangle with wooden rollers... Wish I still had it!

So you will need a certain amount of infrastructure - a plot to grow the
barly, a floor to malt the barley, a suitable kiln or oven to cook the
malted barley, and a coarse mill to crush the malt.

You will also need to dedicate quality time to it - malting seems to take
about 14 days.


Then when you mash it, the maltose has to be extracted within a very
tight temperature band, about ±1°F for lager malt and ±1°C for English
type beer malt.

Here is where Rusty/Jaques and I part company.
Real home brewers use fresh malt, and can make outstanding beer with home
mashing. You can get mashing tubs with electric heaters and thermostats
which can turn the art into more of a science. You may not get the same
extraction rate as a commercial brewery, but then you just accept that you
are going to be a little less efficient and allow for that in the
quantities.

I don't see why we part company here - I'm talking about mashing cracked
malt grains. Mashing tubs aren't that easy to get hold of - at least, in
this part of Norfolk no hooter has one in his catalogue.

If the growing and malting is too complex, find a supplier of organic
crushed malt.

e.g. from http://www.beersunlimited.co.uk/grains.html

"Also offered is the organically grown Golden Promise, primarily grown for
distillation but which produces excellent beers."

It is much more sensible to buy spray-dried malt extract.

The (not good but vaguely competent) brewer in me recoils from this heresy
:-))

I, on the other hand, aged fifteen and having started by drying hops
from the garden and buying a sack of cracked white malt from Romford's
Ind Coope Brewery (and split it into smaller portions to take home on my
bicycle) would still recommend the beginner to begin with the extract.
Success with that may lead to better brewing. Failure with a traditional
mash and boil brew may nip interest in the bud.

I *HAVE* made beer starting from barley and going through the whole
process, but that process took several days to make ten gallons of beer.

snip

Cheers

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

"Jaques d'Alltrades" wrote in message
...

[snip]

You'd need a really decent-sized planter - I'd say about 500 cm, and
feed it well with something like Tomorite.

I have never come across 15 ft planters.
They must cost a bundle to fill with potting compost.

Franz

"Jaques d'Alltrades" wrote in message
...

[snip]

You'd need a really decent-sized planter - I'd say about 500 cm, and
feed it well with something like Tomorite.

I have never come across 15 ft planters.
They must cost a bundle to fill with potting compost.

Franz

"martin" wrote in a message:
It's what the Blacksheep Brewery in Masham uses, so they must o.k. :-)
I do recommend a conducted tour of the brewery, if you are in the
area.
--
I know it well, but I can't remember the owner's name. Before he took the
Masham brewery over, wasn't he responsible for inventing the original
'Theakstone's Old Peculiar'? Now that WAS a beer, and a half!

M.C.

"martin" wrote in a message:
It's what the Blacksheep Brewery in Masham uses, so they must o.k. :-)
I do recommend a conducted tour of the brewery, if you are in the
area.
--
I know it well, but I can't remember the owner's name. Before he took the
Masham brewery over, wasn't he responsible for inventing the original
'Theakstone's Old Peculiar'? Now that WAS a beer, and a half!

M.C.

"Mike Crossland" wrote in message
news:gS21c.1740$qP4.862@newsfe1-win...

"martin" wrote in a message:
It's what the Blacksheep Brewery in Masham uses, so they must o.k. :-)
I do recommend a conducted tour of the brewery, if you are in the
area.
--
I know it well, but I can't remember the owner's name. Before he took the
Masham brewery over, wasn't he responsible for inventing the original
'Theakstone's Old Peculiar'? Now that WAS a beer, and a half!

Paul Theakston, who left the family brewery and Old Peculier (note "e" not
"a") when it was
acquired by Scottish and Newcastle breweries. Then set up Black Sheep
Brewery (and ale)
See http://www/blacksheepbrewery.com/history/history1.cfm if you're
interested.
--
Nick Wagg