Alcohol Good beer kit's?

[paranoid android]

I have no idea if this is even the right form or not but here goes. Because i am basically broke i can't afford much alcohol these days as it's either buy weed and ciggs or buy beer and im not doing without those 2 Because beer is so expensive here and along with the price of liquor as well i can only afford to drink much a few times a month really. I have thought about just making some homemade vodka or rum which abity more expensive even as it's cheap and i live in the middle of nowhere so anyone noticing isnt a problem but since vodka tends to lead to me getting to smashed i might leave that alone. Also my family might object to me having that much moonshine and inevitably getting smashed off it

But does anyone know of any good homemade beer kit's? or do they all kind of suck? I have had alot of homemade beer but none of it was anything id actually drink today Any imput would be appreciated.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I bought one of those beer kits once. It ended up being, quite literally, the worst beer I've ever tasted. Borderline undrinkable. It was one of the cheaper kits, though. Maybe I just didn't do it right.

 

[brokedownpalace10]

Beer is harder to make and have palatable than wine. I worked minimum wage for a year before retirement and made a gallon or two of apple wine a week.

A few airlocks, which can also be fudged and some wine yeast is all it costs.

You can make wine pretty strong, 14% or so ain't hard, but there's a caveat to that.
If you make wine above 6%(?) or so, it gets off flavors which are eliminated by aging at least 6 months to a year.
That's why beer is not aged, it's not fermented high enough.
So, you can make hard cider (weaker) in a few days or a week and drink immediately, or you can go till fermentation stops (weeks) and have a potent wine which will need a bit of aging.

You need the right yeast for higher alcohol. A Google search is your friend. I used a cider yeast.
If you're really cheap, you can start a new batch on the lees (dregs) of the previous.
Stay away from Turbo yeast. It's for distillers. You can actually get 20%-25% with it, but the taste is bad.

Key to a better taste with wine is racking. Racking is carefully siphoning the wine off the top of the lees (the yeast which settles to the bottom) at least once. during fermentation. A few times is even better. That dead yeast is the most common cause of off flavors.

A simple airlock can be made by just covering the bottle top with Saran Wrap and poking a pinhole in it.

You can make a very basic still from stuff in your kitchen. I just set the collection vessel on a tuna can instead of suspending it.



I used this method to rip the alcohol out of the occasional bad batch which was not up to snuff on flavor.

This still will not make cuts. It's just rip all the alcohols out of your product.
(actually, you can make cuts, but its a pain and I won't go into it)
Drinking this "moonshine" to excess will give a pretty good hangover due to the alcohol congeners in it, which include methanol.
(all fermented booze has methanol, it's concentrating it which gives issues)
However, this stuff is great for adding a couple of doubles worth to each bottle of your good batches.
Makes a great fortified wine. A bit higher alcohol improves flavor as well.

So, that's what I did on my "summer vacation" between having a real job and retiring.
I made a bunch and am still drinking on what I have years later since I only drink once a week tops.