Hi, I'm wanting to start doing BIAB lager, not sure what type of lager, but I like stella, bud, peroni, and I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction for ingredients in the UK please, and any recipes, that are easy enough for a newbie!!
Just as a general pointer, HBT is pretty US-oriented, and for UK-specific stuff you're better off on one of the UK forums like
www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk or
www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk
Where you'll find threads dedicated to what shops to use, such as
this one or
this one or
this one. The Malt Miller is about as comprehensive as anywhere - bit more expensive but great service and has eg lots of the rarer yeasts. BrewUK used to be my go-to place but hasn't quite kept up, although it still has yeasts and hops that other places don't, and being close they have a lot of Warminster malts, which are pretty much the gold standard. A lot of people seem to be using Geterbrewed in N Ireland which has less choice but is a bit more cheap and cheerful. Brewstore in Edinburgh is useful for small amounts of malt as they will weigh to order without the supplements of Malt Miller; Crossmyloof is useful for odd packs of hops and yeast as they sell with p&p included.
And for 25kg sacks of malt, it's always worth asking your local microbrewery - you're restricted to whatever supplier they use, but most are happy to help as bigger orders helps them get better deals, and it's no bad thing to build a relationship with them.
It's worth seeking out British homebrewing advice, as there are some significant differences - for instance electric homebrewing is the norm in the civilised world with 230V supplies, whereas the US' primitive electrical system means most people there heat with gas. And USians have some funny ideas on water chemistry and tend to have tapwater from groundwater, so tend to use RO filtered water, whereas RO is rare in the UK - surface water is the norm from the tap in the rainy bits of the UK and is fine for brewing, in hard water areas Tesco Ashbeck mineral water is a convenient low-mineral water available in 5l bottles. Lager in particular is better with low-mineral water - if you get scale in your kettle, then you're better off with Ashbeck (although supplies are a bit patchy at the moment thanks to the problems the supermarkets are having).
The
How-to guides at THBF are a good place to start, in particular
the introduction to stove-top all-grain brewing. And since a lager needs to be little more than 100% pilsner malt and Saaz or German hops (although it's a lot more economical to use a modern bittering variety for bittering),
this post on the calculations you need to do such a brew without a recipe.
You should be aware that whilst lagers are pretty simple from a recipe POV making it pretty easy to make an OK one, a classic pale lager is one of the most difficult beers to do really well - any off-flavours are really obvious, there is nowhere to hide. And to make one the classic way does involve more time and more complication, in that you need the facility to cool it down to lagering temperature, typically 10°C or less. But there are lager-type yeasts that are more forgiving of temperature so you might want to start with something like Mangrove Jack's M54 Californian or Fermentis 34/70 at 18°C or so, but otherwise using a standard lager recipe (which as I say need be no more complicated than 100% pilsner malt and Saaz/German hops).
