# Stonehelm > Stonehelm is a UK homebrew shop, trading since 2004 from Marsh Baldon near Oxford. It sells beer kits, wine kits, liqueur essences, starter kits, ingredients (malt, grain, hops, sugar, yeast), equipment and brewing chemicals by mail order, and publishes a knowledge base and calculators on how to brew. ## What the site is for - **Buying homebrew supplies.** Products are grouped by category (below), each with a page giving price, size, stock and a description. Prices are in GBP and include VAT. Orders are delivered within the UK only, or collected. - **Learning to brew.** The Knowledge Base at https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/ covers the brewing process stage by stage, ingredients, equipment, beer and wine kits and the trade vocabulary. Written by practising homebrewers for beginners upwards. - **Working things out.** Calculators at https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Tools/ for alcohol strength, hop substitution, liqueur dilution and brewing water treatment. The shop lists around 1240 products. Product URLs follow the pattern https://www.stonehelm.co.uk////. Out-of-stock products are not listed. Site search is at https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/search/. Customer accounts use a one-time code sent by email — no passwords. Payment is by card at checkout (Stripe). Address, phone and terms of sale are at https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Terms/. ## Shop - [Beer Kits](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/BeerKits/): Tinned beer kits (bitter, lager, stout, IPA and more) from Muntons, Woodforde's, St Peter's, Geordie, John Bull, Festival and others; 40-pint and 20-pint sizes. - [Wine Kits](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/WineKits/): Wine kits from concentrate — reds, whites, rosé — in 6-bottle and 30-bottle sizes. - [Liqueurs](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Liqueurs/): Liqueur essences and flavourings to make with shop-bought spirit. - [Starter Kits](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/StarterKits/): Complete beginner sets: fermenting bucket, airlock, hydrometer, steriliser and a first batch of ingredients. - [Chemicals](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Chemicals/): Sterilisers, cleaners, finings, acids, enzymes, campden tablets and water-treatment salts. - [Equipment](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Equipment/): Fermenters, pressure barrels, bottles, caps, corks, syphons, thermometers, hydrometers and all-grain kit. - [Books](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Books/): Books on brewing and wine making. - [Labels](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Labels/): Bottle labels. - [Yeasts](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Yeasts/): Beer and wine yeasts, dried and liquid. - [Gas](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Gas/): CO2 for pressure barrels and kegs. - [Malt Extracts](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/MaltExtracts/): Liquid and dried malt extract, hopped and unhopped. - [Grains](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Grains/): Malted grains and adjuncts for mashing and steeping. - [Hops](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Hops/): Hop pellets and leaf hops by variety. - [Sugars](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Sugars/): Brewing sugars, spraymalt and priming sugars. - [Beer Supplements](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/BeerSupplements/): Additions for beer: enhancers, finings, priming and conditioning. - [Wine Supplements](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/WineSupplements/): Additions for wine: nutrients, finings, stabilisers and acids. - [Current Offers](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Offers/): Products currently reduced in price. ## Tools - [Alcohol Calculator](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Tools/AlcoholCalculator/): Calculate the approximate ABV of your homebrew from gravity readings. - [Dilution Calculator](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Tools/DilutionCalculator/): Calculate how much spirit to use to make your favourite liqueurs. - [Alpha Acid Calculator](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Tools/AlphaAcidCalculator/): Calculate how much hops to use when substituting or when alpha acid differs. - [Advanced Alpha Acid Calculator](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Tools/AdvancedAlphaAcidCalculator/): Alpha acid calculator for multiple hops and acids. - [Brewing Water Calculator](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Tools/WaterCalculator/): Turn your tap-water report into brewing salt additions and alkalinity adjustments. - [How To Guides](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Tools/HowTo/): Step-by-step guides for a first batch: starting out, making a beer kit, using a hydrometer and an airlock, making wine from grapes, racking. ## Knowledge Base - [Articles index](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/): All articles, grouped by topic. ### Principles of Beer Making The stages of brewing from scratch. Extract brewing starts part way, and beer kits skip most of the work and equipment and let you start at fermentation. - [Barley](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/barley/): The grain beer is made from: where it grows, the anatomy of the kernel, two-row and six-row varieties, and its place in whisky and folklore. - [Malt](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/malt/): Malt is barley persuaded to begin growing, then stopped. - [Mash](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/mash/): To mash is the verb used in the brewing trade to describe the process of malt extraction. - [Sparging](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/sparge/): Sparging is the unglamorous but decisive step that follows the mash: separating the sweet wort from the spent grain and rinsing every last fermentable sugar… - [The Boil](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/boil/): Why wort is boiled for an hour: sterilising and clarifying it, driving off unwanted compounds, and when to add the hops. - [Chilling](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/chill/): When the boil is done, the brewer is left with a kettle of wort at very nearly 100°C — sweet, sterile and quite useless until it is cooled. - [Pitching the Yeast](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/pitch/): To pitch is the brewer’s word for adding the yeast to the cooled wort. - [Fermentation](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/ferment/): Yeast turns the sugars in wort into alcohol and carbon dioxide; primary fermentation, temperature, reading the gravity and knowing when it is done. - [Racking](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/rack/): Racking is the action of moving wine, beer, or any fermented liquid off the sediment that settles during fermentation. - [Bottling](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/bottle/): Bottle conditioning is the traditional way to put a finished beer into bottle and give it its sparkle. - [Kegging, Casks & Gas](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/keg/): Pressure barrels, corny kegs and casks: cask versus keg, natural versus forced carbonation, gas for dispense, and cellaring. - [Water Treatment](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/water/): Water is the brewer’s largest ingredient by far — a pint of beer is more than nine-tenths water, and the old brewers knew it well enough to give it a name of… - [Hops](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/hops/): The hop is the flower that makes beer taste like beer. - [Yeast](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/yeast/): Yeast is a micro-organism, there are literally thousands of types of yeast, some types of which can be used for beer or wine making. ### Ingredients What goes in the pot: grain and malt in all its forms, hops, sugar, yeast and the water itself. - [Malt Extract](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/malt_extract/): Malt extract is exactly what the name says, the extract of malt, normally barley malt (if not it will be specified), it is the main ingredient of beer kits and… - [Hopped Malt Extract](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/hopped_malt_extract/): Malt extract to which hops have been added during the manufacture. - [DME](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/dme/): Abbreviation of dry malt extract. - [Hop Pellets](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/hop_pellets/): As they sound, hop pellets are a variety of hops (Goldings, Fuggles, Challenger etc.) whose flowers have been finely chopped or mulched into a paste and then… - [Sugar](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/sugar/): The types of sugar met in brewing — glucose, fructose, sucrose, maltose — and what the yeast does with each. ### Beer Kits What a beer kit is, how to make one up, and the ranges behind the labels — so you can pick the kit that suits how you drink. - [New to Brewing? Start Here](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/start_here/): What a first batch of beer or wine needs, what happens in what order, and where to read more. - [Beer Kits](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/beer_kits/): A beer kit is a way of making beer at home without owning a miniature brewery. - [Make Beer From Kits](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/make_beer_from_kits/): First of all, choose the beer kit that you want to make, whether it be a bitter, stout, lager, or something special like a Belgian beer. - [Festival](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/festival/): Festival sits at the premium end of our beer kits. - [Muntons](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/muntons/): Muntons are a commercial maltster at Stowmarket in Suffolk, supplying malt to breweries all over the world. - [Muntons Flagship](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/muntons_flagship/): Flagship is the top of the Muntons own-brand ranges, taking the spot once held by Premium Gold and later the Handcrafted range. - [Muntons Gold](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/muntons_gold/): The Gold range is Muntons' answer to the German Reinheitsgebot — the old purity law that allowed nothing but malt, hops, water and yeast in a beer. - [Muntons Connoisseurs](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/muntons_connoisseurs/): Connoisseurs is the mid-priced Muntons range: a single 1.8kg can of 100% hopped malt extract — no cheap barley syrup — to which you add 1kg of sugar to make 40… - [Woodfordes](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/woodfordes/): Woodforde's brew real Norfolk ale at Woodbastwick in the Broads, and their kits are the closest thing to brewing the pub version at home. - [St Peter's](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/st_peters/): St Peter's Brewery brews in the grounds of St Peter's Hall at St Peter South Elmham, near Bungay in Suffolk — you will know their distinctive oval bottles if… - [Geordie](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/geordie/): Geordie kits are the cheapest way into brewing your own, and they have been around for decades. - [John Bull Standard Class](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/john_bull_standard_class/): The Standard Class is John Bull's single-can range: 1.8kg of hopped malt extract under the bulldog label, with the yeast sachet under the lid. - [Better Brew](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/Better_Brew/): Each of the seven Better Brew beer kits uses a malt extract selected only for how well it makes that style of beer - We are using malt extracts from several… ### Wine Making Wine kits and how to go beyond them, the makers behind the boxes, and the grapes themselves. - [Wine Kits](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/wine_kits/): A wine kit is a pack of the ingredients needed to make a batch of wine: a quantity of concentrate (normally grape, though country-wine kits exist), yeast… - [Make Wine From Grapes](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/make_wine_from_grapes/): How to make wine from scratch: a proper grape wine, from fruit to bottle. - [Winexpert](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/winexpert/): Winexpert make the best wine kits we sell. - [Cellar 7](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/cellar_7/): Cellar 7 is Young's seven-day wine kit, made in Bilston in the West Midlands. - [Beaverdale](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/beaverdale/): Beaverdale is a no-sugar wine kit sold in two sizes: a 30-bottle box that makes 22.5 litres, and a 6-bottle box for a single demijohn. - [Cabernet Sauvignon](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/Cabernet_Sauvignon/): The world's most planted red grape: thick skins, high tannin, long ageing, and why it is so often blended with Merlot and Shiraz. - [Pinot Noir](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/pinot_noir/): The Burgundy grape: thin-skinned, hard to grow, and lighter in colour and tannin than most reds; with notes on the Beaverdale kit. ### Equipment The kit you brew with — reading a hydrometer, fitting an airlock, bottling up, and the all-grain machines. - [Use A Hydrometer](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/use_a_hydrometer/): How to take a reliable hydrometer reading, and how to use two of them to calculate the ABV, or alcohol by volume, which is what you'll find (in Britain) on the… - [Use An Airlock](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/use_an_airlock/): An airlock — also called an air trap, or just a trap — is fitted to the neck of a fermenter to let fermentation gas out without letting air in. - [Grainfather](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/grainfather/): The grainfather is an all in one fullmash brewing setup that incorporates a recirculating mashtun with removable grain basket and digital temperature control… - [Bottling Pack](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/bottling_pack/): Bottling and presenting finished wine: bottles, corks, capsules and labels. ### Spirits & Liqueurs Getting home-made liqueurs to the strength of the real thing. - [Liqueur Strengths](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/Liqueur_Strengths/): For best results when making liqueurs you’ll want to make the drink to the same strength as the commercial equivalent. ### Brewing Terms Short definitions of the terms used across the articles above. - [Wort](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/wort/): The sweet liquid drawn off the mash, before it is fermented into beer; pronounced wert. - [Mashed](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/mashed/): Past participle of to mash: grain that has been steeped in hot water to extract its sugars. - [Dry Hopped](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/dry_hoped/): A dry-hopped beer is a beer to which some extra hops have been added after fermentation directly to the barrel. - [Racking](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/racking/): Moving beer or wine off its sediment into a clean vessel; see Rack. - [Rack Off](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/rack_off/): To rack off: to syphon beer or wine off its sediment; see Rack. - [Copper](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/copper/): A large vessel used for boiling the wort. - [Carbon Dioxide](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/carbon_dioxide/): The gas produced alongside alcohol during fermentation, and the source of the fizz in beer, cider and sparkling wine. - [ABV](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/abv/): Alcohol by volume: the percentage of a drink that is alcohol, and how to compare drinks by it. - [No Sugar](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Articles/no_sugar/): Why some beer and wine kits need added sugar and others do not: the difference lies in how much malt or grape concentrate is in the can. ## Shopping and account - [Basket](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Basket/): Items chosen so far. - [Checkout](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/checkout/): Delivery address and card payment. - [Sign in](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/account/login/): Email one-time code; no password. - [Your account](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/account/): Order history, reorder, saved cards, devices and settings. - [Terms & Contact](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/Terms/): Terms of sale, delivery, returns, postal address, phone 01865 343 275 and email info@stonehelm.co.uk. ## Optional - [Sitemap](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/sitemap.xml): Every public page, including each product. - [Search](https://www.stonehelm.co.uk/search/): Full-text search of products and articles.