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[quote=john_drummer]that's the hard part
As tick follows tock, follows tick...
8)
So, come on then, is it any good?
3 weeks isn't long enough 🙁
up to 2 weeks to ferment.
another 2-3 weeks in bottle for secondary fermentation in a warm place to give it some life.
then a minimum 2 more weeks for bottle conditioning in a cool dark room.
My Hobgoblin clone has come out excellent...
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Very happy 🙂
excellent.
I have, on the go at the moment:
just bottled: 36x 500ml bottles of Coopers European Lager (from a kit)
just bottled: 32x 500ml bottles of Old Heckled Spen (can you tell what it is yet?)
fermenting: 19 litres of "Something Peculier"
and finally, just started a 90 minute boil (mashed earlier today) of a hoppy pale ale to my own recipe, 20 litre batch. Bittering hop - 20g Challenger, 10g Cascade; aroma hop - 15g Cascade; dry hop - 15g Cascade
OG should be 1048, FG aiming at 1011, 4.8% ABV
Should be nice & citrussy 🙂
Just kegged up 40 pints of Ale, and started 40pints of nut brown ale (Muntons) wort.
Have had to buy beer to fill the gap, does not taste as good adn feels wrong 🙁
indeed it does. I'm aiming to become self sufficient, in ale at least 😉
Just had a cheeky sampler of a Cascadian Dark I brewed a couple of weekends ago. Needs a lot of maturing at 6.7% ABV but mmmm, tastes good 🙂
turns out I only have 16g Cascade left after the 10g in at 90mins, so the dry hop will have to be Bobek
Well, the wheat beer kit from The Range came out pretty good for a first effort.. And for minimal effort too! Was finished fermenting after about a week and seemed perfectly drinkable about a week later..
Next step - proper stuff with hops!
check out www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk - they have a forum just like we do here, full of sound advice, recipes, kit tweaks etc
I'm planning a nice citrus pale, have a healthy supply of [url= http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=204 ]Citra[/url] hops in the freezer - 15% alpha, should be a good tongue curler!
Been pretty happy using Bobek before John, never dry hopped but use a bunch at flame out for my usual.
Nearly got enough bottles for my first brew. IPA from The Range with my starter kit bucket etc... Thinking of using spray malt instead of sugar now already..
Looking at the bottles I bought and the 25 or so that I have drunk, it seems now like a right gaff to sterilise them all to perfection and I can't help wondering about a pressure barrel....
Could someone let me know the advantages and disadvantages of each please?
I've only used bottles - agree they're a hassle to clean and sterilise. Uncapping a nice homebrew and pouring it out cannae be beat, though 🙂
I could be wrong, but I think a drawback of a simple pressure barrel is longer term storage - they're not sealed to the same extent as bottles and there might be a decent headspace in there [do you need to fill this with CO2?] so the beer degrades quicker. Bottled brew will last ages by contrast.
It depends how much ale you're drinking - if you fully expect to tan 40 pints in a couple of weeks, or you're brewing for a party say, then the barrel might be the way to go. If you're looking to store over the longer term then bottles.
I'll be bottling 2gallons of brupaks beers of the world Old London Porter later, then it'll be the mighty Coopers Imperial Stout going on, a truly volcanic brew. Good times!
Thinking of using spray malt instead of sugar now already..
spray malt will definitely improve the finished taste compared to plain old sugar.
sterilising bottles isn't that bad. if you rinse them out as soon as you empty them, that's a start. Just make sure you rinse AFTER you've sterilised them 😉
For me, bottles win over pressure barrel every time. I have a Rotokeg which holds about 40 litres. If you only fill it with 23 litres (or in my case, 18-19), that's an awful lot of head space of oxygen to get at the beer. I've not managed a successful keg yet, 5 or 6 tries, every one went off before it was conditioned. Never again.
Old Peculier clone is now bottled & labelled up, 34x 500ml, mix of glass and Coopers PET bottles. The PET bottles are great for showing when it's up to pressure through the secondary fermentation.
John.
You have to redox a keg for a long shelf life .
Fill with a .5% peracetic acid solution, then fit a C02 canister on the top . Blow out all the PAA with C02 .
Keg is now ready for filling . Even if you only 1/2 fill it , and leave it a few weeks , it should be sound .
When sampling be sure to put a squirt of C02 back into the headspace to keep a positive pressure in there .
If you transfer to keg with 4-5' of fermentables and a reasonably high yeast count you might actually need to bleed off C02 to keep your DC02 levels in the ballpark .
Pretty much what Garry said as far as bottles go.
Just put a yeast starter on tonight for a Chimay White clone I'll be knocking out next weekend, I'll be bottling as I'm told it'll benefit from a bit more time conditioning.
Spray malt is certainly the way forward; sugar will thin the beer out whereas spray malt will give it a bit more body.
John, have you done the Old Pec before?
stm - thanks, I think you've mentioned that before. not sure I want to be playing with acid 🙁
Haze - yes, this is my second batch of the OP, from Graham Wheeler's recipe. I enjoyed it so much I thought I'd do it again 🙂
A very interesting thread, think i'm gonna have to get on this homebrewing lark.
Bottled 24 pints of my latest brew on Friday, it's a strong un so will leave to mature for a couple of months.
Through various means and favours we're in the final stages of hooking up our beautiful stainless steel 100ltr brewery in my garage. When my wife gets back from holidsay next Sunday she is going to be proper p1ssed off as her car , erm, won't fit now ! Has been assembled from some old kegs (water boiler, mash tun and boiling tun) and a proper stainless tank for fermentation courtesy of my friendly stainless tank maker who owed me a favour. All hooked up with food quality piping and pumps etc. total cost $750 so far which is not too bad. We ran a quick brew through two weeks ago on the part gear and it is fine. It's getting Malt just now that is the hard part...
LEARN FROM MY MISTAKE!!!
A word of caution to anyone planning on buying brewing supplies on the internet from a particular firm. I recently went 'Online' to buy 'Homebrew' supplies. I tried to 'brew It Myself' and hence not pay tax to the PM and his deputy.
I ordered some items from this site a month ago, a couple of emails from them stated that items were due in stock within 1-2 days. This was 2 weeks ago. I am still waiting. The website has no contact address or phone number. I have heard of orders dispatched, however I am not the only person to have had bad dealings with this firm. I urge you all to do your homework and check reviews for this company before purchasing!!
I think I know which company you are referring to.
http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=21760
I'm lucky in that I have at least 4 decent home brew shops within half an hour drive (in fact they're all en route between work & home), so I tend to buy my stuff in person.
Just ordered myself a Coopers Starter kit - looking forward to all those cheeky post ride beers this year 😀