IIRC there are a few on here making beer from grain
what a great way to spend a Saturday
[IMG] 
[/IMG]
I have now got 2 brews bubbling away clones of Old Peculiar and HobGoblin
[IMG] 
[/IMG]
Need another good recipe for the third keg when I free up a fermenter
Good work... I've not been able to brew an all grain batch since my youngest was born, got some plans to dust of the brew kit soon though.
I'd recommend a brewing a kolsch, a great beer for spring/early summer!
Great work, enjoy!
I can recommend the recipes in this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Home-Brew-Doug-Rouxel/dp/1862058822 - mainly because I wrote them all.
What sort of recipe are you looking for? I've got quite a few about, and can recommend a host of good books on recipe design.
I'm moving house in the next few months and have already planned my first "house warming" gift to myself:
[url= http://www.hopandgrape.co.uk/public/catalog.asp?catid=HA20225648 ]Lots of shiny things from Hop and Grape[/url]
Will follow this thread with interest 🙂
It is indeed a most satisfying persuit 🙂
Brewed a porter a week ago and have itchy brewing fingers for this weekend also, hmmmmm what to make.....
Bokonon
Thanks I had thoughts of a light but hoppy summer ale around the 5% abv
I have shed envy.
Anymore brewers ❓
I'm just looking to move from kits so I'm watching avidly..!!
Any freebie recipes Bokonon? I prefer hoppy, pale brews...
I made some nettle beer and a couple of wines last year, as a bit of a play at home brewing. The nettle beer and one of the wines were nice.
I'm considering skipping the kit stage and going straight to all grain for some proper beers.
Weissbier or abbey style I reckon.
Oh no... that's going to ruin me...
Good job I have a while to wait for a fermenter to be empty will give me time to go through those recipes 😯
Nice set up - I'm on kits for beer due to time and space but I've been making ginger champagne (was supposed to be beer but used champagne yeast) from scratch and it's bloody nice, if too strong for general comsumption.
Being made redundent so once the future is a bit more settled I want a decent garage with the ability to brew.
Troutie - I mailed you whilst you were away on holiday about a race maxx upgrade, it's a long finger project so no hurry but if you get chance to reply back would be good.
Go to www.BrewMate.net
A) free software to help you plan recipes, brew days etc
B) loads more recipes. I can particularly recommend "dirty celebration ale" if you can find it
I've also got a nice summer hoppy ale recipe I can post up later.
Btw I do mine BIAB - Brew In A Bag, less equipment needed to get started and the results are excellent
i use BIAB as i dont have a lot of space... works a treat. i use the one of the graham wheeler books which has 100 recipies... only done a few but had some great successes.
I need to get my gear dusted off again, I'm fed up with paying over the odds.
I do a bit 😉
Think im up to around 20,000,000 pints
Pretty much got it sussed now.
If you have access to decent crushed malt thats fresh then thats a good start. Dont be afraid to play around but keep decent notes.
I can email a copy of our brewsheet if you like.
Buy decent saccherometers and thermometers
I was going to do brew in a bag but found this in a skip
[IMG] 
[/IMG]
and the heater worked so had my hot water boiler for free
so the pan I had bought off ebay £50 then became my wort boiler
[IMG] 
[/IMG]
and an old bouclair burner from the camping days .
old coolbox became the mashtun
[IMG] 
[/IMG]
and £50 worth of 10 mm copper pipe made the chiller
me and a mate are in it together and with the stuff to brew 3 lots of 40 pints and plumbing fittings are out £100 each so the first pints have cost about £1.75 taking in to account energy
We have a local brew shop so grains and hops cost £13 for a brew the next beers will be about £0.35 a pint if we write off the equipment 😀
BIAB,? Please elaborate or point me in the right direction
[url= http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=35233 ]brew in a bag how too [/url]
Cheers troutie! Don't suppose you want to put a new lead on my lib do you?
Yes can do John
I use a 50L stainless thermobox as a mashtun, excellent vessel for the job. My boiler is a 75L stainless pot with 2 x 3kW immersion elements in it. The HLT is a thick plastic 60L bin with a single 3kW immersion element.
Made a control unit for the HLT which comes on via a timer at 5am or so on a brewday and gets the liquor up to strike temp by the time I'm up and ready to go 🙂
I tend to buy 25Kg sacks of whole pale malt, I've got a grain mill and crush the grain on brewday so it's nice and fresh.
Look out for an email then please Chris.
Edit: Sorry for the hijack
CaraGold recipe:
19L batch size 26L mash liquor BIAB style
OG 1047 FG 1012 colour 14.0 EBC bitterness 37.6IBU
Pale Malt 3868g
Caramalt 442g
Citra 15g 60mins
Citra 9g 30mins
Cascade 23g 10mins
Cascade 37g 0mins
Irish Moss 3g 10mins
Mash @ 67degC for 60 mins, boil 60 mins
Safale US05 yeast
hoppy happy
Think I might have to stop saving these bottles Trout, I'm beginning to realise how much Crafty Hen I drink!
Crafty Hen is nice but I prefer brown bottles to clear. the latter get recycled (in fact I have a bottle of OSH open right now!)
also Wychwood & Fullers bottles are no good with my crown capper; Theakstons & Black Sheep bottles OTOH are excellent, especially as the labels fall off as soon as you look at them 😉
Mugboo
when you have saved enough bottles pop along and brew some beer to fill em up again
happy to share the brewhouse
Clear bottles are fine as long as you keep them in that dark cellar of yours
I use weissbeer bottles - a bit stronger as they are designed for the carbonation stage you get when homebrewing.
I remember getting a proper capper - took hours off the trudge that is bottling.
Trout - will fire you a mail re: race maxx.
Extract brewer here due to space constraints, but seems to be the best of both worlds. I can create my own receipes and have the flexibility to play around but the malt has already been extracted for me!
Doing an experimental beetroot stout this week. Only a gallon batch though as i really dont know how it will turn out.
Then a 40 pint batch of extra pale malt, apollo hops ( at 19.5 % !!!) and belgian aromatic malt. Again an experiment , but thats how i like to brew!
Some of my better beers have come about just by throwing together a few random ingredients to keep the stock levels down.
I haven't brewed for a while since I'm trying to cut down on volume, though this thread has reminded me I still have yeast, hops and half a sack of pale malt to get through.
May brew myself a nice citra single hop and bottle it away for the summer...
I might have to take you up on that Chris 🙂
Jase you dont need the bottles right away 3 weeks-ish from when you get the brew started .
Beg/steal/borrow/or buy a fermenting bucket and airlock
find half a day to spare
get the brew on and wait