OH's just stuck a 'Yorkshire Bitter' kit on with 500g each of light and medium spray malt and a dandelion leaf infusion for bitterness instead of hops- watch this space!
We've done this method (infusion) before with hawthorn leaves & flowers which is bloody delicious and I fancy trying a similar method but with nettle leaves too 😀
Beer hopped with nettles? Count me in! Actually, they should be starting soon here, so maybe I can go and harvest a load.
I also plan on getting spruce tips when they start coming out.
interesting... definitely something I'd like to try, can't shake the feeling that I'd be disappointed in the result vs hops though - otherwise commercial breweries would do it more!! I guess that's one of the benefits of extract brewing though in that you can afford to be more experimental without risking a whole days worth of wasted effort!! I have had a few commercial beers brewed with botanicals - I had a couple of different hibiscus ones a while back and, whilst not unpleasant, they were definitely more "interesting" than "delicious" 😃a dandelion leaf infusion for bitterness instead of hops- watch this space!
I kegged my DIPA over the weekend using an oxygen-free process for the first time - worked well & not really any more effort. Hopefully see some improved results (I think it also has the potential for me to be more efficient/lazy as I can probably get away in future without cleaning a keg if the new beer is similar!) The beer tasted pretty good already, even raw (unconditioned & uncarbonated)!
Brewed another beer too, an ESB this time (wanted to do a more "normal" ale for when the inlaws come this Easter as he doesn't do hoppy beers really) however will probably chuck a couple of Tonka beans in at some stage (just can't bring myself to do a beer that's too pedestrian lol) 🤣
Lidl had red grapes on 99p for 500g so we got four punnets and we're going to make a demi of wine with those. We did (locally picked, ie free!) cherry last year and it ended up being a really nice sparkling refresher so I'm hoping we'll get the same kind of Generic Pink Fizz™ from the grapes. They're in the freezer now to help break the skins and stuff down before we start.
Never made cider/Perry or fruit wine but will have a crack this year as we have a few fruit trees and the majority just seems to go to waste at the moment!!
I'll probably get panned for this as I suspect home brewing is like coffee expertise or sound systems in terms of masculine intensity but....
I've just bought a Brewery in a Box and am going to give their IPA a crack. Got to start somewhere!
absolutely not, just googled it & it's a variation on a BIAB kit (which is how lots including me got started) and since it involves mashing the grains is definitely "proper" brewing!I’ll probably get panned for this
The kit is pretty bare-bones though - no chiller (not the end of the world for only 5L) and it looks like you'll be fermenting and dispensing the beer in the same vessel, so it might get a bit... yeasty 😃
Plenty of scope to see if you get into it & expand from there tho!
Anyone use the Brewferm party star deluxe for 5L mini kegs? Just tried for first time and having some issues.
1. When tap is open, there’s a leak of beer from under the base of the tap (between tap and keg). It’s not between the bung and drawtube, it’s after it comes out. Stops as soon as tap is closed. I’m tempted to take it off and check the draw tube is tightly screwed on
2. Everything so far is very cloudy. Is this because first draws are all gunk at bottom, and might I expect this to start flowing clear after 1-2 pints?
The hawthorn's on! We popped out and picked a good bag full of blossom and leaves earlier on today and it's now fermenting away in the corner. I'm also running an experiment with grapefruit zest with the beer that we have at the minute (generic bitter kit hopped with a dandelion leaf infusion before the yeast is pitched)- so far, so tasty!
Ooooh! Nice! We still have a week I guess until blossom, but I missed the birch sap. Was it a natural fermentation from the blossom?
I did put a smoked porter on at the weekend, collected about as much as I had planned and then threw angry norwegian at it. It started pretty soon and on Monday I got photos from my GF to remind me that the bucket I used probably did not have enough headspace to deal with that kind of fermentation. I came home and started cleaning krausen off the worktop...
I may need to drop hop it with some scorched birch if I want it proper smokey,
We used a kit and added the hawthorn infusion to it then pitched the yeast when it was the right temperature.
We've had incidents like yours too, like elephant's toothpaste sometimes 🤣
The porter is done. In bottles, carbonated, the lot.
It had a couple of weeks while I was in Klatovy and it’s not a bad beer. I think I have a bottle of the previous incarnation left and I really think this has a bit more body/mouthfeel to it. That could be he changed grain bill though; whilst not a huge change, it was enough.
One minor disappointment was the smoked malt. It’s too subtle. I wanted a distinct smoke, something, anything. This is, well, barely a hint. If I do it again, I’ll chat up some birch and dry hop with that.
Next brew: pale ale. Something with a tonne of hops in too, I want a hoppy beer in the house again.
We put a grapefruit and mango IPA kit on last night, it smells lush and we're really looking forward to it 🍻
Never made cider/Perry or fruit wine but will have a crack this year as we have a few fruit trees and the majority just seems to go to waste at the moment!!
I made a few bottles of cider last year. Juiced the apples in a cheap whole fruit juicer, chucked in some packet ale yeast, and waited. Bottled in champagne bottles with a bit of yeast and sugar as I like bubbles. It was surprisingly good.
Been a while since I posted in here.
So, the last beer I made has had an interesting time of it, the thermostat in the fridge went and froze the keg solid, so I stuck it on the inkbird I use in the HLT and let it defrost on gas. Went back to check a week or so later and it turns out my new gas manifold isn't on/off as I'd thought but rather off/on/off so it hadn't been carbonated. Fast-forward another two weeks and we're finally drinking it, luckily it was a scotch ale rather than something hoppy so it's actually tasting rather nice! Not sure I'll repeat that lot again though!
Got the next beer fermenting now, a pale that I'm making for a mate's 40th. Looks like I'm getting better efficiency than I thought as 5.2% appears to have turned into somewhere between 5.8% and 6.6% depending on whether I believe the adjusted iSpindel readings (will take a proper hydrometer reading later this week). Gonna be a hoppy one, just had a bit of Centennial, Citra & Chinook for bittering, then a hopstand of Jester, Simcoe & Vic Secret. Next up is a dry hop of Mystic, Citra, Simcoe & Vic Secret so should be full of tropical fruits with a bit of luck. Dry hop totals 4.5g/l so I'm thinking of upping that.
Thought I would resurrect this thread in time for the autumn season of brewing!
My GF treated us to a fruit crush and press, so we spent a fun sunday afternoon collecting and then pressing apples from one of the neighbours. The wheelbarrow we collected allowed us to collect about 12 litres of juice of which 3l got pasteurised and put into bottles as juice and the other 9 got the same treatment, but went into a fermenter with a starter of Voss Kveik yeast I had in the fridge from my last beer.
Fermentation is going, but slower than I would have expected, but I should be getting 9l of cider at some point, probably around the 5% ABV mark if the yeast does its job.
The beer front has been quiet recently. I keep meaning to make some sort of hoppy IPA using the hops I got from the garden as a whirlpool, but have not got around to it yet. I'm also missing a bunch of hops as the biggest fruiting plant is a non-Swedish one and is only now really producing kottar, sadly too late in the season to develop fully. I still have a few bags from the Korsta plants, so will give them a try I think.
I also need to go and get the Christmas Mead started, which means buying a big tub of local honey. This year I will _NOT_ be using saison yeast as I want some residual sugar and, quite frankly, having a dry, 17% ABV mead is just asking for trouble.
cool, I keep meaning to get a fruit press as we have loads of pairs and they mostly end up going to waste! We had loads of hops this year so I made two green hop beers, an ESB and a West Coast IPA (with additional dried hops, but still has that green hop twang!) Both in the keg now & tasting good, I'd forgotten how much liquid the fresh hops soak up though so got a bit less than planned... really must start making notes when I brew rather than trying to remember everything 😃
Got another conical fermenter now so I can either do back-to-back brews thus cutting down on the amount of cleaning or will probably try some experiments in the form of brewing a double batch and then fermenting and/or dry-hopping them differently to see what happens!
I never got into home-brewing to save money (and in fact sunk equipment costs probably mean that'll never happen) but I was paying £7/pint for a locally-brewed strong IPA the other day, which was perfectly-good-but-not-amazing... I can make one just as nice for under £2, so satisfying to think every pint I drink earns me a fiver 😂
what did you conclude about the iSpindel in the end? Given up on mine now! I think there's always too much stuff (yeast, etc) floating on the surface, and my fermenter is quite narrow so the iSpindel always ends up touching the side. I think the principle is sound though. It does work to the extent I can see when fermentation has started/stopped without having to go into the garage and look at the airlock which is handy I guess.depending on whether I believe the adjusted iSpindel readings (will take a proper hydrometer reading later this week)
Yeah, it's not really about the money, it's more about the process and making beers that I want to drink. Being honest, half my run gets given away to friends anyway, so the beers I drink are artificially more expensive.
I'm also thinking about buying another stainless fermenter, but the plastic buckets are cheaper and an easy option.
oh I agree, but when I started brewing it was only ales, and you could get a pint in a pub for £3 or so! It's entirely different now, imperial stouts or DIPAs can be £8+ per bottle/can even for drinking at home (nice/indie stuff, not supermarket piss!)Yeah, it’s not really about the money,
yep, but having started on buckets then "graduated" to a SS conical, I [I]could've[/I] just used a bucket for my second beer, but really didn't want to!! Not that you can't make excellent beer in a plastic bucket, I'm just a sucker for shiny stuff I guess (no difference to bikes then 😃)’m also thinking about buying another stainless fermenter, but the plastic buckets are cheaper and an easy option.
I’ve always been interested in giving this a go but seems a minefield of complications!
is there a beginners (idiot) starter kit that people would recommend?
A pint of Fuller's ESB in that London reminded me how good traditional English styles can be. So I've ordered up all the ingredients for a clone and will be brewing this weekend.
I’ve got two gallons of blackberry wine that’s almost ready to bottle. Just need it to clear a tiny bit more. I’ve also got enough blackberries in the freezer for another twelve bottles and I was going to start a second batch but I don’t keep my house warm enough in the winter for it to ferment so I’ll leave it till next year now.
For me the iSpindel is not about absolute values, it's about seeing when fermentation is complete and temperatures. I always used to use 3 kettles of boiling water for a brew, the iSpindel showed that gave a temperature of high 20s which is fine for Saison but not for most others, I now use less boiling water. If the iSpindel reads the same for three days, fermentation is finished regardless of the reading which will be influenced by yeast on the cap.
@rockbus Beer is really quite easy to make, seriously. As long as you have some space, can clean stuff well and can follow a process, it should just work.
I’m in Sweden, so kit recommending is going to be not so good for you, but find a good local homebrew shop and ask them for something. Steeping grains (kind of like a tea bag) will give a kit/extract beer more flavour, but even extract can be decent. Plastic bucket fermenters are cheap, easy to clean and work really well. You can even use them to store stuff in between batches.
If you like it, want to learn more or go further, it’s possible to go Brew In A Bag with crushed grain and a recipe from the internet.
something like this is what I started withis there a beginners (idiot) starter kit that people would recommend?
https://bottletopped.co.uk/collections/hombrew-starter-kit-equipment
Will allow you to make 5L worth on your hob. Small batch, but saves you wasting time trying to heat (and cool!) large volumes of liquid without additional equipment.
It’s all-grain brewing (BIAB or brew-in-a-bag method) which is the cheapest & easiest method of brewing.
There are easier/shortcut methods of making beer, but they’re not brewing (IMO 😜) so you might as well start out doing it properly!
is there a beginners (idiot) starter kit that people would recommend?
The simpler way to start is with an extract kit - not proper brewing according to some but it works for me. All you need is a fermentation bin, an airlock, sterilizing powder and a syphon tube or tap (I'd go for a tap) plus bottles, caps and a capping tool if you use glass bottles. You could just use PET fizzy water bottles but I like Budvar bottles because I have to drink them first!
The Festival kits are pretty good and contain everything including priming sugar.
Add a fermenter with a tap (specify the lid with hole and bung) and an airlock
Sterilize everything with a no rinse cleaner
Put the extract and sugar if provided in the fermenter, pour on 2 kettles of boiling water, top up with cold water and stir. Sprinkle the yeast over the top and put the lid and airlock on.
Leave for 2 weeks in a room at about 20c until the airlock stops bubbling. Add any hops provided (I use a muslin bag to hold them) and leave for 3 more days. Dissolve the priming sugar in a little boiling water and mix in then bottle the beer. It helps if you can "cold crash" the beer i.e. bring the temperature down to about 5c as it keeps the CO2 in solution so you can bottle without foaming but it's not essential.
It's pretty easy and a complete cycle of bottling the previous batch, cleaning and making the next batch takes me about an hour for 52 bottles.
@rockbus homebrew is similar to bikes, they'll all get you from A to B and you can choose how much you want to spend.
I started out with a £50 5L kit, all I needed was bottles. It made a perfectly passable red ale but I soon decided to move to Brew-In-A-Bag (BIAB) which is all-grain but still using a big pan on the hob. That was fine and I'd made some lovely beers and then we had a new kitchen and I was banished - which was the perfect excuse for a dedicated brew kettle and proper cooling. carried on making lovely beer on the patio after that.
Fast-forward a bit and I've now built a three vessel HERMS setup in the shed with plans to recycle the cooling water in order to be a bit greener. Now all I need is a bit more free time to actually make the stuff!!!
nice! Love the way these systems look, although for space reasons I'll stick with my Grainfather! (which is basically BIAB, but using a metal sieve rather than a bag, it does have a pump tho so does the re-circulation stuff).Fast-forward a bit and I’ve now built a three vessel HERMS setup in the shed with plans to recycle the cooling water in order to be a bit greener.
It came with a very efficient counter-flow chiller which lets me cool a 5G batch with only about 30-40L of water, if I get the flow right this water ends up very hot so I can use it again almost immediately - half for cleaning everything with PWB then half for rinsing (and then watering the garden!)
Been almost a year since my last brew but with hop-picking season upon us it was time to fire it all up again at the weekend lest the hops we've been growing all year go to waste! As it was we had so many that I did a brew on sat & again on sun and we still have loads left. Unfortunately I don't know anyone else locally who brews, so I may attempt to dry some out in our Ninja multi-cooker (which has a dehydrate function) although I suspect the bother of it all might put me off (would probably have to get a vacuum sealer as well) plus obviously any hops you grow yourself are pretty much an unknown quantity and my brewing tends to (attempt to!) be pretty precise these days.
Anyway, look forward to trying these two green hop beers in a few weeks (made a simple English IPA, and an APA with a bit extra Cascade which I'll also dry-hop with) and hopefully I can try to get into it again and brew a bit more regularly going forwards.
[/
I froze the hops that I have managed to get from the domestic bines. The US-varietals are late _again_ and are only just now producing kottar, basically just in time for the first frosts of the year.
On a more positive note, the cider we pressed from our own apples has had time to carbonate and is not as dry as I thought it weas going to be. It's cloudy, tart and a very approachable 5%. It taste amazing too, despite the wasp that I found in the fermenter when I was bottling.
I really do need to get a winter stout on the go though. I do like stout and I have a ton of dark grains to use up.
nice, I really need to have a go at this, we have a pear tree and most of the fruit goes to waste every year!the cider we pressed from our own apples has had time to carbonate and is not as dry as I thought it weas going to be. It’s cloudy, tart and a very approachable 5%. It taste amazing too
I've been saying this every year for a while now. 😂 Trouble is I like imperial stouts so need to start thinking about it Jan/Feb really. It's way too late now for this year!!I really do need to get a winter stout on the go though.
Just dry-hopped both beers I've got fermenting at the mo & will be looking to keg them at the weekend!
The two green-hop beers I made are ready now & drinking well! WFH with covid at the mo so have taken the opportunity to get another couple of sneaky brews in, a DIPA (brewed before with some success but now have the kit to do oxygen-free transfer to keg so have high hopes for this!) and an Imperial Stout for the first time - 90min rather than 60min boil & mis-calculated boil-off somewhat so it was edging towards the 12% region 😂 Watered it back to 10-ish in the fermenter. Probably give it six months conditioning I guess before sampling so very much the slow game with that one!
10% is still a solid performer! Was that all malt or did you use some sugar/DME in the boil to bring the OG up?
Yeah all malt! Roughly the same amount of grain as a normal brew, but half the batch size!
Anyone else get some kit for Christmas? Got a shiny new fermenter and keg so I can now do 20L batches which means brewhouse capacity is doubled!
One of the highlights of the last 3 months brewing has been a Pumpkin Spiced Stout which I made with a mate and it was what he wanted to make, recipe was a bit of a punt but it turned out really nice, shame we only had 10L that we split 50:50.
That's kinda why I'm moving to 20L batches as I've been brewing with said mate a fair bit, so 20L makes more sense. We combine it with playing guitar and having a beer so brewdays are even more fun.
Yet to do the first brew of 2024 (could be as late as Feb) but I think the next one will be a rum barrel aged saison - more like fake barrel aged with oak chips that are currently soaking in rum. After that it's about time I made something more conventional so might do some rebrews and maybe even give a lager a go for the summer.
nope, but only because I've already spent [I]way[/I] too much over the years 😂Anyone else get some kit for Christmas?
snuck a cheeky taste of the Imperial Stout I'm conditioning after 3 months... tasted really good!! I'd not bothered trying one before because of the time you have to leave it to do it's think, but I'm kicking myself now because in retrospect it seems like one of the easier beer styles to make, there's certainly less to go wrong than with something like a NEIPA! (which having bulk-bought a sack of grain I'm going to be experimenting heavily with this year!)
what sort of kegs? I use corny kegs which are 5 gallons or a shade under 19L I think. Definitely makes sense to brew as big a batch as you can reasonably handle though, given it's not really that much more effort!Got a shiny new fermenter and keg so I can now do 20L batches
yeah that's the way I would do it tbh (or you can actually buy chips of old barrels that used to contain rum/whisky/wine etc if you want to be really authentic!) Didn't bother "barrel aging" this time as I'd like to have a "control" to see what it tastes like without, but I'll definitely try it next time.more like fake barrel aged with oak chips that are currently soaking in rum.
I had a significant birthday recently and got a v34 Grainfather from all of my family. Today was "the day" for the first brew, so I spent yesterday cleaning it all and getting it ready and have just finished the brew.
It is a much less stressful way to brew than the setup I started with, but it is not without faults. A lot of those are my doing though, with the biggest being the choice and amount of hops (basically ALLLLL of the fresh cones from the last three seasons that were in the freezer) and the weakness of the pump to deal with all that garbage in the tun. Next time I do that, I'm going to use the grain basket as a giant hop spider.
I also used a kilo of munich instead of the vienna malt I thought I had and guessed at the base malt because it was in a cupboard and I could not be bothered to weigh it out. It should still beer though and it should be nice enough. We'll see. Now it is just finishing cleaning and then sitting down with a beer.
Update on the new system: Kegged the beer on Monday night (or Tuesday, not sure) into one of the Oxybar kegs I got because I could not be doing with bottle washing. Got it on gas to carbonate and had a first taste two days later. Kegging is sooooo much easier than bottling and the ability to connect up the tap and pour a glass of beer while I am cooking it really nice. GF likes the chance to recycle my bottle collection.
Initial impressions are that it is very much a bitter, a traditional one, but without a lot of hops aroma, something I think is mainly due to the hops being both fresh, frozen and not exactly ripe when I picked them. Nice clean taste though and quite light for a 5% beer. It fermented down from 1.050 to about 1.011, so it's not a super-dry ale, but is a lot more drinkable than something heavier. I'd actually class it as a heavy session ale.
I fancy making something different next, Maybe a stout/porter, maybe something wheaty. It's a little early to be thinking weissbeer, but I do like a glass now and again
Does making ginger beer count?
Kegging is sooooo much easier than bottling and the ability to connect up the tap and pour a glass of beer while I am cooking it really nice.
When my firstborn arrived nearly 13 years ago Mrs Reeksy was concerned about the amount of glass bottles around the house... Kegging is a good solution said I 😀
In that case... I just bottled a naturally yeasted gingerbeer, possibly shrapnel grenades. We'll see how things go in a week i guess.
Just kegged a Kolsch, first attempt at one and all gone ok so far, it was lovely and clear and tasted good so bodes well for the final beer. Just moved up to Hobbybrew gas from Sodastream so at least I won't run out of gas this time!
Next up on the brew plan is something more wintery - a Doppelbock.
Holy thread revival!
I've recently come back to brewing. We moved house a couple of years ago and the new place has a borehole and a water softener, and brewing with that water gave pretty odd tasting beer, so I kind of fell out of the habit.
Anyway, I finally got round to sending a sample off for testing and the results said that an addition of AMS would help, so I tried a kit brew doing that and it's come out pretty good, so I guess I'm back in business
I have a cider (from the apples in the garden) than is taking gas now and getting ready for a party in a couple of weeks. I may also brew a beer (maybe some sort of stout given the other thread, maybe a sessionable pale ale) this weekend, but that depends on a) energy and b) time.
Ugh. Had such big plans for this year and haven't done a single brew yet! Even the fresh hops from the garden we picked a couple of weeks ago are still languishing in the freezer! If they're still ok this weekend, will try to get a brew on with them though.
I finally got round to sending a sample off for testing and the results said that an addition of AMS would help, so I tried a kit brew doing that and it’s come out pretty good
nice! yeah I found water treatment the thing that gives the best bang-for-buck improvement, it's so easy to do as well, but very few people actually bother.
I have a cider (from the apples in the garden)
I was going to do a cider as well, as we have pears & my parents have apples. Never got around to it though! Maybe I'll buy the kit I need in now so I'm ready for next year though.
Figured 5 months isn't too bad in the world of thread ressurection - didn't even get a 'holy thread ressurection batman' gif so does that even mean it happened?
You can make an easy cider using juice from the supermarket and a strong cup of tea (tannins), just make sure it's the 100% pure not from concentrate stuff. Haven't done it but might give it a punt in the new year so it's got a few months in the bottle before cider season starts (heard somewhere to leave a cider 3-6 months).
I too had great plans this year... I need to clean my kit and sort out the keezer and I might have something palatable for Xmas.
You can make an easy cider using juice from the supermarket and a strong cup of tea (tannins), just make sure it’s the 100% pure not from concentrate stuff. Haven’t done it but might give it a punt in the new year so it’s got a few months in the bottle before cider season starts (heard somewhere to leave a cider 3-6 months).
I've done that. Comes out okay but it's reeeeeeeeeeally sharp. It's less Devon Scrumpy, more Diamond White.
yeah, that would sidestep the biggest expense/ballache i.e. crushing & juicing the apples. Doesn't interest me personally though, I either want to do it "properly" or not at all (hence also having no interest in beer kits, etc!)
We share the kits we have around the people in my village as most of us have trees of some sort. There is also a community musteri (place that makes juice for you from your apples) in town if you want to go that way.
The biggest enemy is time and the pain that is trying to feed whole apples into the crush. If you have two people and a Grainfather & fermenters, you can get a decent process going where you half the apples, crush them, press them, fill the Grainfather for pasteurisation, then chill and thrown in a clean fermenter. Then it's just a case of throwing yeast and nutrient at it and waiting.
Tbh, getting a simple keg system set up was the biggest win I have had recently. It cuts down on cleaning a lot and, as a solo brewer at home now, makes getting a beer or cider ready for serving much less of a hassle.
fill the Grainfather for pasteurisation
interesting. most (all?) of the guides I've read have not included this step, although it makes sense to me as a "belt & braces" thing to avoid a duff batch!
getting a simple keg system set up was the biggest win I have had recently.
yeah, when I moved a few years back & had more space, kegging was what got me back into brewing! so much less hassle. At some stage though I was going to "justify" i.e. just buy, a Blichmann beer gun for filling the odd bottle as gifts - just googled though and there's now a much cheaper alternative (Duotight) that seems to be available!
also at some stage this winter need to combine 2 interests and connect my kegerator to my home automation system! already have a load of cheap weight sensors, just need to wire it all up & code it!
I’ve done that. Comes out okay but it’s reeeeeeeeeeally sharp. It’s less Devon Scrumpy, more Diamond White.
Is is possible to back-sweeten with lactose? or keep an eye on it with the iSpindel and chuck some potassium sorbate in to kill the yeast off before the gravity gets too low? or both?
Or maybe just forget the faff and pop down the supermarket?
beer gun for filling the odd bottle as gifts
I've got one, think it could be KegLand, it's done me a good service but recently moved to counter-pressure filling (iTap) and that's a game changer on bottling day. For context, I carb in the keg and then bottle as I brew with a mate and we split it.
If you've got a kegerator you might be able to get a bottle filler that fits your tap which would make gift filling more simple - check out the Nukatap.
I’ve got one, think it could be KegLand, it’s done me a good service but recently moved to counter-pressure filling (iTap) and that’s a game changer on bottling day.
that's interesting, will check it out! having used neither, what is it about the iTap that's so much better/easier?
check out the Nukatap.
that looks pretty good too! Loads more options than last time I looked into this 🙂
I have two of the smaller PET 8l kegs. It seems to be the sweet sport for me when I brew as it is one fermenter's-worth of beer into a keg and some bottle (for people). Then I can slap gas into the keg and enjoy with my own little tap setup. The only downside is having to tape the seals in the keg and disconnecting the gas so that it does not leak after a day or two.
I do need to get a bigger CO2 setup than the current Sodastream setup though. Bigger will be cheaper I think.
I went with 19L Corny kegs as at one point years ago the 2nd hand ex-industry ones were dirt cheap, and that's what everyone was using for home brewing! They do work well though. You can get smaller ones, but only brand new, and they're virtually the same price as the full size ones.
Bought an off-the-shelf Mangrove Jacks kegerator - always meant to DIY one but never got around to it. The MJ one is great though, holds 3 Cornys and I don't think the price is terrible really considering it comes with everything you need.
I just get food-grade CO2 in big canisters from a local gas merchants place. Think I paid £19 for 3.15kg last time. If you have a bigger cylinder it's even cheaper, that size lasts me a fair while though! I have 2x bottles so I don't get caught short, the deposit for the bottles is more than I've paid so far for gas (including refills!).
what is it about the iTap that’s so much better/easier?
In short, counter-pressure.
Longer version is that to use the beer gun you'll probably have to drop to 5ish psi to avoid huge amounts of foaming, then you fill as you would pour a beer (tilted bottle etc). When full, you end up pushing a load of foam out which gets messy and then you need somewhere sanitary to put the beer gun while you cap the bottle.
In contrast a counter-pressure system pressurises the bottle at whatever your keg pressure is first, then you turn on the tap (nothing happens because of equal pressure) before gradually letting the pressure out of the bottle, meaning you get a faster fill, with little to no foam. Last bottling day we did 20 litres without wasting a drop. I went with the iTap because it was a nice looking, self-contained unit that locks the bottle on and seemed to have the least amount of faff associated with using it, some say you should fill from the bottom of the bottle a-la Nukatap but I'm not sure it's the big deal that some make out. Go have a look at some YT vids, they'll probably explain it better than me.
that makes sense, thanks!
@willard I use HobbyBrew CO2, was using one SodaStream bottle per brew (£15!! - almost doubling the cost of a brew) whereas the bottle's about 15 times bigger at a cost of £47 for the fill. Even counting for the £85 deposit on the bottle it's cheaper than the sodastream equivalent quantity, but £3 of gas per brew is way cheaper.
@madhouse I think I need to find an equivalent here in Sweden. The food grade thing is important as, even though I know a lot of welders, I don't think I can just get one of their cylinders. Hmmmmm. Paintballers use Co2...
I've spent the last 2.5 years fermenting fresh wort kits from a local brewery seeing as i didn't have easy access to my normal BIAB setup. Need to get back to it though as I miss some of my old recipes.
I use a couple of corny kegs (normally only one beer at a time though) and tend to run out just before I get around to ordering ingredients to make my own beer!
Finally did it. Brewed my first beer in about three years. A simple BIAB in an urn and my favourite and first recipe, a 1941 Whitbread IPA from the Shut up about Barclay Perkins blog.
Everything went to plan so should have a big strong beer for Xmas.
Finally brewed again.
After many weeks/months of the Grainfather staring at me from the corner of the kitchen, I set it up and got to work making a stout/porter/dark ale thing. It's going to be heavy, it will be strong, but it does use malt that I found is two years old and a yeast that has been in the fridge for about that long as well. Nearly had a stuck mash too until the rice husks got mixed in properly and things started thinning out.
With any luck, it will beer.
I genuinely thought about selling my kit. The Grainfather was a 50th birthday present from my ex and family and, honestly, I've really not had the desire in me to use it.
Well, it is beering. After some weak signs of fermentation last night, the yeast seems to have taken hold and it's kicking off. I'm now thinking about aging this. 10l oak casks are a bit on the expensive side, but I can get a toasted oak spiral thing and just leave it in one of my PET kegs for a few months.
It's not like I have a rush though, this will take some time to ferment out; 1.085-ish OG
When drinking strong 1940s English IPA it is important to use the appropriate German glassware.
Ooh, that reminds me, I have a Doppelbock that needs bottling!
The brewday for this one highlighted my need for a bigger mash tun - 7.6kg of grain and 20L of liquor was pretty much at the brim. Other than that it all went ok other than ending up a couple of litres short in the fermenter for unknown reasons as I've not changed my equipment profile in Brewfather.
Nevermind, 18L of a 7.5% brew should go down well over the festive period.
Love Dopplebock
The stout I had on before Christmas got bottled today. OG of about 1.085, FG of 1.022, so 75% attenuation and 8.3% abv, basically right on plan for the yeast and wort. I have about 8L in a PET keg getting CO2's up now and 7 33cL bottles for people to have.
Cheeky taste confirms a lack of strong coffee flavour (not surprising), but a good healthy body to it and a nice roasty finish. I'll wait to see what it is like with some carbonation though.
I might need to make something a bit lighter next time, maybe a session Pilsner, but I keep thinking I should do another mead. Make it a bit lighter than last time; a 17% fully dry version was difficult to drink in one go.
Ok, so the Doppelbock was very nice indeed and needless to say didn't last particularly long.
Jan and Feb were brew-less due to the general manic-ness that is our household. March has been a bumper month so far, made a last minute hazy pale for a relatives birthday at the end of the month, moteuka, olicana, mystic, vic secret and nelson, coupled with verdant yeast should mean it's soft and tropical, although I had to bend the rules on the fermentation time as I'd already booked a brew in with a mate so hopefully I've not screwed it up.
The brew with my mate was last weekend's marshmallow stout, 6%ish milk stout with a load of marshmallows chucked in the boil (because why not?) and then it'll get some cocoa nibs and vanilla pods in secondary because I've got some kicking around that need using up. Also tweaked my equipment profile as kept overshooting the OG and we got within 0.002 so really happy with that.