Viewing 40 posts - 81 through 120 (of 714 total)
  • Brewers of STW
  • yourguitarhero
    Free Member

    **** it, I bought one of those Massive Brewery kits.

    I’m liking the idea of being able to make something like the Sierra Nevada or Erdinger at home.

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    Another sale for Massive! I’d love to know how many people have bought one from here since I first posted about it! I reckon Steve owes me a beer or three….! 😀

    Clobber
    Free Member

    sort out the basics on simple brews first ygh….

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    john_drummer
    Free Member

    <pedant alert>

    surely a “black” “IPA” is a contradiction in terms? If it’s “black”, it’s hardly an India “Pale” Ale 😉
    </pedant alert>

    anyway, Saltaire Brewery do a Black IPA in bottles, “Kala” is the name.
    I think it’s 6.7% ABV, and very nice it is too. Like an IPA but, well, black. I don’t recall any particular roastiness…

    Clobber’s right though, keep it simple to start with.

    For recipes, apart from the hundreds available online, Graham Wheeler’s book “Brew Your Own British Real Ale” is almost considered “the bible”; other books are available, e.g. Dave Lines’ Brew Beers Like You Buy

    Garry_Lager
    Full Member

    I have that Dave Lines book – I know he was a great pioneer an all but some of those recipes seem a bit unconvincing. He’s got stuff like Harp lager in it. Guess I should try brewing it before casting doubt.

    Sierra Nevada is a pretty simple recipe isn’t it? Some bittering hops then an ass-load of cascade, done.

    peterfile
    Free Member

    Sierra Nevada is a pretty simple recipe isn’t it? Some bittering hops then an ass-load of cascade, done.

    The link to the recipe in my OP is the one I used and it is indeed pretty simple. Turned out really well too.

    bob_summers
    Full Member

    He’s got stuff like Harp lager in it

    And Special Brew

    Might give it a whirl.

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    Binners has let himself go a bit, hasn’t he?

    davidrussell
    Free Member

    an ass-load of cascade, done.

    is that a beersmith recognised measure? 😆

    having failed to learn my lesson with chillers i’m now bawdeep in measuring voile fabric to make a truncated cone BIAB bag, bring on the pain! Luckily i know an excellent seamstress so i can blame her if the seams fail 🙂

    yourguitarhero
    Free Member

    Aye, I’ll start with what you get in the Massive Brewery kit and once I’ve used that there is a home brew store on my street so I’ll go in and talk to them.

    I could expect to be making something like Sierra Nevada after I’ve had a few gos at it though?

    Clobber
    Free Member

    yes something like it! lots of factors though from your water to your mash temp to controlling fermentation temp, bur somewhere near!

    ocrider
    Full Member

    Mugsys_m8, http://www.brasserie-pleinelune.fr/ is in your neck of the woods, at least it’s your side of Valence and their IPA is good enough. I haven’t tried the other beers they make, but they’ll be worth a try if they’re as good as that.

    That Massive set-up is rather tempting, nothing comes close at that price.

    trout
    Free Member

    a mate came round on sunday to do a double brew
    here is the timlapse 8 hours. in 3 mins

    [video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuzblSmn3bE&feature=youtube_gdata_player [/video]

    allthepies
    Free Member

    He’s slimmed down though.

    theotherjonv
    Full Member

    Are there any Homebrew equivalents to Chain Reaction. I have a (work) idea that they and the micro / homebrew community themselves may be interested in but there’s no way I could set up to distribute individually. If there was a CRC equivalent or equivalents that might be able to distribute for me, it might work.

    Bit secret squirrel as it’s just an idea for now…….

    allthepies
    Free Member

    I made an awesome Black IPA/Cascadian Dark/whatever last year. 6% of dark, hoppy lovelyness 🙂

    Got the hops in stock to brew it again soon.

    bokonon
    Free Member

    Are there any Homebrew equivalents to Chain Reaction

    Not really – the only ones that I’ve been aware of over the last few years haven’t done so well, the most popular and reliable tend to be offshoots of LBSs – with the exception of Barley Bottom which is not a local brew shop, but it is a one man band type affair.

    I don’t think there is the scale in the UK market to support something like CRC – a quick look over the “big” websites and you will see it restricted to pretty much kit beers, rather than anything more substantial.

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    Homebrew is on the rise at the moment, as this thread shows, I suppose. More and more people I know are brewing full grain at home these days, mainly for cost reasons. So, there may well be a market for something like that, but the way that CRC really got going was by selling old stuff cheaply to start with. There’s no real ‘last year’s model’ marketing to be had in the brewing industry, is there?

    There are loads of really good little independent brewshops out there, and many (if not all) of them do some sort of online stuff as well.

    Garry_Lager
    Full Member

    Cost of shipping must be an issue for online brew-shops. Involves a lot of low value, heavy and/or large items – not sure how you avoid piling on big transit costs to the buyer.

    jaffejoffer
    Free Member

    This looks like fun.

    what do i need to get started and where do i get all the gear from??

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    what do i need to get started and where do i get all the gear from??

    Another shameless plug here, but one I think that others would agree with. For a starter, full grain brew kit, http://www.massivebrewery.com/ is a really good place to kick off.

    Everything you need to get started* brewing your own.

    *Everything except sufficient empty bottles in to which you can put your beer. Of course, this means you’ll have to find a way to get some empty beer bottles….First, take a full beer bottle……

    john_drummer
    Free Member

    Of course, this means you’ll have to find a way to get some empty beer bottles….First, take a full beer bottle……

    a dirty job but someone has to do it 😉

    actually, just a thought… it’s worth shelling out on a box of PET beer bottles, using one or two in each batch that you bottle. When you fill the bottle, it’s soft & squeezable. When the beer has had enough time for carbonation, it’s hard. oo-er missus

    bokonon
    Free Member

    There’s no real ‘last year’s model’ marketing to be had in the brewing industry, is there?

    That’s very true – once you are set up with brewing kit, then it’s just sundries, unless you want to upscale to bigger volumes, but that’s rare really, most people are fine with 5 gallons, and it’s not much more trouble to double brew, and you then get 2 different types of beer!

    davidrussell
    Free Member

    truncated cone BIAB bag template successfully carved out of paper this lunchtime, thanks to an empty floor space, some maths and a fibre patch cord and zip ties as a stringline 🙂

    need to check it fits my brewpot now, procure the voile and hand over to our tame seamstress for finishing.

    mugsys_m8
    Full Member

    massive brewery have been sold out everytime I’ve tried today….
    OCRider: thanks I’ll take a peek.

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    massive brewery have been sold out everytime I’ve tried today….

    It’s only a one man band, so drop him a line and ask when his next batch will be ready. He’s a top chap!

    singletrackmind
    Full Member

    We pay 60p a Kilo for Crushed Maris Otter . Have to buy 1 ton to get that price though.

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    STM, would you do a cheeky reselling deal for STWbrewers? Smaller quantities, obviously!

    Ditto hops….

    Whereabouts are you, if collection is an option!

    😉

    trout
    Free Member

    Minimum order at Fawcetts malts in Castleford is 10 bags of mixed malts
    cash on collection approx £18 for a 25 kg bag of Maris otter
    and similar for other malts

    peterfile
    Free Member

    Massive Brewery – BeerSmith Equipment profile

    I’ve spent a fair bit of time fine tuning my equipment profile on Beersmith the match the Massive Brewery kit.

    To help anyone trying to scale recipes on Beersmith, I’ve uploaded it:

    https://db.tt/dcsbXq6c

    One thing you’ll need to be aware of is that I now use one large bag rather than two smaller ones. My overall efficiency was dreadful trying to brew anything over 4-5% due to the bags getting too full. A bigger bag allows me to “rain in” the grain while stirring too. This change led to a jump from under 60% to 73% in efficiency. If you plan on using the two bags supplied with the kit, I’d suggest adjusting the efficiency figure in the profile back down to 60%.

    By using this profile, you can download any recipe in beersmith format (or input ones you’ve found elsewhere) and then instantly scale it to work with the massive brewery kit.

    tom200
    Full Member

    As a failed brewer I am loving this thread! Must get my kit out the loft and extend the shed.

    davidrussell
    Free Member

    Thanks PF, that will prove really useful indeed.

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    +1 thanks peter

    Where did you buy the new bag (or did you make it)? Reading around it seems stirring is useful for getting a good efficiency but that’s not very easy with the Massive bags.

    peterfile
    Free Member

    I picked up a mashing bag from my LHBS. It’s much bigger than my pot but doesn’t really matter.

    It has a drawstring, so I can keep it tight round the pot, then “rain” the grain in whilst stirring. This avoids the grain clumping together.

    When I do my dunk sparge, I dunk the bag in, open it up and give it a good stir for a minute, leave for a few minutes, then stir again etc. As I mentioned, my efficiency is MUCH better now, plus it’s less faffing around with only one bag and less cleaning 🙂

    theotherjonv
    Full Member

    Thanks all for your comments on the CRC equivalent in the homebrew world.

    Seems for good reasons that there isn’t one major, but I’m interested instead then by the myriad smaller LHBS network.

    What’s the STW equivalent in HB? Beersmith?

    peterfile
    Free Member

    I read most of the bigger forums. Jim’s Beer Kit has some UK specific info, but focuses quite heavily on kits.

    homebrewtalk.com is probably my favourite, but it’s mostly US. Not that it really matters, but it’s worth bearing in mind that you’ll end up an expert in US craft brewing rather than UK! I really like the US craft brew scene, so it works for me. There’s a mountain of information and it’s a very active forum.

    john_drummer
    Free Member

    Jim’s Beer Kit has some UK specific info, but focuses quite heavily on kits.

    ???

    have you been into the forum on JBK? there are separate sections for All Grain, BIAB, kit brewing, extract brewing, recipes etc

    peterfile
    Free Member

    That’s the bit I was talking about John. I do like the forum and use it loads, but just noticed it seems to have more kits talk compared to the US forums. Out of a few hundred thousand posts on JBK, about 100,000 are directly related to kits, which will then filter into the more general forums.

    Homebrewtalk has (literally) millions of posts, but also with 100,000 on extract/kits, so proportionally it’s much more focussed on all grain.

    Actually, I don’t even know why i’m bothering trying to attach figures to it, it’s just what I notice when I search for stuff in either forum, it wasn’t designed as a negative comment 🙂

    Homebrew Talk main forum page

    Jim’s Beer Kit forum page

    john_drummer
    Free Member

    perhaps there’s not as big a kit side to the industry in the US as in the UK?
    don’t forget less than a century ago, alcohol & its production were illegal in the USA.

    you have to remember that many home brewers in the UK first come into the hobby when they’re bought a beer kit for christmas; some brewers are perfectly happy with the results & never go beyond kits

    peterfile
    Free Member

    oh aye, like I say, it wasn’t meant as a negative thing. I just found that there’s an incredible amount of info out there for new brewers, when you have a question you need to research, it makes it easier when you’re comparing apples with apples. e.g. if I find a similar thread to my question on a forum, it helps me when it’s about all grain/biab, since I know it will work for me. It’s all quite overwhelming when you start out, so it’s nice to focus on the threads that are following the same process as you.

Viewing 40 posts - 81 through 120 (of 714 total)

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