Homebrewists of STW, brewing ‘owt at the moment?

Quick thread update; the original brew that kicked off this thread, now called Boggo Bitter, is drinking lovely now after a good few weeks’ cold conditioning. The bastardised Geordie Yorkshire Bitter kit, now known as Yorkshire Bastard, got bottled at the weekend, ended up at about 3.6%. That’ll sit in the brewfridge for a week to carbonate then that’ll sit and condition for a while.

Plus, just taken delivery from the Malt Miller so there’s enough for two lots of piece-of-piss my Belgian/Leffe clone (first one will be done this weekend) and another Fuggles/EKG-based session bitter. I need another brewfridge 🙂

I can’t get through to my wee brewery. Got two IPAs cold conditioning there, hope they’re ok.

In the interim I’ve had the soldering iron out and been building an iSpindel wifi hydrometer. Almost complete now (after a frustrating process – mostly from using a too blunt soldering iron) – just need to calibrate it with some sugar solutions and it *should* be ready to go^

^ sit in the cupboard until I can get through to the shed

I don’t have huge amounts of space and brew every so often, so not regularly.
I brew with a large stock pot and a bag with plastic fermenter. I have been looking at an all in one system, mostly for space saving, but what are the benefits of using an all in one system?

Much less hassle – moving hot liquid around, spilling things etc.
They also tend to have recirculation pumps (improve efficiency = more or stronger beer for the same amount of grain) and more accurate mash temperature control (in comparison to doing it on the stove) which will help sugar extraction and for you to control dryness of finished beer etc.

Have a look at Brewdevil and Hopcat. Heard good things from friends who have used them. I have a Grainfather which I would recommend. Quite a few kicking around second hand on eBay generally.

Thanks for that YGH. I watched a review on the Brewzilla Robobrew and that came out pretty well. I’ll have a look at the others, but my budget would probably be around 300-350.

Are there any key features to look out for on a more budget all in one?

My giant stock pot arrived today so I’m ready to brew some undrinkable session ipa! First attempt with a grain kit.

hanks for that YGH. I watched a review on the Brewzilla Robobrew and that came out pretty well. I’ll have a look at the others, but my budget would probably be around 300-350.

I have a Grainfather as well. I like it but it’s a bit overpriced IMO.

Have a look at the Klarstein systems. Klarstein

From what I understand there is not a great deal of difference between the systems, some more bells and whistles on the newer more expensive ones but most people will not use the extra features. e.g 9 mash steps compared to 6. I have never bothered with a stepped mash anyway.

Yeah, I agree with Gobochul.

Only thing I would suggest is to decide on a batch size now, and base everything around it. “Normal” homebrew batches are 23l (5 gallon). But some folk do half sized ones. If you’re just drinking on your own, an 11 litre batch size will work fine!

Batch size relates to the size of fermenters, the number of bottles/kegs per brew and the cost of ingredients per batch.

A grainfather can do small batches with some extra pipes you buy, and I believe the Brewdevils etc can do small and normal batch sizes. They also do 50 litre sizes….?

Been out the game for too long. Just ordered some Simcoe, Citra and Centennial hops, grains and some west coast yeast.

Looking forward to a brew day.

Stock seems pretty low in most places, I’m guessing lots of folk have rediscovered it or are taking it up.

Or did what I did and built up stocks so that they could brew whilst the suppliers were shut. My plan is to use a lot of that real soon now though.

Second hand all in one is what I would look for if I were to start again, but I actually really like my current setup. I’m adding a pump to it (hopefully this week) which should allow me to get a bit more efficiency and cool a bit better, but the stock 20L pot works well on the induction hob, so I can’t complain.

Next brew will be early next week, likely Monday, and will be a darker Belgian ale, followed on Saturday by a lighter, summery IPA using Nelson Sauvin hops. Between the two types, that should both use us all my bottles and keep me in beer for a while.

@yourguitarhero Was the iSpindel a full kit, or did you have to get components yourself?

iSpindel was a kit. Was a bit awkwared (based on a project board), so ordered some PCB versions from China to build the other one. Might even re-do the first one as not sure how robust it would be

I have to say that I am tempted by that kind of kit, but me doing the soldering means introducing a lot of potential to mess things up.

When you have had a chance to calibrate it, could you do a bit of a review?

Bottled and kegged an IPA with Vic’s Secret Mouteka and Wha-iti hops tonight. Early signs are promising.
I have also tinkered with my kit. Two stainless conicals for fermenting and built a kettle with a RIMS set up and added a sight glass and an inlet for the whirlpool.

Damn, I wish I had the space (and liver!) to justify that kit! Still using 15 litre buckets for fermenting here.

As it happens, I am using one of them right now to ferment a dark Belgian ale that I put together Monday night. Chinook to bitter, Saaz to flavour and a hint of star anis. Except… my molasses is a solid block so I could not use it and the Cara Munich 2 I had was less than I needed. Sooooo, not so strong, not so dark.

I have a brew day planned for Saturday to make the summer IPA. Looking forward to that.

Brew day last Saturday. A British IPA: Maris otter, Northdown, Challenger and EKG.

Many things went wrong: mashout temp too high, gravity too low, yeast starter showed no activity after two days. It’s fermenting now but I’m not optimistic.

Just started drinking an Amarillo single hop, from the Greg Hughes book, I brewed 5 weeks ago.

It’s very good.

Second batch of Ginger beer here has just about finished fermenting – 1st batch was surprisingly good, light and refreshing and went down far to easily 🙂

It started to ferment much quicker this time, maybe cos I mixed the yeast with warm water to start it off, last time I just tipped the yeast into the demi john.

How do you work out the alcoholic strength?

You need to measure the gravity of the solution before you ferment, then compare it to the gravity after fermenting. There are tools that then calculate the ABV for you.

Brewersfriend is your… friend

Mashout temps can’t really be too high. They can be too low, but anywhere from 75c to 100c works. The purpose of the mash-out is to denature any amolytic enzymes (mainly α-amylase, β-amylase, and limit dextrinase) with the heat and stop them breaking down the sugars any further than what you had intended with your mash temperature (where there is a trade off between alcohol yield and body).

First graph is a general enzyme one, not related to the ones I mentioned above

Cracked open a bottle of Yorkshire Bastard last night, after a couple of weeks’ conditioning, and that’s coming up lovely.

Belgian Bastard (Nelson Sauvin) is being bottled at the weekend, and I’ll get the Bastard Boltmaker (EKG/Fuggles) on the go.

There’s a theme with my brewnames 🙂

@yourguitarhero Thank you for posting that, it helped me understand the purpose of mashout a bit beter!

Racked off a West Coast IPA yesterday and started the double dry-hop – next lot of hops go in tomorrow. Looks a little darker than planned but that may just be the volume and lack of light in a steel brew bucket. Smelt good though!

Lockdown’s been good for brewing, made a challenge brew as some friends game me their home-grown grapes (hazy Brut IPA with Nelson Sauvin & Mosaic hops – it’s drinkable but I wouldn’t add grapes to beer again). Also made a marmalade amber ale which ideally needs another week in the fridge before drinking but I may cave in at the weekend and try one.
Just made a root-beer syrup to add to an amber ale base as my mate likes root-beer and I thought I’d make him some alcoholic stuff.

To-do list involves a Pilsner with Saaz hops, a Belgian and something using Kviek yeast as I’ve not made/used any of that lot before.

Just made a root-beer syrup to add to an amber ale base as my mate likes root-beer and I thought I’d make him some alcoholic stuff.

Oooh, hello, tell me more…

Hehehehehe. That might be a good recipe for BBQs later in the year you know.

I too have some Kveik in the fridge. Was actually thinking about using it for the winter tout I have planned for August, but I am not sure how it will impact the taste of something like that. Guen the grain bill and the high predicted OG, I don’t really want to experiment with something that will take a long time to condition.

1.4L water, 85g Sarsaparilla root, 15g burdock root, 1tsp coriander seeds, 1 Star Anise, 1 clove, 60g black treacle, 2 drops wintergreen extract.
Dry ingredients + water in a pan, boil then simmer for 15mins. Add treacle, simmer for another 5. Remove from heat, add wintergreen, let it cool to room temp. Then strain and let the roots rest in the strainer for 30 mins – don’t be tempted to give them a squeeze. I’ve stopped here this time but if you want to make a syrup to keep in the fridge then just return it to the heat with the same amount of sugar by volume to the liquid you have.

Sarsaparilla, burdock & wintergreen all came from eBay, can’t get leaf wintergreen in the UK it seems.

My plan is for a simple amber base using Pale malt with a touch of crystal will use a touch of Magnum to bitter but not much. Then add the above at secondary fermentation.

To-do list involves a Pilsner with Saaz hops,

That’s my next one. A Pilsner Urquell clone. I did a batch a couple of years back and it was fantastic. Way better than the real commercial one! Very simple as well.

Mashout temps can’t really be too high. They can be too low, but anywhere from 75c to 100c works

Good to know, thanks. Beersmith instructions are 75.6C held for 10 minutes, but I got distracted and it was nearer 90C by the time I noticed. I BIAB and only do a mashout as I have noticed a small but consistent increase in OG when I perform this step.

@gobuchul – did you do all that decoction malarkey with the pilsner or just a regular mash?
Also I can’t tie up the brew fridge for 4-6 weeks to lager it so just planning to lager it in the beer fridge, that should be ok shouldn’t it?

@gobuchul – did you do all that decoction malarkey with the pilsner or just a regular mash?
Also I can’t tie up the brew fridge for 4-6 weeks to lager it so just planning to lager it in the beer fridge, that should be ok shouldn’t it?

Nothing fancy at all. Really simple.

23 litre batch.
4.7kg of pilsner malt. (I added a little carapils the last time I did it. 3% or so)
1hr mash at 65c
Boil time 75 mins
50g of Saaz at 75 mins
20g of Saaz at 10 mins
20g of Saaz at 0 mins

Ferment at 12c
Lager at 3c for 4 weeks (Beer fridge will be fine)

Cool, thanks for that. I bottle carb, should I bottle and then lager or lager and then bottle (possibly with additional yeast)?

When making a lager, let the beer come up to room temp (18c) for 2 days just before the end of fermentation and before the chilled lagering conditioning phase. This can help volatilise off diacetyl which can give a butterscotch flavour that is generally unwanted in that beer.

lager and then bottle

I use corny kegs and don’t bottle.

I know a lot of people use those 25l sealed containers for lagering, before they bottle.

Not sure how much yeast will be left to kick in secondary when you bottle though?

Maybe @yourguitarhero knows more?

As always, i recommend going over to https://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/ great little forum, loads of knowledge and very friendly.

Lager then bottle with some priming sugar, leaving the bottle at room temp for 2 weeks. They’ll be nice that way.

Lager then bottle with some priming sugar,

So enough of the yeast survives the lagering to kick in when primed?

As always, i recommend going over to https://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/ great little forum, loads of knowledge and very friendly.

You may even see some names you recognise 😉

Yes, you can secondary ferment after lagering.

I’ve got an all grain pilsner just bottle conditioning, and there’s a hopback summer lightning clone about to go on.

After that, who knows? A preposterous IPA using a pound of hops for a 5 gallon batch perhaps.

So long as you can see a haze in the beer there should be sufficient active cells to condition a Lager . Bar bright can have up to 10,000 cells per ml so thusands floating around. May take a little longer with a low yeast count, but if you can force a few bottles a week will give you a good idea of fizz potential

Well, after getting a 10L batch of Belgian Dubbel done and in the fermenter in Monday, I decided to double down and put a 10L batch of a surprisingly strong single hop summer IPA in a second fermenter.

My plan is to bottle the Dubbel on Monday night if it is done resting, then dry hop the IPA on Wednesday or Thursday so it has the weekend to absorb those lovely Nelson Sauvin flavours, then bottle that the Monday after.

May is looking to be a tasty month.

Well, the Dubbel got bottled last night. It finished out at about 1.010 giving about a 7.3% ABV beer that tastes really quite Belgiany. It does need to condition a bit though and is quite hazy at the moment.

In other news, I got bored on Sunday and made an experimental sour beer with minimal hopping and inoculated with a sourdough starter I had in the fridge. The grain bill was 85% Pale Ale and 15% wheat malt, a 30 minute boil with 5g of citra at the start and 5g of Ekaunot at 0 mins. It took a while to get going, but is now fermenting well. Even though it currently looks like shit, I have high hopes for it.

The summer IPA is getting a 50g dry hopping of Nelson Sauvin tomorrow and will get bottled on Monday. That should be a lovely beer too, it certainly smells amazing right now.