Good to see your all brewing like a fury :thumb:
I've had a xxxxxxx mare of the last 6 month's or so since i've last been here. Some good points though.
Don't bother taking pic's of my brews anymore. Too boring they are nowadays, pretty straightforward brewdays for me. I have 3 house beers and knock up the ocassional batch of DP IPA's to keep me entertained. Luckily for me my local master brewer Dennis Fring has taken me under his wing and taught me all sorts of things. All my malt comes from him now-today I went down for a few beers and picked up a sack of malt. He asks 'ale' or 'lager' and what 'colour'. The colour comes from him adding a handfull or so of a dark malt. I say ooh, bit darker than your lager but not as dark as the draught. It comes out exactly the colour I want. Simple and effective. I mill the malt there on his mill. I also use his yeast. I take in a jar I put in the dishwasher, he gives it a quick spray of meth spirits(70% solution) and a shake and the yeast goes straight in from the conicals. So I get a litre of fresh yeast whenever I like, which is nice. I use **** lots of yeasts in 40L batch-probably half a pint of pure yeast. I get 15 mins or so lag time now. Home brewers under pitch massively which is why you get huge lag times. The meth trick is a nice touch. Sterilses everything, a quick shake and away you go.
Things I've learnt whilst brewing with a master brewer:
1/ Less is more-a lot like cooking.
2/ Taste is the key. I can now more or less taste the wort and know when to stop sparging my house brews.
3/ You can smell the yeast working and I can tell when it's on day 4 status-ie it's stopped doing it's big thang and has calmed down. Only with my house yeast and brew though.
4/ You don't need fifty types of hop. One good var will do for 90% of brews.
5/ More than 4 malts is a load of old ********. No one can bloody tell whether it's 5 or 50 malts-NO ONE-
6/ A good base Malt is very important. It's what makes your brew or breaks your brew.
7/ Pitch as much yeast as you possibly can-it won't go to waste, spoil or be half as subseptible to **** because the lag times will be reduced to minutes rather than hours.
8/ Open fermenting rocks-with minimun lag times open fermenting is not an issue at all. I've scraped bugs of the top of the krausen when i skim it with no issues whatsoever-you need to see and smell your brew to tell whats going on without poking it about or sucking wort off to measure the SG.
9/ I've still got a xxxxxxx lot to learn to be a tenth as good as a real brewer.
10/ I'm still an obnoxious old xxxxxxx.
Happy brewing chaps. I'll post up some pics of my new brewing toys that I have 'aquired' from Frings. Lots of shiny trick as xxxx stuff.
Oh yeh, your all invited to my 40th on Nov 28th. Heaps of food-Wild Boar, Ducks, Pheasants, Peahens, Wild Turkey, Venison, Fresh Seafood from our abundant coastline and a heap of Middle Earth Brewery Ales and some fine lager courtesy of Dennis Fring. A few dodgy party games and the unrivalled pleasure of my esteemed company. :P
Cheers
MEB
I've had a xxxxxxx mare of the last 6 month's or so since i've last been here. Some good points though.
Don't bother taking pic's of my brews anymore. Too boring they are nowadays, pretty straightforward brewdays for me. I have 3 house beers and knock up the ocassional batch of DP IPA's to keep me entertained. Luckily for me my local master brewer Dennis Fring has taken me under his wing and taught me all sorts of things. All my malt comes from him now-today I went down for a few beers and picked up a sack of malt. He asks 'ale' or 'lager' and what 'colour'. The colour comes from him adding a handfull or so of a dark malt. I say ooh, bit darker than your lager but not as dark as the draught. It comes out exactly the colour I want. Simple and effective. I mill the malt there on his mill. I also use his yeast. I take in a jar I put in the dishwasher, he gives it a quick spray of meth spirits(70% solution) and a shake and the yeast goes straight in from the conicals. So I get a litre of fresh yeast whenever I like, which is nice. I use **** lots of yeasts in 40L batch-probably half a pint of pure yeast. I get 15 mins or so lag time now. Home brewers under pitch massively which is why you get huge lag times. The meth trick is a nice touch. Sterilses everything, a quick shake and away you go.
Things I've learnt whilst brewing with a master brewer:
1/ Less is more-a lot like cooking.
2/ Taste is the key. I can now more or less taste the wort and know when to stop sparging my house brews.
3/ You can smell the yeast working and I can tell when it's on day 4 status-ie it's stopped doing it's big thang and has calmed down. Only with my house yeast and brew though.
4/ You don't need fifty types of hop. One good var will do for 90% of brews.
5/ More than 4 malts is a load of old ********. No one can bloody tell whether it's 5 or 50 malts-NO ONE-
6/ A good base Malt is very important. It's what makes your brew or breaks your brew.
7/ Pitch as much yeast as you possibly can-it won't go to waste, spoil or be half as subseptible to **** because the lag times will be reduced to minutes rather than hours.
8/ Open fermenting rocks-with minimun lag times open fermenting is not an issue at all. I've scraped bugs of the top of the krausen when i skim it with no issues whatsoever-you need to see and smell your brew to tell whats going on without poking it about or sucking wort off to measure the SG.
9/ I've still got a xxxxxxx lot to learn to be a tenth as good as a real brewer.
10/ I'm still an obnoxious old xxxxxxx.
Happy brewing chaps. I'll post up some pics of my new brewing toys that I have 'aquired' from Frings. Lots of shiny trick as xxxx stuff.
Oh yeh, your all invited to my 40th on Nov 28th. Heaps of food-Wild Boar, Ducks, Pheasants, Peahens, Wild Turkey, Venison, Fresh Seafood from our abundant coastline and a heap of Middle Earth Brewery Ales and some fine lager courtesy of Dennis Fring. A few dodgy party games and the unrivalled pleasure of my esteemed company. :P
Cheers
MEB
