Hello from Cambridge, UK

[garymscott]

Hello all,

I've joined the homebrewforum to meet some other home brewers and glean some brewing tips.

I have probably only brewed around 8-10 beer kits since I started (about 2 years ago now) but wanted to have more control over my brewing. So last summer I took the plunge from beer kits to all-grain. I haven't brewed anything for a while because I have only attempted four AG brewing sessions and the results of three of them were undrinkable! :-( I have no idea what went wrong so intend to submit a trouble-shooting post on this forum to see if anyone can help me out!

I'm very fond of DIY and techy gadgets so I've plaster-boarded half of my garage into a brewing space where I have my fermentation chamber (an old chest freezer with a Brewpi hooked up to it).

My goal is to master a small number of recipes (for both ale and lager) that I am very happy with and then to just keep reproducing them. I discovered this week that Brewdog publish all their recipes online so I'll be trying my hand at their original Punk IPA either this weekend or next. Has anyone here tried brewing from their recipes?

 

[MyQul]

Welcome to the forum

As you can imagine when brewdog released all their recipes there was huge interest from the HBing community. I haven't done any myself but other members have/intend to

 

[BeerCat]

Welcome Gary. Fairly sure seen a few people talking about doing brewdog recipes. I intend to do the New Punk IPA once i get all the stuff. I counted the hops alone will cost £23 so with the yeat and grain gonna be by far the most expensive brew so far. :)

 

[klaus]

re. Brewdog, I have downloaded the PDF and looked at a few recipes. Still have to attempt any. But I am amazed at the grain quantities for some of the stronger beers! Certainly won't be able to do those with BIAB.

 

[IainM]

Welcome to the forum.
There are plenty of people on here who I'm sure will help you figure out what went wrong. What did they taste like? Hopefully it wasn't the water, because I'm in Cambridge too and only recently did my first AG. In fact, I'll be doing a brew'n'bbq with a buddy on Sunday, putting on a Belgian Dubble. My set-up isn't as high tech as yours, and neither of us are particularly experienced, but you're welcome to come along to chat about brewing and, erm, help us replenish our stock of empty bottles :whistle:

 

[MyQul]

re. Brewdog, I have downloaded the PDF and looked at a few recipes. Still have to attempt any. But I am amazed at the grain quantities for some of the stronger beers! Certainly won't be able to do those with BIAB.

Some simple sugar aded like belgian candy should sort that out

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Welcome to the forum :

 

[Robin54]

welcome:thumb:

 

[garymscott]

Welcome to the forum.
There are plenty of people on here who I'm sure will help you figure out what went wrong. What did they taste like? Hopefully it wasn't the water, because I'm in Cambridge too and only recently did my first AG. In fact, I'll be doing a brew'n'bbq with a buddy on Sunday, putting on a Belgian Dubble. My set-up isn't as high tech as yours, and neither of us are particularly experienced, but you're welcome to come along to chat about brewing and, erm, help us replenish our stock of empty bottles :whistle:

Hi Iain the AG brews that went wrong were a pale ale recipe from a book by Greg Hughes. They were cloudy and tasted harsh and chemically upfront. I'm going to submit a post soon with more details so hopefully someone will have an idea where I'm going wrong. Also thanks for the brewing offer - I already have plans this Sunday but would be great to meet up at some point. I'm guessing if you're in Cambridge then you'll be looking forward to the beer festival in a few weeks?

 

[garymscott]

Welcome Gary. Fairly sure seen a few people talking about doing brewdog recipes. I intend to do the New Punk IPA once i get all the stuff. I counted the hops alone will cost �£23 so with the yeat and grain gonna be by far the most expensive brew so far. :)

Hi BeerCat, I thought the same thing. The new Punk IPA has a LOT of hops so I purchased ingredients for the old Punk IPA recipe instead as it requires fewer hops.

 

[MyQul]

Hi Iain the AG brews that went wrong were a pale ale recipe from a book by Greg Hughes. They were cloudy and tasted harsh and chemically upfront. I'm going to submit a post soon with more details so hopefully someone will have an idea where I'm going wrong. Also thanks for the brewing offer - I already have plans this Sunday but would be great to meet up at some point. I'm guessing if you're in Cambridge then you'll be looking forward to the beer festival in a few weeks?

I have an idea already what might have been the problem

 

[IainM]

I'm guessing if you're in Cambridge then you'll be looking forward to the beer festival in a few weeks?

Damn straight! Its not often you get a beer festival crawling distance from your house :grin:

 

[Richie_asg1]

Damn straight! Its not often you get a beer festival crawling distance from your house :grin:

Do you leave a trail of breadcrumbs or empty bottles so you can make it back? :lol:

Welcome to the forum btw.

Reminds me of staying waaaay up'north on holiday. It was one of those places with one hotel and 4 houses...and that was it. The hotel was also the post office, shop and petrol station. Drinking late we found the most drunk person there in high singing spirits was the chief constable of Cornwall!
Our rental house was only 100 yds away, but as soon as we got outside, the buggers turned the lights off and we could not see a thing! Took us about 20 minutes trying to avoid ditches to get back :lol:

 

[Cqr]

Welcome to the forum :drunk:

 

[garymscott]

I have an idea already what might have been the problem

Hi MyQul I've posted further details in the General Beer Brewing Discussion so would be great to hear your thoughts on what you think may be wrong!

 

[Robrew]

Hey Gary,

I am also in Cambridge and I was in same position as you and found it a big jump to go from beer kits when you only had to ferment to all the different stages of learning mash, sparge, boil, liquor down, cool, ferment, rack into secondary vessel, fine etc. Plenty of variables to get wrong and I did :-?. I had a few mess ups and then decided to do some extract brewing which I found really helpful in building confidence up to All Grain- good for practising the boil and bittering/flavouring with different hops. Also learning rapid cooling of the wort was an art that took me a few goes, gloriously stuffed up first time with a bath of cold water:lol:. I found mastering those bits first meant I wasn't a fish out of water when went back to AG. Muntons do some high quality malt extracts including a Maris Otter and I always happy with results - to be fair I don't mind if beer kits, extract or All Grain I have had nice beers from all and tend to select according to my time available (kids!) All the best for happy brewing!

 

[BeerCat]

Hi BeerCat, I thought the same thing. The new Punk IPA has a LOT of hops so I purchased ingredients for the old Punk IPA recipe instead as it requires fewer hops.

Let us know how you get on and don't worry about screwing up your brews. Plenty of great advice on here. I have poured a few down the drain myself but enjoying about 90% of my brews. I am no expert but i reckon if your beer tasted that bad it was either infected or you mashed at the wrong temps. Start a brew thread and do something simple for a tester. I love the Witbir from the Greg Hughes book.