Boil - with lid or not?

Dexter101 said:

It was light hearted curiosity but I was hoping someone would explain why it would be a bad or good idea.

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Back in the mists of time (okay, only 20-30 years ago) there were "home-brew shops" about that let you brew your own on-site and go away with the wort to ferment at home.

Probably in the interests of speed and turnover of punters, the boilers were effectively big pressure cookers.

I wonder what ever became of that idea (or even if there was more than one such "shops"). I think I saw it on the telly, a pre-cursor to the "Gadget Show" perhaps?

peebee said:

Back in the mists of time (okay, only 20-30 years ago) there were "home-brew shops" about that let you brew your own on-site and go away with the wort to ferment at home.

Probably in the interests of speed and turnover of punters, the boilers were effectively big pressure cookers.

I wonder what ever became of that idea (or even if there was more than one such "shops"). I think I saw it on the telly, a pre-cursor to the "Gadget Show" perhaps?

Click to expand...

Wow, thats an interesting idea! Was there more kit based homebrewing going on and this was a way to make all grain more accessible?

peebee said:

Back in the mists of time (okay, only 20-30 years ago) there were "home-brew shops" about that let you brew your own on-site and go away with the wort to ferment at home.

Probably in the interests of speed and turnover of punters, the boilers were effectively big pressure cookers.

I wonder what ever became of that idea (or even if there was more than one such "shops"). I think I saw it on the telly, a pre-cursor to the "Gadget Show" perhaps?

Click to expand...

How would you put the hop additions in?

Nicks90 said:

How would you put the hop additions in?

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Was that a joke? Or a wind up? If it was quite a few readers on this forum won't get it!

20 or 30 years ago "keg" beer was guaranteed to be cold fizzy krap. New world beers were guaranteed to be cold fizzy krap. Since then we've been introduced to many new ingredients and techniques (mainly from USA? The old masters of cold fizzy krap "beer"); now "keg" isn't the guarantee it once was of krap beer and we have "hop additions" to contend with.

But these boilers: I think you could add, somehow, the traditional "handful near the end of the boil"?

(EDIT: "20 or 30 years ago", I think that may be wishful thinking. Could be 30 or 40 years ago).

Dexter101 said:

Wow, thats an interesting idea! Was there more kit based homebrewing going on and this was a way to make all grain more accessible?

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Good point. My memory can't tell me if this enterprise was extract only (probably?) or had mashing facilities. But you have to remember that back then "all grain" brewers were quite rare (I was one, and humanity was quite fortunate that the likes of me was "quite rare").

The enterprise will pre-date the Web so I'll probably fail to find any reference to it.

We had one of those facilities here, only just recently closed down, you could make 42 litres of beer, all extract with some grain and it took 2 hours total including a 1 hour boil. The punter had to pitch the yeast to keep it legal. They did have hinged domed lids but they were left up, not down.
https://www.adrenaline.com.au/beer/...6jFz4XWgwzTPAdTGD4-Mb5oHfwvKMPnQaAtuDEALw_wcB

foxy said:

We had one of those facilities here, only just recently closed down, you could make 42 litres of beer, all extract with some grain and it took 2 hours total including a 1 hour boil. The punter had to pitch the yeast to keep it legal. They did have hinged domed lids but they were left up, not down.

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That's pretty well it. Thanks! But my memory recalls much chunkier boilers that had to have the lid sealed (and screwed down); for steam extraction certainly, even if my memory fails me and they weren't actually pressure cookers. (Long-term memory survived my recent attempts at annihilating of all such things, so my old memories are only as screwed up as everyone else's).

Hmmm, I think its the old "rising out of all proportion" costs is whats seen many of them off.

Homebrew has never been better than now in my opinion as so many tips and methods are online.
But a good homebrew shop is priceless.