What I've learned so far....

[Birkin]

I feel like I've graduated. I don't feel like a noob anymore, so I though I would share what I've learned so far, for anyone who might be interested.

1 - If you want to brew all grain, its about having / making the equipment. Relax, its not as hard as you think it is.

2 - Recipe's often quote mashing temps to decimal places. Ignore this unless you're a large commercial brewery, a few degrees either side won't ruin your brew, in reality it just tends to lower mash efficiency. Treat them as ideals not rigid limits.

3 - As you adapt, your mash efficiency will probably be low, you can offset this by adding an extra 1/2 to a kilo of base malt

4 - mash bins are expensive. The bucket in a bucket wrapped with a blanket works well.

5 - batch sparging seems to work surprisingly well! I'm going to try a decoction mash / batch sparge next.

6 - you can buy LCD thermometers with a probe on a wire for £2 off eBay. They're great. Buy at least 3.

7 - don't buy big stainless steel thermometers for a mash bin, they act like a heatsink and give inaccurate readings as a result

8 - if bottling, bulmers bottles are ideal. They hold exactly a pint with an inch of air space

9 - bottling again, buy a racking cane and a bottling wand. Buy a bench capper. Don't buy one of those plastic lever action hand held cappers, they're terrible.

10 - for priming, ordinary sugar works fine. Mix it with boiling water, let it cool covered in cling film until less than 40 degrees, then gently mix it into your beer (after racking from the fv). Let it settle for half an hour to disperse then bottle, I get great, even carbonation. This way and find 100g for 23 litres to be about right.

11 - Supermarkets stock a lot of craft beers now, try them all! Great for ideas, some even tell you what hops and malt they use.

12 - A good, clean and crisp home brew lager is a wonder to behold. I have a whole new appreciation for commercial lagers.

13 - 30 litre boilers are a little on the small side, I bought one, and now have 2. If you want to make 23l batches then a 40 litre boiler will make things easier

14 - lastly, if you're on a budget, the Burco Cygnet 30 litre boiler is an absolute bargain (mine was £69 off eBay) holds a lovely rolling boil with no modifications and works well for 19l batches with a 90 min boil, or 23 l batches with a 60 min boil. And, Burco customer services are absolute top banana.

 

[Notlaw]

Great stuff. Cheers Birkin

 

[cheapbrew]

Nice one Birkin :thumb:

 

[Bigcol49]

Thanks for that, Birkin.
+1 for Bulmers bottles and the bench capper.

 

[Birkin]

Thanks for that, Birkin.
+1 for Bulmers bottles and the bench capper.

It's the way forward! I did have a cheap twin lever plastic capper, it would bend and flex around the neck of the bottle, and you'd end up decapitating bottles trying to stop it jumping off.

In the end I chopped it up and used it as a hammer on capper to save wasting the batch.

After that I bought a cheap bench capper (£30), its an absolute breeze to use and never causes any hassle at all!

 

[islaybrew]

great post as i'm looking into beer as my next venture! thanks

 

[Hops_and_Dreams]

Great post.

On point 10, I've often seen this said about cooling and wondered why. I tend to make up my sugar solution first and let it cool for however long it takes me to get the bottling bucket ready to rack into, but I never bother reading the temp. I figure that 200ml or so of hot liquid won't take a lot of beer to cool down, when racked on top of it. Is there a reason for the cooling then?

 

[wheazy_joe]

Thanks for that, Birkin.
+1 for Bulmers bottles and the bench capper.

On the subject of twin lever cappers, I at first thought mine was utter garbage, I was taking ages to cap and even breaking the neck off bottles. Then I realised there was a slight spring action to the capper. With this I can now accurately and consistently cap bottles so quick I would be happy to challenge any bench capper to a race!

 

[Birkin]

I have to be honest, I let it cool as a precaution, as you don't want the hot liquid to kill the remaining yeast needed for carbonation.

Realistically speaking if you dumped it in straight after mixing it would probably be fine due to the volume, as you said.

During my last brew, it did cross my mind that the main reason we cool beer quickly is to reduce the risk of nasties beginning to propagate at warm temps while naturally cooling down (Which I guess would take many hours). So arguably, letting it sit for a while to cool isnt ideal.

A I'll say is I've dumped it in at 60 degrees before and saw no I'll effects... These days I make the sugar solution up before rackin from the fv into my bottling bucket, by the time I've done that it's cool enough that in happy to dump it in!

 

[Birkin]

On the subject of twin lever cappers, I at first thought mine was utter garbage, I was taking ages to cap and even breaking the neck off bottles. Then I realised there was a slight spring action to the capper. With this I can now accurately and consistently cap bottles so quick I would be happy to challenge any bench capper to a race!

I found it depends on the bottles, I reuse bottles rather than buy them, some have a rounded ish neck, which the twin lever capper struggles to grip due to the flex in the plastic linkages.

The bench capper will never have that issue. I spent a while persevering with it, but it just couldn't get a good enough grip on the neck of the bottles I was using at the time (They were San Miguel bottles)

San Miguel bottles are too small for homebrew really, but I had to use them for my first batch because San Miguel tastes so much better than Bulmers.