Sigh. I guess it was about time. And truthfully i knew i was taking the piss a bit by 'taking a punt', thinking in the back of my mind that it wouldnt really matter because i already have too much beer anyway. Still, sad to see it die (and possibly have to dump some equipment in the process).
So, i toasted as per the instructions and dumped 100g or so of Dessicated coconut in to the fermenter. Nowhere can i find any instructions on how to sanitise this stuff for this purpose (although plenty of people are talking about adding it) but sure enough a couple of days later the delicious porter smells like paint stripper and is sporting a thin white film. Apparently this is an Acetobacter infection (or looks a lot like it) - it basically turns the alcohol in to vinegar. I've had this once before thanks to summer brewing a 25L lager kit and a fruit fly finding its way in. Very sad times pouring that one away. but from experience you dont want to drink it, even though you still can.
So i suppose in some ways all is not lost. 6L of Dark coconut malt vinegar might make a good Christmas gift for someone.
someone i hate.
Friday 14 December 2012
Wednesday 12 December 2012
1952 JW Lee's Ruby Mild
Impromptu 'slow sunday' Brewday/evening.
Due to the apparent success of other Barclay Perkins site recipe (1914 AK) the write up on this Best Mild sounded promising.
Its a curious psychology - i guess part interest in how beers 'used to be', part investigation of the complete unknown (although not in this case, use of adjuncts like corn and high % of invert syrup seems to have died a death in the modern world of brewing) but mostly, if i'm honest, is the ability to say 'i tried this, and if its no good its not my fault, it was a complete experiment!' - lack of confidence on show i guess, but at 5L brewlength not much lost, potentially huge gain.
Anyway, this was chosen for a couple of reasons; first i'd like a different style for Christmas - Mild is supposed to be pretty quick turn around, and i dont have any 'in stock'. Secondly though is my Dad - he's supportive of the 'hobby' but not that interested in the specifics. Maybe he's just that way with beer anyway, but i'd like to make something that actually impresses him - convince him i can actually make 'beer'. Unfortunately (if you will....) he likes bitter. I don't not like bitter, but i'm still at that stage where its a world of wonderous flavours, styles to be copied, ingredients to be experimented with. He's given the thumbs up to the 'experimental pale ale', but its not his thing, thats fair enough.
So, this doesnt really support 'Best Mild', but, this recipe is from his year of Birth. Its a talking point. Hopefully representing something in itself that is enough of a curiosity it'll be interesting to try, analyse together? Who knows. Either way, not much lost, potentially huge gain.
Recipe (should start really doing these properly):
Brewlength: 5L
Assumed Efficiency: 65% (actually nearer 70...had to water down a bit - approx 5.5l result)
Aiming @ 3.5% ABV
OG 1.038
Mini-bucket kitchen top brew :)
Grain
770g Lager Malt (current base malt :/)
60g Crystal
40g Chocolate
20g Brown
20g Black
20g Barley Flakes (personal addition to up the body issues i've been having with some beers - seems to help, especially w/ lower gravity)
150g Golden Syrup (in place of Invert Sugar - In the boil)
Mash
90min Mash @ 66C (ended @ 64)
3.3Litres
Sparge @ 77C (Fly sparge over approx 30 mins, straight from kettle)
All Bottled Water.
Stopped a little early hitting approx gravity (1.025 - amended for temp). Approx 7.5L
Boil
90 mins
9g Fuggles @ 90
3g Fuggles @ 30
*Golden Syrup in @ 30.
Approx 30IBU
Yeast
SO4 @ Room temp - currently been 3 days and fermenting nicely. Room relatively warm - approx 20 so may ferment a little hot but fluctuations during day due to central heating. Must. Fix. Brew. Fridge.
Notes:
1.7L Kettle (yes an actual Kettle!) + 600ml tap water takes temp down to Mash in @ 73 to hit 67 deg C for Mash. 450ml addition = 77C sparge.
Had to add in a little extra water to hit gravity. Currently Ruby Red and very dark (was expecting mild to mean watery...shrug!) and smells incredible - dark cherries or something. Genuinely the best smelling pre-ferment wort i've made.
Due to the apparent success of other Barclay Perkins site recipe (1914 AK) the write up on this Best Mild sounded promising.
Its a curious psychology - i guess part interest in how beers 'used to be', part investigation of the complete unknown (although not in this case, use of adjuncts like corn and high % of invert syrup seems to have died a death in the modern world of brewing) but mostly, if i'm honest, is the ability to say 'i tried this, and if its no good its not my fault, it was a complete experiment!' - lack of confidence on show i guess, but at 5L brewlength not much lost, potentially huge gain.
Anyway, this was chosen for a couple of reasons; first i'd like a different style for Christmas - Mild is supposed to be pretty quick turn around, and i dont have any 'in stock'. Secondly though is my Dad - he's supportive of the 'hobby' but not that interested in the specifics. Maybe he's just that way with beer anyway, but i'd like to make something that actually impresses him - convince him i can actually make 'beer'. Unfortunately (if you will....) he likes bitter. I don't not like bitter, but i'm still at that stage where its a world of wonderous flavours, styles to be copied, ingredients to be experimented with. He's given the thumbs up to the 'experimental pale ale', but its not his thing, thats fair enough.
So, this doesnt really support 'Best Mild', but, this recipe is from his year of Birth. Its a talking point. Hopefully representing something in itself that is enough of a curiosity it'll be interesting to try, analyse together? Who knows. Either way, not much lost, potentially huge gain.
Recipe (should start really doing these properly):
Brewlength: 5L
Assumed Efficiency: 65% (actually nearer 70...had to water down a bit - approx 5.5l result)
Aiming @ 3.5% ABV
OG 1.038
Mini-bucket kitchen top brew :)
Grain
770g Lager Malt (current base malt :/)
60g Crystal
40g Chocolate
20g Brown
20g Black
20g Barley Flakes (personal addition to up the body issues i've been having with some beers - seems to help, especially w/ lower gravity)
150g Golden Syrup (in place of Invert Sugar - In the boil)
Mash
90min Mash @ 66C (ended @ 64)
3.3Litres
Sparge @ 77C (Fly sparge over approx 30 mins, straight from kettle)
All Bottled Water.
Stopped a little early hitting approx gravity (1.025 - amended for temp). Approx 7.5L
Boil
90 mins
9g Fuggles @ 90
3g Fuggles @ 30
*Golden Syrup in @ 30.
Approx 30IBU
Yeast
SO4 @ Room temp - currently been 3 days and fermenting nicely. Room relatively warm - approx 20 so may ferment a little hot but fluctuations during day due to central heating. Must. Fix. Brew. Fridge.
Notes:
1.7L Kettle (yes an actual Kettle!) + 600ml tap water takes temp down to Mash in @ 73 to hit 67 deg C for Mash. 450ml addition = 77C sparge.
Had to add in a little extra water to hit gravity. Currently Ruby Red and very dark (was expecting mild to mean watery...shrug!) and smells incredible - dark cherries or something. Genuinely the best smelling pre-ferment wort i've made.
Friday 7 December 2012
Perle
This is a rewarding hobby. Mainly rewarding with disappointment that you thought you knew what you were doing, but it turns out you didnt, but that in itself leads to greater understanding - most importantly understanding through experience.It's funny how complex something that is actually so simple can be. And how some assumptions you make can turn out to be totally wrong.
The example of my latest revelation: I had read, or maybe just assumed, Bittering hops were just for bittering. As long as you hit the required Alpha Acid level which itself will offset the sweetness of the malt to the right degree, your beer will be balanced. From this i extended my assumption (from reading....) that as all flavour and aroma is lost, you can more or less use any high alpha hop for bittering - the flavours are boiled off and its just...bitter. Of course i failed to consider the fact that if this was the case there probably wouldnt be so many options of bittering hops, and just one standardised, mass produced, cheap product that everyone used for everything. Ah....hindsight.
In addition to this i have a book which handily contains a chart of 'hop substitutions' - Hops similar to each other - useful in a pinch but (only now i consider...) it doesnt state exactly how these hops are similar - or for what purposes - flavour/aroma? Bittering? AA levels? Cone Shape? Geographical origin? - Valid reasons for comparison but in some cases absolutely no help when it comes to the end result.
I should mention here that i have a tendency to bodge things, mainly due to some deep set desire to save money, in this case by substituting ingredients so i dont have to keep stock of everything and assuming the end result will be the same... and partly because i have next to no forward planning skills, and very little patience, so even if i did order up the right ingredients i'd probably get itchy feet and start 'substitute brewing' before they turned up.
I digress. In this case my 4 Shades of Stout Recipe requested Cascade hops for bittering. A curiosity i thought because these are known for their citrussy aroma additions in american IPA (or is it APA now?). I didnt have any (surprise!) but thought as it was just for bittering a 'similar' hop with alpha levels scaled for the same bitterness would suffice. Out comes the book - somehow i ended up at Perle. I knew nothing about Perle - infact Tom's intention to put it in a Lager is the only reason i had any stock. I probably should have looked it up. Ah...hindsight again.
Last night: 3 weeks in the bottle and we have results. A near perfect stout (if a little young...) in body, colour, roastyness, mouthfeel. Finally a success after many substandard stouts! And that bitterness that lingers on the tongue... its like... Air. Like clean, almost minty air. Like drinking distilled water. Is it unpleasant? no. Is it right? no.
Oh well, its all a learning curve.
Thursday 29 November 2012
November Update!
Over the last month i have brewed 7 beers (holy crap!)
As follows, in no particular order (with recipe specific write ups to come):
Pilgrim Pale: Straight up SMaSH recipe with Maris Otter and UK Pilgrim hops. Part of an intended series of single hop brews (preceded by Apollo and home-grown Bramling X) to help understand certain hops/hopping rates/malt flavour etc on a basic level. Also as a means to test the efficiency of my home-crushed malt (result - drop 10 efficiency points - bummer.)
Notes: Was expecting 'Marmalade' flavours, and an additional malt sweetness thanks to decocting part of the mash (first attempt at this) currently rewarded with extreme hop bitterness and not a lot else. Mellowing with age though - probably should have dry-hopped to hell for a proper IPA. Still, its a project in understanding and sometimes thats best achieved through trial and error. Emphasis on the latter.
Stout day Stout: An improptu brew of the 4 Shade of Stout recipe found on JBK, partly because my dear friend Tom declared one Thursday afternoon it was stout day, and partly because my last (and only, thus far) 3 attempts at stout have been underwhelming at best, i thought 1 last attempt with a well hyped, tried and true recipe would settle things.
Notes: Only had 2 weeks in the bottle but its already looking pretty good. My concerns regarding the low quality of my previous efforts seem to be down to choosing the wrong recipe for what i wanted, or possibly even the wrong yeast. This was brewed with US05 because i am bad at forward planning and didnt have any so4 as intended. Similarly the previous efforts lacked that real stout mouth-feel fullness, that appears to have been rectified by 10% grainbill of flaked barley, and no torrified wheat, which may itself be the reason my other stouts tasted 'off'. Note: used perle for bittering as lacked the specified hops.
ESB: Most recent brew, performed with Christmas in mind with my step-dad Colin, to John Keeling's own homebrew recipe from BYO, with fullers yeast cultured from 2 bottles of Bengal Lancer.
He and i brewed a Landlord Clone last October for last Christmas but being one of my first forays in to Brewing in a bag (and lacking the experience) it came out...underwhelming (and under-carb'd). We since got together to brew 'The Bramling X experiment' a straight forward SMaSH recipe using only MO and hops he identified as BX cultivated from his garden (and dried in mine). The results were... excellent - how i wish it was easily repeatable, but not only is there a lack of supplies, but i didnt make any damn notes!
The ESB itself is scheduled for bottling this Sunday so no notes as yet, but it all went to letter despite a slightly lower than average gravity probably thanks to my recent variations in sparging methods (in an attempt to get that efficiency back up. Not too worried about the ABV however as the BYO John Keeling artcile suggest a low abv ESB is just a (dry-hopped) London Pride, and they are both excellent beers.
Then my good friend Tom and I stumbled on something very unusual; a day free of commitments, a day free of things to fix, clean or go out and purchase - a 'free' day - a day to do some brewing! so brew we did:
Chinook Pale: Exactly what it sounds like - yet another SMaSH, but this time with Lager Malt and of course, at Tom's request, Chinook hops. US05 Yeast as usual - this time dry hopped for 4 days in the primary (where it is at this moment) so no tasting notes at present, but more detail to follow.
Dunkel: Intended to be our first lager using my new outdoor brew-fridge and temp controller, this sadly ended up indoors fermenting away happily with US05 due to 36 hours of searching for my brew-belt proving fruitless and not wanting to leave the unfermented beer to sit for any longer, tempting fate. Again, still in the primary at this stage, but using US05 and intending to lager (because i dont have anywhere else to put it anyway!) hopefully this will turn out to be a lovely beer regardless, brewed to this recipe here.
I then had a thought, while we were standing around mashing/sparging/boiling/drinking/mashing/sparging/boiling, etc and realised i had everything required (mainly 2 small brewing buckets, and an extra tap/tank connector/etc required to set up a 5L 'trial' setup. Some drilling, a bit of gaffa tape and a few boils of the kettle later and we had on:
White House Honey Ale: Having brewed up the White House Porter with Tom previously (which proved to be a very nice beer indeed) it seemed fitting to give the other recipe a punt and there wasnt much involved in 5L in terms of ingredients etc. This went as per the recipe again, stopping the sparge slightly short at the correct gravity resulting in approx 4.5L yield. Fermented in a Tesco's Ashbeck water 5L jug with Fermentis Belgian Yeast (dont ask me why, it seemed like a good idea at the time....) This was bottled yesterday and tasted...like a reasonable american ale. Possibly overprimed following instructions for american pale beer - at only 4.5L it was worth a go.
That concluded Tom and I's day of brewing - tasting results to follow in a month or so.
Finally in terms of recent brews, following a trip to a pub in Dulwich with Tom himself handing me a pint of the excellent HeadInAHat Brewery 'Tommy Ipa' and explaining it was a pre-WW1 recipe the strange mixture of pale hoppy beer with full mouthfeel and a pleasant, but not terribly malty sweetness got me intrigued so i did some digging and happened upon what appears to be a similar recipe in:
Fullers 1914 AK - effectively an IPA in style this beer had the curious adjunct (at least to me) of flaked corn, but otherwise seemed to fit the bill. Having just put together the 5L mini-brew setup i figured it was worth a go. Lacking the necessary flaked corn, and the patience to order some i opted for coarse Polenta from the local World Foods shop. Fermented with So4 (sadly the Fullers yeast was not ready at this point) it went in to the bottle yesterday (via a rudimentary hop-back of a handful of hops in a sieve straining through to the bottling bucket, because, well, i was bottling and i'd forgotten to dryhop it days earlier) and this is possibly my most exciting prospect to date. Straight from the fermenter it tasted fantastic. Hopefully it will just get better! Proper write up to follow.
And thats it for now. Off home to brew a 5L batch of London Porter with Yeast from the ESB in the hope that it'll be drinkable for New Year!
Tasting notes for all of the above, sometime over Christmas i guess!
As follows, in no particular order (with recipe specific write ups to come):
Pilgrim Pale: Straight up SMaSH recipe with Maris Otter and UK Pilgrim hops. Part of an intended series of single hop brews (preceded by Apollo and home-grown Bramling X) to help understand certain hops/hopping rates/malt flavour etc on a basic level. Also as a means to test the efficiency of my home-crushed malt (result - drop 10 efficiency points - bummer.)
Notes: Was expecting 'Marmalade' flavours, and an additional malt sweetness thanks to decocting part of the mash (first attempt at this) currently rewarded with extreme hop bitterness and not a lot else. Mellowing with age though - probably should have dry-hopped to hell for a proper IPA. Still, its a project in understanding and sometimes thats best achieved through trial and error. Emphasis on the latter.
Stout day Stout: An improptu brew of the 4 Shade of Stout recipe found on JBK, partly because my dear friend Tom declared one Thursday afternoon it was stout day, and partly because my last (and only, thus far) 3 attempts at stout have been underwhelming at best, i thought 1 last attempt with a well hyped, tried and true recipe would settle things.
Notes: Only had 2 weeks in the bottle but its already looking pretty good. My concerns regarding the low quality of my previous efforts seem to be down to choosing the wrong recipe for what i wanted, or possibly even the wrong yeast. This was brewed with US05 because i am bad at forward planning and didnt have any so4 as intended. Similarly the previous efforts lacked that real stout mouth-feel fullness, that appears to have been rectified by 10% grainbill of flaked barley, and no torrified wheat, which may itself be the reason my other stouts tasted 'off'. Note: used perle for bittering as lacked the specified hops.
ESB: Most recent brew, performed with Christmas in mind with my step-dad Colin, to John Keeling's own homebrew recipe from BYO, with fullers yeast cultured from 2 bottles of Bengal Lancer.
He and i brewed a Landlord Clone last October for last Christmas but being one of my first forays in to Brewing in a bag (and lacking the experience) it came out...underwhelming (and under-carb'd). We since got together to brew 'The Bramling X experiment' a straight forward SMaSH recipe using only MO and hops he identified as BX cultivated from his garden (and dried in mine). The results were... excellent - how i wish it was easily repeatable, but not only is there a lack of supplies, but i didnt make any damn notes!
The ESB itself is scheduled for bottling this Sunday so no notes as yet, but it all went to letter despite a slightly lower than average gravity probably thanks to my recent variations in sparging methods (in an attempt to get that efficiency back up. Not too worried about the ABV however as the BYO John Keeling artcile suggest a low abv ESB is just a (dry-hopped) London Pride, and they are both excellent beers.
Then my good friend Tom and I stumbled on something very unusual; a day free of commitments, a day free of things to fix, clean or go out and purchase - a 'free' day - a day to do some brewing! so brew we did:
Chinook Pale: Exactly what it sounds like - yet another SMaSH, but this time with Lager Malt and of course, at Tom's request, Chinook hops. US05 Yeast as usual - this time dry hopped for 4 days in the primary (where it is at this moment) so no tasting notes at present, but more detail to follow.
Dunkel: Intended to be our first lager using my new outdoor brew-fridge and temp controller, this sadly ended up indoors fermenting away happily with US05 due to 36 hours of searching for my brew-belt proving fruitless and not wanting to leave the unfermented beer to sit for any longer, tempting fate. Again, still in the primary at this stage, but using US05 and intending to lager (because i dont have anywhere else to put it anyway!) hopefully this will turn out to be a lovely beer regardless, brewed to this recipe here.
I then had a thought, while we were standing around mashing/sparging/boiling/drinking/mashing/sparging/boiling, etc and realised i had everything required (mainly 2 small brewing buckets, and an extra tap/tank connector/etc required to set up a 5L 'trial' setup. Some drilling, a bit of gaffa tape and a few boils of the kettle later and we had on:
White House Honey Ale: Having brewed up the White House Porter with Tom previously (which proved to be a very nice beer indeed) it seemed fitting to give the other recipe a punt and there wasnt much involved in 5L in terms of ingredients etc. This went as per the recipe again, stopping the sparge slightly short at the correct gravity resulting in approx 4.5L yield. Fermented in a Tesco's Ashbeck water 5L jug with Fermentis Belgian Yeast (dont ask me why, it seemed like a good idea at the time....) This was bottled yesterday and tasted...like a reasonable american ale. Possibly overprimed following instructions for american pale beer - at only 4.5L it was worth a go.
That concluded Tom and I's day of brewing - tasting results to follow in a month or so.
Finally in terms of recent brews, following a trip to a pub in Dulwich with Tom himself handing me a pint of the excellent HeadInAHat Brewery 'Tommy Ipa' and explaining it was a pre-WW1 recipe the strange mixture of pale hoppy beer with full mouthfeel and a pleasant, but not terribly malty sweetness got me intrigued so i did some digging and happened upon what appears to be a similar recipe in:
Fullers 1914 AK - effectively an IPA in style this beer had the curious adjunct (at least to me) of flaked corn, but otherwise seemed to fit the bill. Having just put together the 5L mini-brew setup i figured it was worth a go. Lacking the necessary flaked corn, and the patience to order some i opted for coarse Polenta from the local World Foods shop. Fermented with So4 (sadly the Fullers yeast was not ready at this point) it went in to the bottle yesterday (via a rudimentary hop-back of a handful of hops in a sieve straining through to the bottling bucket, because, well, i was bottling and i'd forgotten to dryhop it days earlier) and this is possibly my most exciting prospect to date. Straight from the fermenter it tasted fantastic. Hopefully it will just get better! Proper write up to follow.
And thats it for now. Off home to brew a 5L batch of London Porter with Yeast from the ESB in the hope that it'll be drinkable for New Year!
Tasting notes for all of the above, sometime over Christmas i guess!
Saturday 27 October 2012
Success? Sort of
I mentioned in my previous post a problem with having to crush 25kg's of grain. Having got my well connected hombre Tom to ask around on twitter, sadly no one around these parts seemed to be able to offer crushing services so it was time to take matters in to my own hands.
Behold, the pasta maker grain crusher.
1 battery powered drill, 3 clamps, a couple of bits of scrap wood and a now ruined pasta maker and it's problem solved.
Ok sort of - its slow. But it's also pretty much hands off thanks to the 10mm drill bit and tiny clamp so speed isn't a major problem when you're not having to hand crank it. Theres no way in hell im going to manage to crush my 25kg's in one sitting but I think it should manage to do enough pale malt needed for a 10L brew in the time it takes for the mash water to get up to temp so as long as I remember to forward plan a bit it should work.
So, here's a quick rundown of how I put it together:
The pasta maker in the main component doing the crushing. As it is, with smooth rollers, it is useless for this purpose so the most important thing was to ruin the rollers to give something to grab the grain and pull it through. I tried running the rollers with the drill and simultaneously running a file across it, making a lot of vertical lines but that proved pretty useless, so using the same file without the rollers moving I scraped a series of horizontal lines on the rollers at varying points. Voila, success.
On top of this the only other major components were the 'drill' which is my 12v ryobi lithium screwdriver with a 10mm flat wood bit in which is the correct size for my pasta makers crank slot. Add a couple of bits of scrap wood for it to lean in to get it at the right height and an upside down bottle with the bottom removed, acting as a hopper, set in to a piece of scrap plywood cut to sit on top of the pasta maker. The feed in is slow as its only coming through in 1 place (rather than across the width of the rollers) so im going to see if I can make something better for this.
Finally i've made a chute out of a bit of foam board a scored in 2 places to make it fold and just pushed it through the gap and taped it to the back. Works perfectly.
Clamp it all down to stop it moving about and use a small babco 100mm clamp on the drill trigger set to about 1/3 speed and cue me laughing like Dr. Frankenstein.
All in all not long to put together and already owning the pasta maker only cost about £0.74 for the 10mm drill bit.
Next up: brew fridge! And hopefully some brewing.
UPDATE: I have switched out the standard size bottle for a 5L water bottle bought from Tesco in the same configuration. Having measured this holds about 2.5kg's of grain, takes a while, but means i can leave it on in the morning when i go out to work. Battery only lasts about an hour on the drill so it wears itself out relatively quickly. Neighbours might complain, but probably not as much as the girlfriend if i leave it on while she's trying to watch tv.
Behold, the pasta maker grain crusher.
Ok sort of - its slow. But it's also pretty much hands off thanks to the 10mm drill bit and tiny clamp so speed isn't a major problem when you're not having to hand crank it. Theres no way in hell im going to manage to crush my 25kg's in one sitting but I think it should manage to do enough pale malt needed for a 10L brew in the time it takes for the mash water to get up to temp so as long as I remember to forward plan a bit it should work.
So, here's a quick rundown of how I put it together:
The pasta maker in the main component doing the crushing. As it is, with smooth rollers, it is useless for this purpose so the most important thing was to ruin the rollers to give something to grab the grain and pull it through. I tried running the rollers with the drill and simultaneously running a file across it, making a lot of vertical lines but that proved pretty useless, so using the same file without the rollers moving I scraped a series of horizontal lines on the rollers at varying points. Voila, success.
On top of this the only other major components were the 'drill' which is my 12v ryobi lithium screwdriver with a 10mm flat wood bit in which is the correct size for my pasta makers crank slot. Add a couple of bits of scrap wood for it to lean in to get it at the right height and an upside down bottle with the bottom removed, acting as a hopper, set in to a piece of scrap plywood cut to sit on top of the pasta maker. The feed in is slow as its only coming through in 1 place (rather than across the width of the rollers) so im going to see if I can make something better for this.
Finally i've made a chute out of a bit of foam board a scored in 2 places to make it fold and just pushed it through the gap and taped it to the back. Works perfectly.
Clamp it all down to stop it moving about and use a small babco 100mm clamp on the drill trigger set to about 1/3 speed and cue me laughing like Dr. Frankenstein.
All in all not long to put together and already owning the pasta maker only cost about £0.74 for the 10mm drill bit.
Next up: brew fridge! And hopefully some brewing.
UPDATE: I have switched out the standard size bottle for a 5L water bottle bought from Tesco in the same configuration. Having measured this holds about 2.5kg's of grain, takes a while, but means i can leave it on in the morning when i go out to work. Battery only lasts about an hour on the drill so it wears itself out relatively quickly. Neighbours might complain, but probably not as much as the girlfriend if i leave it on while she's trying to watch tv.
 |
| the crush |
Friday 26 October 2012
One
So here we are. An attempt to start to catalogue my brewing sessions and make sense of some of the processes through analysis as a way to improve and understand, rather than just muddling through and seeing what happens.
I will write up some previous sessions shortly, and hopefully all in more detail from here on out.
But first i've gotta find a way to crush 25kg's of Pale malt. What can i say, its a learning curve, and not reading the specifics when you're placing the order for the next 6 months ingredients supplies is a mistake i'm not going to make again.
I will write up some previous sessions shortly, and hopefully all in more detail from here on out.
But first i've gotta find a way to crush 25kg's of Pale malt. What can i say, its a learning curve, and not reading the specifics when you're placing the order for the next 6 months ingredients supplies is a mistake i'm not going to make again.
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