The 'Top Tips' Thread!

[Kev75]

KISS Keep It Simple Stupid,
Use a small stainless or plastic bucket to collect the runnings off the MT, don't bother with fancy gubbinses, pumps valves and pipework, and sparge arms, 2 or 3 batch sparges/remashes collected in the bucket to a volume mark. When you have what is required, say 28 or 30 lts for a 5 gal jobby, STOP, leave the hydrometer in the cupboard. Boil, add hops wait 85 mins add more hops wait 5mins STOP. Use a nice simple coil cooler, I made a fancy counterflow hosepipe microbore cooler and it really is brilliant except (sorry Jim) the outlet temp is difficult to control and how do you clean and sterilise it?. run off into the FV use one of those big fancy sieves to capture the hops which will strain the trub as well, don't make a fancy strainer in the bottom of the boiler. Put the beer from the FV into a cask, or a plain plastic barrel. You may now measure the OG, BUT if you are repeating the same recipe carefully more than twice forget the hydrometer, it will only read the same as the previous two times. Learn what temperature is what just by sticking a finger in a glass of lukewarm water, is it 25 or 35 deg?, it is easy to tell. Use a nice fast yeast like S-04, follow the instructions and sprinkle into FV and job will be done in 4 to 6 days. Make up a light batten board and use an old fridge or plywood cupboard lined with insulating sheets and a digital thermometer, if cold of an eveneing switch the lights on overnight. Buy a jar of fresh isinglass solution and use a small cupful and your beer will be drinkable in another couple of days and perfect in less than a week. Use nice hops like Fuggles and Goldings ( as per G Wheeler) nobody went wrong using them. Buy your malt in a 25kg sack and put it in a rat/mouse proof cupboard, keep a spare thermometer ( G wheeler again). Irish moss works great you will need a teaspoon full. While your wort is boiling throw all your apparatus (jars jugs thermometers hydrometers sieve etc.) into the FV add 5 to 10 litres of lukewarm water, add several big glugs of everyday cheap bleach swirl and leave, rinse with hosepipe. RECIPE 4Kg of Maris Otter 100gm of Crystal malt, hlt at 77deg into the MT at 66. 40 gms of Goldings to start with 20 gms of Fuggles at the end. Golden nectar all day long, want it stronger add a tin of Tate and Lyles Golden slurp, want it darker and maltier add another 100gms of crystal, want a better head add a big handful of torrified wheat. Buy your 1gm digital scales from Tesco at no more than 13 squid. If you use an old Baby Burco forget the tap and just use a small Youngs 10 lt. bucket to jug it out. TASTE the wort at ALL stages. TASTE the beer in the FV at the end of the ferment before you cask it, this will tell you more than a hydrometer.

Blackjack - I gotta say that reading your post was refreshingly honest! How long have you been brewing?

My top tip - never ever and I mean never substitute beer yeast for wine yeast when making beer.
Ran out over the bank hols and substituted it in so that I didn't loose the wort I had made before realsing I had no yeast .
Ploughing my way through something very awful at the moment but at least it means the other brews have more time to mature.

[delboy]

What about keeping the ferment cool? The warm weather is here and I've lost batches to racing fermentation before producing thin orrible beer. I've resorted to putting the bucket in the bath on occassion and filling it with cold water but I get greif from the wife and daughter, so I use the kitchen sink instead, which isn't grief free either. Simple tips for keeping the FV cool would be appreciated

Move north (or count your blessings), i could probably count on one hand the number of days in the year that i would have to worry about the fermenter getting to hot

A wet towel draped over the bucket is supposed to cool the fermenter via evaporation, you could also put the fermenter on a stone/tiled surface (such as a garage floor) which should remain cooler (unless of course its getting direct sunlight).

At the end of the day though a second hand fridge and a temp controller is the way to go for a long term fix to the problem.

[Blackjack]

Blackjack - I gotta say that reading your post was refreshingly honest! How long have you been brewing?

My top tip - never ever and I mean never substitute beer yeast for wine yeast when making beer.
Ran out over the bank hols and substituted it in so that I didn't loose the wort I had made before realsing I had no yeast .
Ploughing my way through something very awful at the moment but at least it means the other brews have more time to mature.

Just barrelled my third brew, hee hee! but I did brew many moons ago when god was a lad and I was an analytical chemist and engineer.
Still doesn't make it all any less true.

Oh. Thermometers make pee poor stirrers
Follow commercial practice and recipes and you will produce cheap beer with a cheaper taste than is necessary.
Brew 6 gal not 5 to fill the cheap plastic barrel.
If you only brewed 4 1/2 flush the air out of the ullage when you rack it into the barrel with a couple of 3 second blasts of CO2 on the S30 cap while you KEEP THE TOP SLIGHTLY LOOSE, then screw the top down tight.
Forget priming and second ferments and bottles, real men prefer their beer warm and flat out of a barrel.
Get your microbore and plumbing fittings from a traditional plumbers merchants at less than half price of Bn'Screwit

[Dr. Dextrin]

Up until the point of consuming your beer, always keep copious notes on everything you do...

After consuming your beer, make sure you leave no record of anything you do...

[BarnsleyBrewer]

Never let your bollocks dangle in the dust.

[BarnsleyBrewer]

KISS Keep It Simple Stupid,
Use a small stainless or plastic bucket to collect the runnings off the MT, don't bother with fancy gubbinses, pumps valves and pipework, and sparge arms, 2 or 3 batch sparges/remashes collected in the bucket to a volume mark. When you have what is required, say 28 or 30 lts for a 5 gal jobby, STOP, leave the hydrometer in the cupboard. Boil, add hops wait 85 mins add more hops wait 5mins STOP. Use a nice simple coil cooler, I made a fancy counterflow hosepipe microbore cooler and it really is brilliant except (sorry Jim) the outlet temp is difficult to control and how do you clean and sterilise it?. run off into the FV use one of those big fancy sieves to capture the hops which will strain the trub as well, don't make a fancy strainer in the bottom of the boiler. Put the beer from the FV into a cask, or a plain plastic barrel. You may now measure the OG, BUT if you are repeating the same recipe carefully more than twice forget the hydrometer, it will only read the same as the previous two times. Learn what temperature is what just by sticking a finger in a glass of lukewarm water, is it 25 or 35 deg?, it is easy to tell. Use a nice fast yeast like S-04, follow the instructions and sprinkle into FV and job will be done in 4 to 6 days. Make up a light batten board and use an old fridge or plywood cupboard lined with insulating sheets and a digital thermometer, if cold of an eveneing switch the lights on overnight. Buy a jar of fresh isinglass solution and use a small cupful and your beer will be drinkable in another couple of days and perfect in less than a week. Use nice hops like Fuggles and Goldings ( as per G Wheeler) nobody went wrong using them. Buy your malt in a 25kg sack and put it in a rat/mouse proof cupboard, keep a spare thermometer ( G wheeler again). Irish moss works great you will need a teaspoon full. While your wort is boiling throw all your apparatus (jars jugs thermometers hydrometers sieve etc.) into the FV add 5 to 10 litres of lukewarm water, add several big glugs of everyday cheap bleach swirl and leave, rinse with hosepipe. RECIPE 4Kg of Maris Otter 100gm of Crystal malt, hlt at 77deg into the MT at 66. 40 gms of Goldings to start with 20 gms of Fuggles at the end. Golden nectar all day long, want it stronger add a tin of Tate and Lyles Golden slurp, want it darker and maltier add another 100gms of crystal, want a better head add a big handful of torrified wheat. Buy your 1gm digital scales from Tesco at no more than 13 squid. If you use an old Baby Burco forget the tap and just use a small Youngs 10 lt. bucket to jug it out. TASTE the wort at ALL stages. TASTE the beer in the FV at the end of the ferment before you cask it, this will tell you more than a hydrometer.

Me too, FANTASTIC!!!!

[Nunfa1]

Blackjack you nailed it. Beer is a simple drink and a simple pleasure, don't over complicate it. You gave some of the most sensible advice I've seen on the net with regard to home brewing, although I do use a thermometer and hydrometer but that's because I don't trust my own senses.

[EccentricDyslexic]

I defo 'KISS' when cleaning, like Blackjack i just use a glug of domestos but on a scourer sponge and use that to clean everything from fermentaion vessels to cornies. Then hose it off really well in the garden! Some people have the most ardious cleaning routines.

Steve

[Hogarth]

As Blackjack says, Keep it Simple!

There's one thing I'd add to his list: don't get married.

[weiht]

Always make a starter

[trucker5774]

Don't eat yellow snow

[Deebee]

Bulk prime when bottling..........it's way too much hassle to spoon onto bottles (and not accurate) even a syringe is a pain. I sometimes prime in the FV, which is not as daft as it first sounds.....try it

Bottle with no primings. It really works.

please give more info? does it still carbonate (but must take longer)

[Deebee]

After drinking a few bottles, wash them, steralise them, then cover the tops with a piece of cling film, that way you won't have to do the whole lot in one go.
I've stored bottles for a year like this.

I always wash the bottles in the washing machine with no soap. then wash with the standard bottle cleanser ( it cleans the machine nicesly too) then sett the machine on a hot program with no soap over night.

Caps are cheap, let the bottles dry properly, then cap them if they are going to be stored somewhere dustly ( like my garage.)

bottling day, open, prime fill recap.

I have yet to try priming the bottles prior to capping them the first time before storeage.

[the red devil]

One I found recently. Never bottle your beer until you are sure it's ready:!: 4 weeks after bottling I had several explode

On the cleaning side, I use the sterilising solution used for baby’s bottles. Works for me. I put my bottles in the dish washer and then rinse them. Never had a bad bottle (except the exploding sort).

[raiderman]

Don't bottle it in whisky bottles. First brew I ever did, I bottled it in old Bells bottles, it looked great in clear bottles, tasted pretty good - I can still remember sipping it revising for my O levels and thinking this is the life. I left it in the airing cupboard and after ten days I heard this crump crump noise followed by beer dribbling through the ceiling. A painful lesson!