How to improve my method?

[scarer]

I've brewed 8 AG brews now and quite happy with the method and know what I'm doing and I'm now wondering what I could look at next to improve/ tweek what I do.

Up until now I haven't bothered with water treatment apart from a campden tablet or mash temp (66-67C) or PH.

Where would you suggest I try to start making slight improvements to my brews, what would really make a difference first?

I use Nottingham dried yeast, Hampshire tap water with a Campden tablet, a coolbox MT/ fly sparge (87% average efficiency) and a Burco boiler.

Cheers

[Seveneer]

Fermentation temperature control. Transformed my beers overnight.

/Phil.

[Parp]

Fermentation temperature control. Transformed my beers overnight.

Any pics or linkies ?

A step by step eejits guide with foolproof construction guides

I'm crap - i wrecked a placcy fermenter today trying to put a tap hole in!

Hehe!

And

[Seveneer]

There's loads on here about it.

I use the method that Steve Flack uses ie. a copper probe with chilled water to cool and vivarium heaters to heat, all controlled by an ATC800 temperature controller. Steve had a number of threads about it. This is the first one

Before that I used a chest freezer controlled by an ATC800.

With the summer hopefully on its way it's going to get more and more difficult to keep the fermentation temperature down below 21C without using some kind of forced cooling.

/Phil.

[Parp]

Luckily, it hardly ever gets as warm up here.

I'll get the whole shebang going at some stage.

I've only been back in the game a few months.

Back to mashing next week

[Whorst]

Liquid yeast cultures, better water. I don't know what's in your water, but I never use tap water. I use bottled spring water. I'd also use 5.2 in your mash, unless you know your mash pH is 5.2-5.5. These things along with temperature control will be substantial in the overall quality of your beers.

[scarer]

I want to do it one step at a time so I can monitor the improvements if any.

I've been looking for a fridge. I've already got the ATC800 controller.

Second hand fridges are a problem because I need to hire a van to collect and it takes the price up to a new one so today I've been to Currys and Comet getting measurements.

plus it keeps SWMBO happy 'cos its A rated

I'll probably get a tall larder fridge without a freezer compartment, then I can get either 4 cornies in it or one fermenting bin.

But until I actually get a fridge, what's going to give me the most noticeable improvement?

[Aleman]

'll probably get a tall larder fridge without a freezer compartment, then I can get either 4 cornies in it or one fermenting bin.

But until I actually get a fridge, what's going to give me the most noticeable improvement?

If you get the right one you can get 8 Cornii in it (I know cause I actually took 8 Cornii to Comet when I went looking )

Temperature is the most important factor in brewing . .. Mash temp and Fermenting temp. Yeast is another factor, you should see a change using liquid to dried, but without temperature control its unlikely to be very noticable.

I would suggest using more grain and stopping collecting wort earlier, will give you a better quality wort, otherwise the little things you do like water treatment etc are really only minor

[Dennis King]

Liquid yeast cultures, better water. I don't know what's in your water, but I never use tap water. I use bottled spring water. I'd also use 5.2 in your mash, unless you know your mash pH is 5.2-5.5. These things along with temperature control will be substantial in the overall quality of your beers.

Agree with the yeast, but in the uk our tap water is ok just needs ph treatment.

[scarer]

If you get the right one you can get 8 Cornii in it (I know cause I actually took 8 Cornii to Comet when I went looking )

Wow! which one was that? All the fridges I looked at yesterday were a max of 110mm inside from the bottom shelf and for two cornies I'd need 130mm.

It's the compressor hump that was the problem.

[MARMITE]

I have built a brewroom with a polycarb roof so it does suffer from extremes of temperature. To get over this I constructed an insulated cabinet under the worktop measuring 48insx 36insx 22ins.so there is plenty of room for several brews at once plus bottle conditioning.I have installed a 60 watt heater with thermostat which works wonderfully well in the winter.In the recent hot weather I filled 2 x 5 gall fermenting bins up with cold water(about 12 degrees) in the morning and the temperature never rose above 21c I replaced the water each morning .I would still be interested which fridge you bought Aleman because I am interested in brewing some lagers soon.

[scarer]

Ok so I'm going to look at the fermenting temp and mash temp first I think,
Then take it from there.

Next will probably be when I stop the sparge which at the moment is around 1008 and then the yeast.

That's enough to keep me going for a while, just wondering which model fridge Aleman has

[Aleman]

I can't recall the fridge model . . . Ventfrost(???), I actually bought a Chest freezer as I could get 6 Cornii in there and it was 120 quid instead of the nearly 400 for the Fridge I'll see if I can pop into Comet lunchtime tomorrow and check . . . . although for some reason all the sales staff seem to be very busy with other customers whenever I go in . . . . I can't work out why

[RabMaxwell]

If you have the room chest freezers are the way forward for storing cornies i get 10 full size & 2 smaller cornies on the hump.

[steve_flack]

If you get the right one you can get 8 Cornii in it (I know cause I actually took 8 Cornii to Comet when I went looking )

I got strange looks when I got the tape measure out in Comet. If I turned up with 8 cornies they'd have shown me the door (I'd also need 8 empty cornies).