Home Brew Forum

Hehehehehe.......I managed to get a quick brew on last night.

I made a trip to the local microbrewery and the LHBS yesterday afternoon and brought home a sack of MO,a sack of lager malt and a big bag of Goldings......which meant i had to use up the remaining MO in the grain bin to get the new sack to fit. So I cobbled together a quick Best Bitter to use it up...

Bad Dog Bitter

4.5Kg Maris Otter
0.25Kg Medium Crystal
0.15Kg Wheat Malt

25g Goldings 6.2%AA FWH
50g Goldings 6.2%AA 15 mins
25g Goldings 6.2%AA 80C steep

S-04 yeast
90 min mash at 66C, 90 min boil target 21L at 1047, target 21L at 1047, 33IBU

Here's the pics:


Today's grain bill


Mash in. It's a baby mash compared to Monday's monster....


pH looking good


The Devil's Mashtun rides again....


Nice fresh 2008 crop Goldings for £10 a kilo from a friendly micro. Yummy - my favourite British hop.


Brewing in the evening is great when it's nice and warm.....beats the pants of a wet winter evening


First runnings.


Pumping off to FV


Leftovers....


Pitched and aerated


I ended up with 22L....


At 1048/1049....which Beer Alchemy tells me is about 91% efficiency!

It's bubbling away nicely now. Now I just need to wait for an FV to be free before I can brew anything else. If I keg the Tripel over the weekend, I can get another brew on. Can't do with being short on beer, what with Spring just about here.

A man after my own heart! One in the cornie (half drunk), two waiting in the wings conditioning; looks like it's time for another brew for me tomorrow then.

Excellent as always adm

tell you what adm, me thinks you may have a problem!!!

all you do is brew me is only jealous................

by the way, i am a lab technician and was always told that when using hydrometers, you take a reading from the bottom of the miniscus (sp?). i would have said looking at that pic that the OG is at least 1052 maybe 1054 as i cant quite se the bottom of the miniscus

I have a strange job....I travel a lot, but when I'm not abroad, I'm at home.....and my office is above my garage. Of course, with the brewery in the garage, I almost have to walk past it to go to work. Or to get a cup of tea, or go for a pee. As brewing seems to be based around periods of activity and periods of waiting, it seems to fit in quite well! If I'm working at home, it's no real difficulty to get a brew on as well as do my job.

On the reading, I've got two hydrometers, and the instructions for one says to read from the top of the meniscus, the other says the bottom. Having said that, the one in the picture is the one that says to read from the bottom, and that's the way I always do it. I think the picture is a bit misleading - it was definitely closer to 1050 than above....

I do definitely have a problem though. All the beer I try to brew and collect keeps evaporating.

yep, being a piss head is a strange job, but someones gotta do it lol

any chance you could get the beer to evaporate in my direction please.......

Some good pics! It nice to see some pics.... I haven't brew for a while, waiting on some CRS, that was never ordered, plus ive nearly refurbished my beer engine, in the process of geeting some seals and got a water report, which was a much use, as an ash tray on a motor bike...All gone tits up!......


Richard