Home Brew Forum

Well this is my first home brew, brewday since 27th June.
I`m just giving my cobbled together setup a run out, as i put the Mash water on i was also still wiring the boiler ,
The mash as just gone on, couldn`t believe how quick the 3kw immersion element heated the mash water.

The recipe for today is a slight variation of my Golden Pippin clone.

7kg Maris Otter Pale
80g Cascade AA5.5% @ 60mins
20g Cascade @ 20mins
20g Cascade @ 10mins

Target is 46ltrs @ OG1035
IBU`s 29.5

I`ve just got to pop over to Barley Bottom now to pick up some fermenting bins otherwise i`ll have nowhere to put it when finished
i`m splitting it into 2no 30ltr bins and trying S04 in one and US-05 in the other.
Ok better get the sparge water ready and shoot over to Pauls.

There's a sign of confidence for you - starting before the boiler even works

Good luck with it!

Cheers
Kev

ahh, enough to fill a firkin Hope all goes well.

All was going well but the elements are slightly differant and i wired the boiler through the thermostat, and guess what it cut out,thats how
i knew something was wrong but i`ve now corrected it and the hot break is forming as i type.
Yes enough for a firkin but i plan to bottle this for myself for Xmas, i`ll hopefully get another one on next week to keep my supplies up.

Cheers lads.

Well because the first half was a bit hectic i didn`t get chance totake any photo`s, infact i didn`t take many after either but
this is what i did take.








I`ll be more organised next Saturday so i`ll take a lot more

I forgot to say that i ended up with 43ltrs at 1040 @17.5 Deg C
So 3 ltrs under but it was the first run out using this setup so i`ll correct it for next time.
But the efficency works out at 80% so not as good as my bigger setup so its either the water or
i didn`t dough in well enough, even though i put a wooden spoon in the drill and mixed the bugger to death
So in the FV`s i have 23ltrs being fermented with S-04
and 20ltrs fermenting with US-05,
both seem to be off to a good start so i`ll see which one works best over the duration.

Looks good - I'll be interested to hear how the yeasts compare too.

Hmm, I should perhaps upgrade my FV heating at some point; I can only ferment one FV at a time at the mo - to be able to split batches like this sounds interesting. I also leave it at fermenting temperature for about ten days, probably I could move it somewhere cooler sooner and free up the fermenting fridge so that I can brew every weekend if I want as well.

Cheers,
kev

My FV`s are currently just sat in front of a radiator wrapped in an old duvet, no real heating control, but
all my prevoius home brewed beers have been fermented in a similar fashion and have always been ok,
i need to clear out the spare bedroom and set something up a bit better,but most of the stuff in there is SWMBO
so i`ll have to do a bit of sweet talking first

Ah, I think you've exposed my stinginess; the house is empty most of the day and so isn't heated at all then or at night, just brief bursts in the morning and evening. Its freezing actually - really poor themal insulation, and ridiculously hot in summer too. I decided to move the fermenting out to the garage as I needed to make an FV cupboard anyway, so I guess I'll just have to make a bigger cupboard - shouldn't be too expensive compared to everything else!

Cheers
Kev

Our heating is only on for a short spell in the morning and again in an evening, but i checked it yesterday and they still felt quite
warm when the heating was off.
But my idea is to make a fermenting cupboard in the small bedroom, its only a box room but a few insulation panels and a small heater
will turn it into a fermenting cupboard and beer storage area, well thats the theory

I work from home so I have an oil filled radiator in my office so I'm not heating the rest of the house all day whilst I'm sat in working. Therefore the FV's sit in my office with me. It's a real killer because that lovely beery smell has me wanting a pint by lunchtime!

It sounds a great idea to have a separately heated room for beer (albeit with a secondary desk too, in some cases ). I did something similar this summer with a cool room under the stairs, it was great in some respects - loads of space compared to a keggorator to set stuff out and also for conditioning space as well as serving capacity. But that was less ideal financially because cooling equipment is a lot less efficient than heating, and because I have my (hot) boiler and (heat-generating) PC in there too... doh!

But maybe theres merrit in having a big heated cupboard in the garage. Admittedly not a room as such, but it would take (depressingly) little insulation to make it more efficient than my house. Hmm...

Cheers
kev