Wish me luck

[roger the dog]

Ok, after returning to home brewing after a lay off of about 4 years I'm going to have another crack at it tommorrow.
I've read loads of posts in this kit section & hope that I've now got enough info. to help me avoid repeating the errors I made last time that caused me to give up brewing.
I reckon the problem was with incomplete rinsing of my King Kegs following the soaking I gave them in VWP, despite exhaustive cold water rinses I still remember the kegs having a strong smell of chlorine. The resultant 'chemical tasting' beer (sorry I can't be more specific) really wasn't drinkable & I ended up pouring about 4 batches down the drain.

Anyhoo, my new setup consists of :-

A Woodefords Wherry kit

New seals for the KK's

Sodium Metabisulphate for post sanitisation rinsing

Safeale 04 to be used in place of the yeast that came with the kit

Isinglass Finings (Hop & Grape's own as recommended by DaaB)

And following another trip tomorrow to the local HBS/ B & Q/Aquarium supplies pet centre:-

Campden tablets (got some but out of date!)

Tap & tubing (to be fitted to the fermenter)

Aquarium heater for a steady temp. whilst the FV is in the garage

All in all I've spent quite a bit on the new set-up so I really hope I have more success this time - I've even bought a Fixby Gold kit for the second batch (ever the optimist).

However it turns out I'd like to thank everyone on this great forum for the invaluable advice & entertaining posts that have renewed my interest in the whole home brewing scene.

Fingers crossed

Richard

[tubby_shaw]

Good luck with it
keep us informed, we expect regular updates

[prodigal2]

good luck with it all

You seem to of covered all your bases, and if you follow DaaBs advice on kits you will be fine.

[maxashton]

Good luck!

If, following DaaB's advice, even a charmless muppet like myself can make beer, you can too!

[StrangeBrew]

RtD, I hope all goes well!

Don't forget to take some photos to post on here when you give us an update!

[mysterio]

Good luck mate, I've fallen foul with VWP before as well. Rinse, rinse, and rinse again. Water you get from the tap isn't going to have any significant contaminants that will spoil your beer.

[Griff]

Good Luck from me too.

BTW the Fixby Gold is one of my favorites


Cheers


Griff

[BIGTRACTOR]

incidentally thanks to you all for the advice about rinsing wvp so thoroughly, i reckon i havent been rinsing it at all sufficiently in the past and this may have led to some brews not being as nice as i expected. (my sense of smell isn't that good).

i will be taking the barrell into the shower from now on. and also rinsing with sodium metabisulphate afterwards.

also, is half a crushed camden tab sufficient to treat 5 gallons water?

[maxashton]

For chlorination?

According to our dear friends at Wikipedia:

"1 tablet will effectively treat 20 gallons of water."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campden_tablets

[Hoppkins]

So a pinch of salt and a half a campden it is

[roger the dog]

Thanks for all the good wishes.

Just kicked the kit off (yeh, a day late I know) & it's now in the garage so I'll post some piccies when (if) there's some activity. The look on the missus's face when I told her I was going to take pictures of a fermenting bin to post on a forum was worth the price of the kit alone !

My only concern at this stage is that I forgot about the 1/2 a crushed campden tablet until the last minute so I stirred this in just before adding the rehydrated safeale yeast, should I be worried ?

[steve_flack]

My only concern at this stage is that I forgot about the 1/2 a crushed campden tablet until the last minute so I stirred this in just before adding the rehydrated safeale yeast, should I be worried ?

By that stage it's not worth doing it as it's too late. It could actually hamper the yeast as campden tablets are used to stop yeast etc growing in bottled wines.

If the yeast starts off then fine but I'd keep an eye on it.

[roger the dog]

[roger the dog]

It is ALIVE



Now for the sad part - I got up early today just to see if there was any activity !

[prodigal2]

Thats not sad, its normal...........................isnt it?