Toast Beer / Homebrew Thread
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I drank a 2015 fresh and have one in the cellar which I haven't had yet.
Definitely drink one and put the other away.
You going to Tropical Darkness at DTC this Saturday? The tap line up is incredible. I'm hitting up the Pirate Life tap takeover at Petition first (dying to try their milkshake, NEPIA collab and their collab with Ballast Point).
Sounds like we planned a pretty similar day on Sat! Reckon all the snobs will be doing something similar. My lack of hawaiian shirts may bring me unstuck, however.
Yeah, I'm not dressing up lol. Tempted to nail one of those stouts poured in coconuts though.
Yeahhh buddy!
I've just dryhopped a pretty simple IPA. 8g/L. Also got my hands on some Citra LupulN2 powder
Not available to homebrewers yet as I understand it so got a hook up from one of the breweries.I'm kinda over massive dry hoppage hey. All about the roasty malts and boozey esters now. Pretty cool that you got access to the powder thoYeahhh buddy!
I've just dryhopped a pretty simple IPA. 8g/L. Also got my hands on some Citra LupulN2 powder
I reckon two of my last 7-8 brews have been hoppy. Sour, dark beers, saisons etc have been the most of what I've had on. So when time comes to mix it up, may as well experiment and try new s**t to keep learning. Plus I had leftover hops to use.
You still contemplating a robobrew?
Yeah but not sure. They seem to have a few flaws. Would totally just go BIAB if I had some way of pulleying up a bag full of 10kg of wet grain. I don't have a shed and rent so I can't drill in any bolts or whatnot.
A grainfather would be ideal. Come to think of it I got $1k tax back this year....
I BIAB without pulleys. Sit a plastic tub next to urn with an old 'wire' fridge shelf on top, manually pull bag and swing over to the shelf. Lower tub to floor, squeeze bag and tip all the collected wort into the urn and boil away!
s**t my afternoon got outta control. Had all the above typed up hours ago and never hit reply
Lads
I've been a bit slack (also trying to reduce beer consumption) so its been a while since I laid a brew down. Got my hands on a Thomas Cooper IPA Can. Haven't really done an IPA before (I know....boring).
Any thoughts on a recipe like this:
TC IPA Kit
500g LDME
500g Wheat Malt
Was thinking 250g each of the above in 5 litres with the hop additions of:
25g Cascade (or POR because I have some a mate has been growing) @ 25 mins
15g each Cascade and Citra @ 10 mins
10g each Cascade and Citra @ Dry Hop (I've been dry hopping once ferment is pretty much done (7 days in)
100g Medium Crystal steeped in 2 ltrs boiling water for 20 mins
US05
Looking for something pushing into bitter territory than malty territory (my research suggests that the extract kit is fairly well bittered so not to go too heavy on additional bittering), with some good hoppy flavour and aroma. I'm a sucker for Citra and have found the Cascade a good compliment to it, although I'm up for trying something different if you gents can suggest it from my other hops on hand:
Willamette
Amarillo
English Kent
Hallertau Mistle....something or the other
Aus Ella
Czech Saaz
Fuggles
Pride of Ringwood (buds)
Other bits and bobs I have on hand that could throw in the mix:
Brew Enhancer 2
Dex
Treacle
I realise its game day, but given its in Melbs, playing a team we have/should beat, I"m thinking I might be better of fiddling around the shed to save me throwing something at the TV.
Cheers
I've been a bit slack (also trying to reduce beer consumption) so its been a while since I laid a brew down. Got my hands on a Thomas Cooper IPA Can. Haven't really done an IPA before (I know....boring).
Any thoughts on a recipe like this:
TC IPA Kit
500g LDME
500g Wheat Malt
Was thinking 250g each of the above in 5 litres with the hop additions of:
25g Cascade (or POR because I have some a mate has been growing) @ 25 mins
15g each Cascade and Citra @ 10 mins
10g each Cascade and Citra @ Dry Hop (I've been dry hopping once ferment is pretty much done (7 days in)
100g Medium Crystal steeped in 2 ltrs boiling water for 20 mins
US05
Looking for something pushing into bitter territory than malty territory (my research suggests that the extract kit is fairly well bittered so not to go too heavy on additional bittering), with some good hoppy flavour and aroma. I'm a sucker for Citra and have found the Cascade a good compliment to it, although I'm up for trying something different if you gents can suggest it from my other hops on hand:
Willamette
Amarillo
English Kent
Hallertau Mistle....something or the other
Aus Ella
Czech Saaz
Fuggles
Pride of Ringwood (buds)
Other bits and bobs I have on hand that could throw in the mix:
Brew Enhancer 2
Dex
Treacle
I realise its game day, but given its in Melbs, playing a team we have/should beat, I"m thinking I might be better of fiddling around the shed to save me throwing something at the TV.
Cheers
Save the 10 min hop addition and dryhop the lot
I'd be feeling this (if you had enough hops):
20g Cascade @ 30 min
15g each Cascade, Citra and Amarillo @ 1 min (just before you switch her off)
15g each Cascade, Citra and Willamette dry hop
Otherwise you could use your mate's PoR for the 30 min addition if you don't have enough Cascade.
I really like Amarillo as a flameout hop and Willamette as a dry hop. Might balance out the heavy tropical aroma of the Citra. I'd also be wary of dry hopping with the citra if it's not fresh. I dry hopped with it once when it was a bit old and got a pretty dank aroma
Also, I'd ramp it up to 150g of crystal and don't steep in boiling water - do it at around 70 degrees instead. Not sure what boiling water will do to the grain, but I can't imagine it'll be good. It only needs to be somewhere between 65-75 deg.
Also chucking in 200g dextrose might help to dry it out a bit and prevent it getting too sweet/ending up with too high gravity.
Bender_
X
Okay you guys talking about home brew are starting to inspire me.
Get involved my dude!
Bender_
X
Any recommendations on where to go for supplies from the ground up?
TWOC is my LHBS (local home brew store). You may be closer to Brewmart.
The biggest decision to make is whether you are going to use extract or brew all grain. Once you nail down that choice you can decide what equipment you need.
Bender_
X
From research it seems best I start with extracts for a while before giving all grain a try.
Your parts list will be fairly simple then. FKASC can elaborate, but basically you'll need a big pot, plastic fermenter, cleaning products and most of us run a 2nd hand fridge to regulate fermentation temp also. This is cheap to do and best value for money to improve your beer quality.
Yeah man get involved.
Bender_ I would go to Big W and get one of these big super cheap mother *ers (19L stock pot for only $20 if the link breaks in future). This will come in handy for doing 'mini-mash' brews later on when you want to start out learning how to mash in conjunction with malt extract.
You'll need a basic plastic fermenter like this but I wouldnt go over 25L. You will mostly do 20L batches and so this size gives you 5L of headspace for the yeast foam ('krausen') that rises up when she's going gangbusters, but also won't be too huge. This helps to make sure you can fit the fermenter into a temperature controlled fridge. Limits your batch size a bit, but most recipes are for ~20L anyway.
Like me, when most people buy a fermenter they get the full starter kit from the homebrew store, which typically includes a bunch of other stuff that you will need, such as:
My kit came with some 'no rinse sanitiser', which was in fact powdered sodium percarbonate (the active ingredient in NapiSan) which is more of a cleaner than a sanitiser. As a result I reckon my first few batches weren't that well sanitised. Regardless of what the kit includes, get yourself some Star San, which is a concentrated acidic sanitiser which you mix with water and then spray on stuff to kill bacteria and s**t. Sanitation is pretty important but i'm sure you've read that online already.
Then I would just get some basic s**t like:
Then there is chilling vs no-chilling. I have just started no-chilling (google it) and I reckon it's the way to go unless you want to invest about $100+ in an immersion chiller or plate chiller. The old school brewing manuals tell you how important it is to chill, but there's an emerging school of thought that says you don't really need to. If you decide to no-chill, then look for a HDPE food safe 'cube' that holds around 18-20L. If you can't find one then maybe make your first batch a 'fresh wort kit' (google it) and then you can reuse their plastic cube for future no-chills.
Hope that helps! I'm basically just starting out myself and haven't gone all-grain yet. There's more stuff you'll need if you want to go all grain, but maybe not that much more. Better off nailing other aspects first IMO.
Bender_ I would go to Big W and get one of these big super cheap mother *ers (19L stock pot for only $20 if the link breaks in future). This will come in handy for doing 'mini-mash' brews later on when you want to start out learning how to mash in conjunction with malt extract.
You'll need a basic plastic fermenter like this but I wouldnt go over 25L. You will mostly do 20L batches and so this size gives you 5L of headspace for the yeast foam ('krausen') that rises up when she's going gangbusters, but also won't be too huge. This helps to make sure you can fit the fermenter into a temperature controlled fridge. Limits your batch size a bit, but most recipes are for ~20L anyway.
Like me, when most people buy a fermenter they get the full starter kit from the homebrew store, which typically includes a bunch of other stuff that you will need, such as:
- hydrometer
- a tap, bottling wand, and bottle capper (if you don't go straight to kegging - I don't keg and probably won't in the near future)
My kit came with some 'no rinse sanitiser', which was in fact powdered sodium percarbonate (the active ingredient in NapiSan) which is more of a cleaner than a sanitiser. As a result I reckon my first few batches weren't that well sanitised. Regardless of what the kit includes, get yourself some Star San, which is a concentrated acidic sanitiser which you mix with water and then spray on stuff to kill bacteria and s**t. Sanitation is pretty important but i'm sure you've read that online already.
Then I would just get some basic s**t like:
- a big plastic stirrer/spoon,
- a plastic spray bottle that you can use to mix your StarSan in and then spray stuff with
- a decent mesh strainer for straining out hops and/or grains, plus a decent sized grain bag
Then there is chilling vs no-chilling. I have just started no-chilling (google it) and I reckon it's the way to go unless you want to invest about $100+ in an immersion chiller or plate chiller. The old school brewing manuals tell you how important it is to chill, but there's an emerging school of thought that says you don't really need to. If you decide to no-chill, then look for a HDPE food safe 'cube' that holds around 18-20L. If you can't find one then maybe make your first batch a 'fresh wort kit' (google it) and then you can reuse their plastic cube for future no-chills.
Hope that helps! I'm basically just starting out myself and haven't gone all-grain yet. There's more stuff you'll need if you want to go all grain, but maybe not that much more. Better off nailing other aspects first IMO.
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Bender_
X
Bookmarked for when I start collecting the necessary pieces.
Great post
RIP Bender_ liver
It's a very slippery slope.
I'd recommend going straight to a beer fridge with several taps. Shiny ones. With flow adjusters and custom handles, built into a bar. Don't pussy out with bottles and waiting 2 weeks to drink your prize. Your liver wont respect you as much.
Ohh and don't get a drip tray, they get in the way and are a pain in the arse when you wanna Barney Gumble the taps dry.
ITS BREW DAY!!!
Black IPA first, Cascade/Mosaic Pale Ale Saturday
Black IPA first, Cascade/Mosaic Pale Ale Saturday
