Putting together a "Brew Crew"

Lovely Bloke

Hi folks,

Myself, my brother and some other lads are going to hold a "Brew Day" in a few weeks, where we are going to make a few kits and talk about making a step up to more advanced brewing.

As far as I know, I have the most experience with home-made alcohol, in that I've done two or three kits, made Elderflower Champagne and made cider from Lidl juice. One of the other lads has also mentioned that he has some stuff from a kit he bought a few years ago, I'm assuming he made just the single kit, but at least he's done something.

I got my brother one of the Coopers kits recently, and added another ale in with it too. I have a stout that I want to make - so we'll be making three brews on the day - it should be a productive afternoon.

Now, I know all about kit brewing, and the last one I did was helping another friend with his first one which turned out perfectly well - but I know almost nothing about taking the next step.

What is the next step, and what other items would we be looking at buying?

I'm vaguely aware of a step between Kit and All-Grain - what is that? I have "tweaked" kits, and at the very least I'll be using Spraymalt instead of Sugar.

If all goes well, I'd like to think we can eventually produce something from scratch that is drinkable, and maybe even marketable - but that is a few years down the road at least, I know (a dream of mine is to go into a place like L Mulligans, WJK, ATG etc and see my own brew on sale, and people talking about in the "What beer are we drinking...." thread ).

All help, comments and advice very much appreciated, cheers folks

BeerNut

The middle step is extract brewing, where you steep specialty malt, boil malt extract and add hops to it.

There are several of different set-up options for extract: full or partial boil; stove-top or boiler.

I'm an extract brewer. I use this boiler to brew in and an immersion wort chiller to chill. I put my recipes together using BeerTools Pro.

Most of my recipes are 3kg of spraymalt, a kilo or so of speciality grain, around 100g of hops and, yeast. That gets me 20L of beer at around 5.5% ABV, but it's all very flexible and scaleable.

Tube

Capital Brewers are having an open brew day on Jan 27th. Lots of talk and info from experienced homebrewers. You could do worse than to attend. It's on Chancery St., Dublin.

sharingan

There are lots of ways to get more technical. Extract Brewing is simple, and can be done in smaller capacities with basic kitchen equipment before you start to consider what kind of specialty equipment you need.

For instance I use the Brew in a Bag technique, which is another simple technique for getting the good stuff out of grain. To build up batch size I was often getting 1 gallon out of BIAB, 1 Gallon extract, and then topping up with malt (like a kit) to get up to full batch size, or transferring into demijohns.

Now I can do 22L batches using a 40L Buffalo catering boiler (all grain) and then top up with malt extract to reach my target volume of 30L.

Lovely Bloke

OK, so an update on this.

Had everyone round on Saturday afternoon/evening.

I already had a Young's Fermenter in my house, so that has been sterilising, along with some equipment, since the night before.

The first thing we did was begin to sterilise the rest of the equipment - a Coopers Fermenter, and an iBrew Bucket - along with the spatulas, lids, hydrometer.

The beers we had were Young's Harvest Stout, Munton's Nut Brown Ale and Cooper's Canadian Blonde.

We also had 2 x 1kg Dark Spray Malt, and a 1kg bag of Brew Enhancer 1 that came with the Cooper's (is this also spray malt, or is it glucose? it's white powder anyway).

We did the stout first, then the brown ale, then the blonde ale. We also shared a decent selection of craft beers in the process

1kg each of Spraymalt in the stout and brown, and the 1kg brew enhancer into the blonde.

It took us about 3 hours, all in - then we headed down to WJKs for a well earned couple of pints.


OGs were about 1050 for the stout and brown ale, and about 1045 for the blonde.

When I got home from the pub already there was a decent amount of fermentation going on in the three fermentation vessels, so it all looks to have been successful.

Will bottle ~3 Weeks after brew day

fobster

TheNinthGate wrote: »

I already had a Young's Fermenter in my house, so that has been sterilising, along with some equipment, since the night before.

What steriliser do you use? For most sterilisers, 5 minutes soaking is fine.

Lovely Bloke

fobster wrote: »

What steriliser do you use? For most sterilisers, 5 minutes soaking is fine.

I know, but I just had five minutes spare on Friday night to get it done, and leave it, then empty it on Saturday.

It had also been a while since it was used and had been stored in the garden, the shed, two bedrooms and the attic.

No harm.

NewDirection

BeerNut wrote: »

The middle step is extract brewing, where you steep specialty malt, boil malt extract and add hops to it.

There are several of different set-up options for extract: full or partial boil; stove-top or boiler.

I'm an extract brewer. I use this boiler to brew in and an immersion wort chiller to chill. I put my recipes together using BeerTools Pro.

Most of my recipes are 3kg of spraymalt, a kilo or so of speciality grain, around 100g of hops and, yeast. That gets me 20L of beer at around 5.5% ABV, but it's all very flexible and scaleable.

Hi TBN,

Can I ask where do you get your spraymalt?
I am trying to move on from kit brewing at the moment, would love to stop at extract brewing as I don't have the room / time / equipment for all grain brewing. I'm finding with any decent recipes the cost of 3kg spraymalt is making extract brewing the most expensive of the three types of brewing.

Any way to drive down the cost of it?

BeerNut

NewDirection wrote: »

Can I ask where do you get your spraymalt?

You can. I get it from TheHomebrewCompany.ie.

NewDirection wrote: »

I'm finding with any decent recipes the cost of 3kg spraymalt is making extract brewing the most expensive of the three types of brewing.

Any way to drive down the cost of it?

I'm fairly sure it is the most expensive method. The bigger bulk you buy spraymalt in the cheaper it is. HBC does 25kg of spraymalt for €130 which is as cheap as I've seen it. I only bought one once, though, because it's awkward stuff to handle. Buying 3kg bags is worth the extra cost to me for the convenience.

Mister Burns

Hi BeerNut,

Want to pick your brain (Again!) on extract brewing - Is it possible to do multiple small batches using the method and equipment below then ferment them together in one standard size fermentation bucket?

http://www.beoir.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=88:small-scale-brewing&catid=16:extract-brewing&Itemid=47

BeerNut

Possible, yes, but I don't know why you would. It would take ages to assemble, boil and chill a series of batches, and keeping the recipe under control when you have a whole series of gravities and bitterings to take account of would be a nightmare, I'd say.

If the problem is you want a full batch but don't have a pot big enough, boil a high gravity wort and top up with water at the end. That's how I started.

Mister Burns

You've hit the nail on the head should have mentioned to start with that it is because I don't have the equipment you mentioned and linked ot earlier in the tread but I'd like to do a full batch. Mind you it will be my first attempt at extract brewing so should probably stick one small batch on it's own - is it ok to ferment in a full size fermentation bucket?

ps what is a High Gravity Wort?

BeerNut

Mister Burns wrote: »

is it ok to ferment in a full size fermentation bucket?

I don't see why not.

Mister Burns wrote: »

ps what is a High Gravity Wort?

All the fermentable material for a full-size batch, in a smaller pot.

What I did when I started brewing was steep my specialty grains, wrapped in Muslin, in a stockpot containing 3L of water for 20 minutes at 60C. I'd then sparge this with another 3L of water at 60. I'd add half the spraymalt, a couple more litres of water and bring to the boil. Once it's boiling I'd start my hop additions, with the recipe designed for 20L, and add the remaining spraymalt half way through -- apparently splitting the extract addition aids hop utilisation. After an hour of boiling I'd have about 8L of concentrated wort. I'd pour this through a sieve into a sanitised fermenter and top up to 20L with cold water, which also helps cool it down. Once it's at 27C or under, in goes the yeast.

Mister Burns

Thanks BeerNut

Now that sounds like the job to me!

I'm assuming Sparging means to add in another 3L at the same temperature?

BeerNut

It means pouring water over the grains to rinse out more sugars. I lift the muslin bag out of the water, put it in a sieve or collinder over the pot, open the bag up and slowly pour the water evenly over the grains.

The big disadvantages of this method are the risk of boil-over: you need to watch the pot closely and take it off the heat if it's in danger of boiling over; and chilling: I was never able to bring the wort down to pitching temperature easily. It's a good idea to chill it most of the way when it's still concentrated, before adding the cold water.

thefragle

Any idea of the PET grade of 18.5 litre Ballygowan bottles? thinking of doing some experimental brews and using them as my primary.
Anybody got any advice or experience with fermentation in regular plastic bottles?
Thanks all

Lovely Bloke

Bottled today, ended up with 104 Bottles of beer, 36 x Canadian Blonde, 36 x Nut Brown Ale, 32 x Stout.

What's the formula for calculating the %, I have the OG and FG

sharingan

thefragle wrote: »

Any idea of the PET grade of 18.5 litre Ballygowan bottles? thinking of doing some experimental brews and using them as my primary.
Anybody got any advice or experience with fermentation in regular plastic bottles?
Thanks all

I have used them, and collected many for cheap ginger beer. Would not do it again. They are effectively single use due to the difficulty of cleaning and sanitising them

BeerNut

TheNinthGate wrote: »

What's the formula for calculating the %, I have the OG and FG

I use this. If your readings are already calibrated you can ignore the temperature bit.

Lovely Bloke

BeerNut wrote: »

I use this. If your readings are already calibrated you can ignore the temperature bit.

Excellent, thanks

Lovely Bloke

Just got confirmation from a pub manager that we can get any bottles we need, reckons his biggest seller is pint bottles of Bulmers.

They'll do won't they, with a capper and caps.

gazahayes

They're ideal but most pubs send them back as they pay a deposit on them.

Lovely Bloke

gazahayes wrote: »

They're ideal but most pubs send them back as they pay a deposit on them.

This isn't "most pubs" though - this is a pub with a manager who's friends are trying to get into more than just brewing the odd kit here and there.

And fair play to him.

I remember working in a pub years ago, and on occasion I was tasked with "doing the bottles" - I remember sending the likes of Guinness and MacArdles bottles back for deposit, but not Bulmers bottles.

The situation must have changed.

joctcl

Glass isn't cheap anymore and like all recyclables has a value.

Lovely Bloke

joctcl wrote: »

Glass isn't cheap anymore and like all recyclables has a value.

Yep, was told yesterday that they get approx 1.50 credit per case of bottles, but our lad told us that he can spare a couple of hundred bottles, but that if was going to be an on-going thing we'd need to pay at least that much for them, which is still a very decent price all told.

*********************************

An update on the original three brews, we cracked a few of them yesterday while getting another couple of brews going.

All very decent and drinkable, and the "noob" lads were pretty impressed with the results, so the interest is there to keep going, as we did yesterday.

We also laid some plans to get more organised, each of us paying "subs" into a central kitty for equipment and ingredients, already have a pretty large shopping list for homebrewwest.

One thing, I found the beers to be slightly undercarbonated, and that was with 1 Drop per 500ml bottle - think we might up that to a drop and a half next time.

So far so good for the new hobby for 5 lads, and the rewards are great.

Lovely Bloke

alright guys.

This is a shopping list

Malt

10 x 1kg Dark Spraymalt @ €6.95each
€69.50

(Special Price for 3x1kg €19.95 price for 10kg = €59.36)

OR

20 x Mixed 500g Spraymalts (Light, Med, Dark) @ €4.45each
€89.00


***************************


Yeast

From €1.04 to €4.45 per pack

Average €2.50 x 20

€50

***************************

Carb Drops @ €2.95 per pack
10 packs
€29.50

****************************

Caps @ €2.10 per 100
10 Packs
€21.00

******************************
Hydrometer 1 @ €3.45

*****************************

Hops from €3.69 to €7.90 per 100g
Average €5.20
10 packs
€52.00

It comes to about €250

Is there enough there to make beer?

The question I's asking is this.

Is Spraymalt + hops + water enough to make beer?

BeerNut

Technically yes, but it's not likely to be very good. You'll need some specialty malts if you want to make specific styles of beer.

I would strongly recommend getting some brewing software so you can start planning some recipes before you order, to help decide which hops, yeast and specialty malt you're going to pick, and how much of each to use.

Lovely Bloke

OK, thanks for that - this is for "extract brewing"?

Can you recommend some software? thanks.

BeerNut

Yes, for extract brewing. The extract replaces the base malt in an all-grain brew, but normally you'd have a specialty malt to add some flavour and colour, eg crystal malt for a red ale, chocolate malt for a porter, etc.

I use BeerTools Pro. There are free applications like BrewTarget and BrewMate but I haven't used them.

Lovely Bloke

OK, thanks a lot.

sharingan

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Is Spraymalt + hops + water enough to make beer?

Yes, but the beer might be a bit bland. Like beernut said, specialty malts will help enormously with flavour, as will other adjuncts, like specialty sugars, ginger etc.

I recommend that you do it in an extract style - i.e. boil the malt according to a hop schedule. It would be a good exercise to do this in a scientific way, to learn about hopping - keep the same extract profile and yeast, but vary your hop additions. Your spraymalt + hops will make for a very drinkable beer if you get your hop schedule right.

Also, consider skipping the carb drops altogether if you are brewing at the scale that the shopping list implies.

Get a bottling bucket (a spare fermenter will do) and batch prime, its less work and you get better results.

I made a very hoppy beer that I batch primed with malt and it had a huge effect on the head retention (1 hour later I still had a 5mm head on my beer). About 150g malt is sufficient for around a 19L batch of beer.