majordodo
General
You all saw it! That orphanage attacked me first!
Posts: 1,740
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Post by majordodo on Oct 1, 2008 12:48:24 GMT 9.5
I feel it needs to be mentioned that today is october 1st. Ie. the beginging of OCTOBERFEST!
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Post by ash on Oct 2, 2008 22:20:25 GMT 9.5
Orktoberfest!!
Anyways I think christmas may be the start of a hopefully fruitful brewing hobby!
(but only if Alex can 'show my arse how to roll'...)
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majordodo
General
You all saw it! That orphanage attacked me first!
Posts: 1,740
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Post by majordodo on Oct 3, 2008 17:13:50 GMT 9.5
Lol dont even speak to me about anything involving long periods of time during that area of the calendar. I'll be working like a servitor that entire time.
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Post by alex on Oct 3, 2008 22:02:45 GMT 9.5
I rolled yesterday, brewed 3.5 killos of barley and some hops into 19 llitres of nice malty liquid, the yeast should be working their magic on it right now.  |
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Post by alex on Oct 3, 2008 22:08:46 GMT 9.5
I'd like to get myself one of those $70 coopers kits, but I'm afriad if I start I'll turn into a drunk  I think you'd have to be pretty hardcore to drink enough to be called a drunk from the sort of beer you'd get just from the cooper's kits, lol Its pretty rough at its most basic level. |
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Post by ThePup on Oct 3, 2008 23:00:49 GMT 9.5
I think you'd have to be pretty hardcore to drink enough to be called a drunk from the sort of beer you'd get just from the cooper's kits, lol Its pretty rough at its most basic level. Yeah, but it's not too hard or expensive to take it up a level.... I'd actually be more interested in brewing stout. I Know when Dad was brewing stout, a standard coopers tin and a bag of malt / destrose instead of plain sugar (I think?) and it was a really smooth brew - We preffered it to store bought! Hmmm... Perhaps I can get Dads old kit shipped over since he hasn't brewed in a while, and we bought it for him anyway! Out of intrest alex, how do you regulate temperature? My wifes grandfather used to use old electric blankets (From the tip and repaired!), and I've heard of folks steralising and using aquarium heaters too... |
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Post by alex on Oct 4, 2008 11:09:15 GMT 9.5
I think you'd have to be pretty hardcore to drink enough to be called a drunk from the sort of beer you'd get just from the cooper's kits, lol Its pretty rough at its most basic level. Yeah, but it's not too hard or expensive to take it up a level.... Correct, just needs more time and knowledge or instruction. I'll be brewing an oatmeal stout in the next week or so. When you forget about the can of goo and use real barley and a small amount of roasted barley with english hops you get a foolproof stout to die for. My friends raved about the last oatmeal stout I did, and therefore I decided I had to brew it again even though the weather isn't really ideal for drinking them anymore. there are two types of yeast you can use to brew beer. Ale is the easiest and it ferments between 16 and 20 Lager ferments between about 8-12 If you go outside these temperatures for more than a few hours your beer will taste like arse sweat. Most bogans make this mistake when they brew and don't bother to learn what they are doing. To keep my fermenter cool I just sit it in a deep tub of water, and if needed I put a cokebottle of ice from the freezer in it every 12 hours or so. I've had my brew stall at under 16degrees using this method in a room of my uninsulated laundry that was actually between 30-45 all week last year during the hotstreak. Another idea is to put an old tshirt over the fermenter and put water in the well at the top and it wicks over the tshirt and transpires the heat away (the same way sweating works). If the temp is cool, best just go for a lager yeast instead. If you use enough yeast and insulate the fermenter witha jumper or an old camping mat/rug whatever the metabolic activity of the yeast is usually enough to keep it warm enough in winter in my experience. If you've got a spare fridge (working or not) that can help because they are well insulated, take all the shelves out and just brew in there. If it works you can by a controller called a fridgemate that has a temp sensor and tell the fridge when to turn off and on depending on what temp you set it at. e.g. idealy you would have it set at 18 degrees plus or minus 1degree, and the fridge would turn off when it drops to 17 and turn on when it rises to 19, so its always at the idea fermentation temperature. |
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Post by alex on Oct 4, 2008 11:11:55 GMT 9.5
to clarrify, if your brew gets too hot it will taste like crap, if it gets too cold it will just slow down or stop until it heats up, so no big problems with over cooling, but never brew over 20degrees if you can avoid it.
Using a good yeast (like safale you can get for under $5 at that indian deli place in renmark) also avoids the baboon's balls flavour.
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steve
Captain
be in awe of my avatar of Korne
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Post by steve on Oct 5, 2008 12:59:54 GMT 9.5
you got any issues with showing me how to do it too when you teach Ashry?  |
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Post by alex on Oct 5, 2008 15:03:06 GMT 9.5
Issues, ;I've got lots of issues. I'll happily pass on my my knowledge to someone who is getting into brewing either because he or she is a beer lover or is interested in the hobby side of it. People who just want to make cheap beer because they are braindead lazy cheapskate bogun arselickers can go far away please. If you just want alcohol you might as well add sugar to water and toss in some baker's yeast. lol I'll be brewing a batch this week, one afternoon FTR. |
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majordodo
General
You all saw it! That orphanage attacked me first!
Posts: 1,740
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Post by majordodo on Oct 5, 2008 17:16:23 GMT 9.5
I just want to brew mead and guiness as soon as i move out.
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Post by alex on Oct 5, 2008 18:00:11 GMT 9.5
Guiness, never will you get close (well maybe not never but it might take a decade of dedicated effort to get remotely close) Mead can be tricky, easier to do a beer with lots of honey in it (like half). (honey contains no natural yeast nutrients unlike barley, so it can be a tough ask of them. All you'll be able to taste in such a batch is the honey I reckon. I'm no expert on mead, its pretty crazy stuff flavour wise. Start keeping your eye out for a good source of plain honey, clover or alfalfa is best, not eucalypt (gum tree) and probably not orange tree either. The bees collect the floral oils from the flowers they visit, and after all the sugar dissapears most of the remaining flavour is the taste of the flower, so you want something subtle and not too strong. Shame you guys didn't pipe up a month ago when I gave away about 100 top quality homebrew bottles and sold my capper and associated equipment at the garage sale. If you guys can scrounge up one of the 10L jerry cans like on the right of this picture:  and you come along to one of my brewdays I can send you home with some fermenting beer of your very own. Then in the two weeks when its brewing find a few bottles and bob's your uncle. If two or three of you wanna get started you can go pitch in the cost of things, like the bottler capper, fermenter kit etc and get started sooner. I've got a 15L stainless steel pot that I'll be upgrading to a new one as soon as I save up for it, and would sell it off to one of yous for half of what I got it for. (perfect size to do a beginer boil on your stove, but I'm desperate for a big one now). If you've got a spare esky and a stockpot you can pretty much start making beer the real way from the start and leave the horrible cans of goo out of it. Hey if anyone knows where I can get a hot water urn (cheap not new!) let me know, they make life alot easier. |
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majordodo
General
You all saw it! That orphanage attacked me first!
Posts: 1,740
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Post by majordodo on Oct 5, 2008 18:04:33 GMT 9.5
Ill be right, im not looking at starting for around a month. Not til ive got my own place and enough cash to make a setup worthy of my analness.
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Post by alex on Oct 5, 2008 18:35:55 GMT 9.5
every brewer you every speak to will say taht he wishes he wasn't quite so tightarsed with his original setup purchase. A little bit of knowlege (e.g. from me) and $100 instead of $60 can make your brewing so so so much easier every time for the next several years and make better beer too.
For those who are toying with the idea of starting oneday, what do you percieve to be your maximum desired setup budgets? (not inclusive of any ingredients).
Keep in mind that what you buy will last you many brews and that a carton of good beer costs about $50, so you'll be saving about $40-$45 a carton once you get going.
You'll be able to scrounge alot of stuff from your shed, your mum's kitchen, opshops and garage sales etc (keep an eye out for any big saucepan/stockpot- you'll need one and you don't want to buy them new because it costs too much).
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Post by alex on Oct 5, 2008 22:09:54 GMT 9.5
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Post by ash on Oct 5, 2008 22:12:45 GMT 9.5
Maximum percieved budget before ingredients.... anywhere between $100-$200 I dont just want to splurge on the best stuff just for the sake of price but if something really will make it easier and better for the bucks then i'll spend.
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Post by alex on Oct 5, 2008 22:19:23 GMT 9.5
good, should be able to get you well setup with lots of options for that price.
To get more info about what techniques we should aim for you, tell me do you have a specific maximum you would want to spend brewing all at once, e.g. would 2 or even 3 hours really put you off?
Secondly, name a half dozen beers you would like to be able to make, the quality level as I percieve it will tell me how much effort you'll need to go to inorder to satisfy your particular tastes.
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Post by ash on Oct 5, 2008 22:28:30 GMT 9.5
hmmm time...
Well when I get stuck into something I really don't mind spending a day on it. I'll just stick on a few tunes and get stuck in.
Beers....
I don't really mind even the crappier of beers but here are the few I really enjoy:
Coopers Pale
Coopers Draught
Grolsch
Miller
Hell I even like West End and VB (yes, I can hear you groan in disgust from here)
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Post by alex on Oct 5, 2008 22:41:36 GMT 9.5
Miller, WE, VB and Cooper's Draught are cheaply made quasi beers that don't really have much malt content/flavour or hops at all. Lots of people like it because these sorts of beers are low on flavour and there's literally nothing there they object to.
DOn't know much about Grolsh, suspect it may just be the european equivalent as most imports we get are just a foriegn version of VB etc.
Cooper's Pale is a simple beer in a simple style, it uses all fresh barley and wheat malt and just two types of hops with a simple ale yeast.
If you would be happy to drink beer like WE or VB forever then you don't really need me, just get the Cooper's Kit from Big W and follow the bogan instructions 1-dump 2mix 3ferment 4 bottle 5 drink.
If you could really see yourself leaving it behind and drinking stuff like Cooper's Pale Ale (aka OPA) and better in the future then we'll get you using fresh grains and hops right from the start. It won't be out of your reach to make beer that tastes to most people like OPA, obviously a full on beer judge or professional drunk would be able to tell them apart, lol
more questions:
Do you have an esky?
what is the largest saucepan you own?
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Post by alex on Oct 5, 2008 22:44:35 GMT 9.5
I don't have a pot big enough to do a full batch, so I use two  works fine. There are easy ways around this too if you can only get one large pot. BTW if you have a spare fridge you can get a keg setup for starting around $200. |
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