Home brew? Homebrew? Winemaking

I've currently put together a recipe to try to clone one of my favourite black IPAs. Going to do it BIAB.

I noticed that post-boil, things weren't done especially hygienically. When we chilled the wort, the hose used at the bottle end was just left dragging around near the floor before use.

Mine is fine (was drinking it earlier).

In my experience you need to be clean not clinical. I no chill, which has no negative impact on the brew either. For me it feels wrong to waste so much water.
Basically even if you fuck it up you will still 9 times out of 10 end up with something better than you would buy from the supermarket.

Get starsan, it makes the cleaning bit a lot quicker and easier

We've had some great batches since making a mash tun and acquiring a heat exchanger. 10 litres of boiling water to 19 degrees in 2 mins. It really helps the aroma of the hops come through.

Getting rid of the sweet diacetyl flavour has been the hardest part but using US05 yeast seems to be the cause. There's a theory that its just too inbred now and isn't really that great. Every time we've used a posh yeast or one from a brewery, there's been no butterscotch diacetyl tastes.

It really helps the aroma of the hops come through.

I've bought one mainly for this reason. Otherwise your aroma hops end up more like bittering hops, I guess.

I've had a problem with fermenting at slightly too high temps (only 22c ish, mind), but that has led to slightly belgina/banana-like flavours with Notttingham and US-05 yeast. I've dropped to 18c now.

Get starsan, it makes the cleaning bit a lot quicker and easier

I use Videne. Can be ordered at any local chemist, a 500ml bottle cost me £7 and you dilute it to 1.5ml/L water as a non-rinse sanitizer.

Black IPA (a clone of one of my favourites) has got down to final gravity. Dry hop and bottle shortly.

Did this one as Brew In The Bag. Seems pretty simple.

Sounds good!
Here's our heat exchanger in action. It really itches my geeky spot.
https://goo.gl/photos/T1Wkdw7STfjZQ7mq5

Wish I'd seen this earlier. Is that one from a combi boiler?

I had quite a lot of problems trying to siphon through mine using a hop filter bag (to stop hop debris and hot break material entering the chiller). It just blocked the hop filter bag and stopped.

Do you use a pump or a filter?

Ohh! I'd never considered an old combi boiler heat exchanger!

Now on the look out for knackered combis!

We use a mash tun which we've built a filter in to using pressure hose casing so by the time the wort is being boiled down to OG, its already pretty clear. Hops goes in to a bag so that also doesn't cause a mess.

The most important thing is to flush out the heat exchanger straight afterwards.

We still dont have a fridge for the ferment so the flavours vary wildly but are always pretty good.

FREECYCLE to any local AG brewers, I won't be doing any for a while, so some random kilo bags of adjuncts crystal, roasted barley, torrefied wheat, brown malt, all opened and used to some extent, and an unopened pack of cascade hops.

Collection only Wandsworth Common.

1 Attachment

Bump, this goes in the bin on the weekend, which would be a shame!
Enough hops to do a wicked MO SMaSH, and some adjuncts to do cool stuff. Big stout? fo free! :-)
@TPR @well_is_it @rodabod @Kat_Balou @Mr_Sworld @mustardbreak

Someone get on that quick! If I wasn't over in Leytonstone then I'd be straight over there.

@Cupcakes ??

I can't get over unfortunately

I would jump on that but we kind of have an unlimited supply :)

Thanks for the heads-up from kat, I could take this off your hands. Just ordered a new fermenting bucket and s30 cylinder last night so I need somethiinf to brew with... Will PM

I have a 15.2l pan which I could offer for free. Can do brew-in-a-bag with it. I'm up in Leytonstone though, or Shepherds Bush for work.

Not sure if this was to me - I have a pan for boiling, so if anyone else needs then dive in!

looks great, would definitely be up for this if I was not away,
someone here should take it off your hands and post some more results of brewing !

Aye, it was. I'm a bit lazy at using the reply button.

Anyone else after a pan in NE London, let me know.

Clean everything

... and this is why I leave it to the experts. :)

Thanks to the helpful tips in this forum, I have got my wedding brew done in time for my brothers's wedding. I have about 40 odd bottles and ideally would like to give it to him in two matching plastic beer crates... is this the kind of thing a pub would give out willy nilly, or do I need to buy them online?