Home brew? Homebrew? Winemaking

How was it? Sounds/looks great!

Woo! Hopefully picking up a BT Grainfather, Sparger, hop basket and bits for a very reasonable price tomorrow.

Goodbye bucket and BITB brewing.

Well... When he said a Grainfather and 'bits' I didn't expect all of this!

Well happy for £500. The guy I bought it off is now on a medication potentially for the rest of his life that means he can't drink anymore. He told me to put it to good use.

I assured him I would.

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Holy crap. Excellent haul. I love the conical flask in there. What was he using that for?

£500 is a decent invesment. It's worth remembering that £500 could, after all, have bought ~100L of decent IPA. If you can brew beer for half that cost (or less), then you need to make nearer 200L in order for this to pay off. That's like 9-10 batches. You best get brewing.

What are you gonna brew first?

Not sure. There was a lot of grain and hops included so need to see what they are.

Something simple, I guess, to get used to the app and system. Will have a think over the weekend.

I presume the conical was for starting the yeast off as there is a magnetic stirrer with it as well.

The buckets are full of tubing, fittings, grain, hops and other goodies.

The real bonus was the korny keg. Will have to find a CO2 supplier now.

Tbf it was the best chicken I've ever cooked, I had lemon wedges under the skin. I suspect any beer would be ok . I let it cook slowly for 2 hours and was nice and moist !

Wow,
Amazing value for money, I'm looking for kegging gear at the moment!
Might look at second hand stuff !

Edited for talking out of my arse.

Ignore me. Just went to my local brew suppliers and they had one.

£100 though.

What are you gonna brew first?

Going for a simple IPA SMaSH to test it out without it being massively complicated.

I've seen a few online ! Will order something soon. Going to install a tap in my brewshed extension which is nearing completion........

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Gonna open up to the public once life gets back to normal? Be a good forum ride!

The plan is to have an outside decking/ seating area eventually.
So I guess if anyone wants to trek out to Worcester Park when it's up and running that would be cool !

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Wow. Would love to have that amount of space.

Is the shed going to be fully wrapped?

What a haul, literally everything you'll ever need and more!

I kinda worked it out earlier. It's well over a grands worth of kit once I'd gone through it.

First brewday this week. 😁

I'm lucky to have a long garden, it started as a 10 x 6ft shed by the time I partitioned off a fermentation room it didn't leave a massive amount of space for a 100L brewkit. After a couple of years of brewing in cramped conditions and some spare panels becoming available gratis I decided to extend. I'm hoping the extra space will speed up the brew day slightly . I'm not wrapping all of it ! That bit is around 80 cans and took about 4 hours to cut up the cans !!!

I'd be up for that.

Keep posting update pics!

Yeah! Will do.....

DIY wort chiller cooled our batch in about 20 minutes, much better than the 75 minutes that we used to spend faffing with making water baths in the garden.

I followed this:
http://www.berrybrew.co.uk/how-to-build-a-wort-chiller/

I telephoned 15 different plumbers' supply shops and none had any 10mm soft copper pipe so I went to Tool Station. Spent £30 on bits, and found some hose in my garden. The copper pipe came already coiled so it was super easy.

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Plumbers still love their imperial measurements. Just ask for 3/8" for the next one.

One of the standard sizes for aircon copper tube.

Just ordered some shiny kegging gear, had to go for a 12L keg as a 19L was to tall for my fridge.......
Here's a pic of my brewshed sign a mates daughter painted for my birthday

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Nice. What's the meaning of the name?

I'll try and keep it short.......
I grew up in Mitcham in the 70's and 80's a stones throw from the site of the Mitcham Brewery, rebuilding was still there but being used as a removals depot/storage site. I only found this out 18 months ago when I casually mentioned to my dad I was thinking of a name for the home brewery. After a bit of research I found 2 guys Francis Thunder and Edward Little formed a company to takeover the brewery in 1884, this lasted until 1898 when it became the Mitcham and Cheam Brewery. It was taken over by a couple more companies and eventually Charringtons swallowed all of it up. Brewing ceased on that site during the first world war.
Anyway I thought that's a cool name and bought the domain.......
A few days later I checked companies house and I am now the director of Thunder and Little Ltd, a dormant company.
If I ever decide to move forward I've got the name protected.
The new Mitcham fire station is on the site of the old brewery.
Thunder and Little has an Instagram account, there are some historical pics on there if you are interested.....