For convenience and cost 20l malts from Muntons, and hops to suit your recipes. Each Works out at at around 25p per pint. Brewing from grain is no longer necessary for quality. Always used bottles and crown corks for convenience. Problem is that you brew far more than you can drink (safely) so need friends to help!
Home Brewing
- Thread starter martin_b
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Essexsussex
Well-Known Member
Nice setupThe pin is a stainless real ale cask (sometimes plastic) which holds half a firkin, 4.5 gallons. You could just hammer in a barrel tap and pour straight into the glass but it will be flat, the beer engine I have was factory reconditioned by Angram and clamps onto your worktop in exactly the same way it would in a pub. This pulls a pint properly and in my opinion is worth every penny, even if you brew the beer yourself it will be far better if conditioned in a barrel and served through a pump than it will bottle conditioned.
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I have built a cooling system whereby I have a large container of glycol coolant piped into a spare freezer and a thermostatically controlled pump to circulate around an insulated jacket that fits a pin, this keeps it at exactly the right temperature for whichever style of beer I have. In the winter I swap the cooling system for a brew belt to keep it up to temperature as the pins are in an outbuilding on the other side of the pantry wall.
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I have also added a cask aspirator which is fed from a bottle of drinks grade CO2 and keeps a blanket of gas over the beer without carbonating it, this will extend the usable life from a week to about 5 weeks, although most of them get drunk within about 10 days if I’m at home, far less if my son is back from Uni.
I have two local craft breweries, one is less than two miles from my house, and they have a constantly changing range of beers alongside their core brews, at the moment I’m on their traditional oatmeal stout.
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When I was brewing, albeit from kits, I found the best means of bottling it was using the swing top bottles, no messing about with crown caps and a lot more reliable.
As others have said, cleanliness is absolutely essential, but so too is temperature control, yeasts like to be at their specified temperature and do not like wild fluctuations, it stresses the yeast and this produces off flavours, it can also stop your fermentation and make it difficult to get it going again.
I wouldn’t go down the Pinter route for numerous reasons, the biggest that it is a very expensive way of producing meh beer.
The kits are a great way of starting out and learning the basics without investing heavily, but for quality beer the all grain route will give the best results.
Good luck.
If you use Facebook you might want to have a look at this too now you have a Pinter Log in to Facebook
I’ve just begun researching home brewing again - the Grainfather gets very good reviews.
Am I right in thinking you need 3 units to make a full set up? Mash unit, boiling unit and fermenter?
Lukasod5
Active Member
Brewing isn't to hard, you just need to invest a bit of time researching and money in equipment to start :
Large pot,
basen to cool,
fermentation bucket,
airlock" I've used a balloon before",
yeast strain,
hops,
dme or grain,
cleaning chemicals,
bottling equipment "swingtop bottles can be reused" .
Ales are probably the easiest to start with, because the are ready in such a short time ( no largering needed), about a month from start to finish. Also Ale yeasts like conditions similar to that of an apartment or house 20°C . Just remember keep everything super clean and ferment in the dark. I've had one or two brews ruined due to contamination, which is a pain after a month of waiting. Also making a batch from grain is what to aim for. But starting with malt extract is fine and will get you off and running with much less of a headache.
Large pot,
basen to cool,
fermentation bucket,
airlock" I've used a balloon before",
yeast strain,
hops,
dme or grain,
cleaning chemicals,
bottling equipment "swingtop bottles can be reused" .
Ales are probably the easiest to start with, because the are ready in such a short time ( no largering needed), about a month from start to finish. Also Ale yeasts like conditions similar to that of an apartment or house 20°C . Just remember keep everything super clean and ferment in the dark. I've had one or two brews ruined due to contamination, which is a pain after a month of waiting. Also making a batch from grain is what to aim for. But starting with malt extract is fine and will get you off and running with much less of a headache.
Essexsussex
Well-Known Member
Traditionally yes (even 3 then a fermenter) but a lot of modern techniques use just one vessel to mash and boil and then a separate fermenter.
I used to have the 3 vessel set up but actually now use just one for making wort and one to ferment. Less hi tech than many, I use a burco to get my water to mash temp, then dump a bag made of mesh curtains and full of grain into the water. Insulate and leave for an hour or hour and a half, remove the bag and grain leaving the wort behind in the boiler. Then boil what remains for an hour or more and add hops depending on recipe.
Then allow to cool or somehow crash cool,
And ferment.
It’s really fairly easy once you get going but you are likely to have many early runs where something you hadn’t forecast went wrong or more likely you think went wrong but turned out fine. Then you get in the groove and it’s easy.
Essexsussex
Well-Known Member
completely agree - there are great grain and dried malt based kits that are a fantastic starting point,
Always hopped ale when working out how to do it, usually tastes good!
Lukasod5
Active Member
Lukasod5
Active Member
Perfect setup, if your looking to do grain extraction. People tend to over complicate it with mash tuns, as they wanna get as much as possible from their mash. But honestly you won't notice much, if any difference in gravity.
Essexsussex
Well-Known Member
It’s surprisingly efficient - and you can just use a little more grain to hit the gravity you want. I’d never go back.
You can use use a grainfather g30/40/70 and a fermenter, no need for a third vessel. It acts as a mash tun at first, then you pull the metal basket out which holds the grain, and the unit is then the boiler.
Grainfather is on the upper end of the market, there are other brand such as the Brewzilla or Hopcat that essentially do the same thing but aren't quite as refined or don't have all the bells and whistles that a grainfather does such as bluetooth or wifi!
I've been brewing for about 15 years, did the kits in a can for a few years which make mediocre beer, went to a 3 vessel setup which made great beer but is a bit of a faff, and a few years ago I moved to a brewzilla which makes just as good beer as the 3 vessel setup, but alot less effort and less stuff to store.
The brewing process with an all in one setup such as the grainfather or brewzilla takes about 5 hours. About an hour and a half of that is hands on doing something, the other 3 and a half hours is waiting for the machine to do it's thing, then around 1-2 weeks in the fermenter, a few days in a keg and it's ready to drink.
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That’s really useful - thank you!
Morkai
Well-Known Member
Having another read here and watching a few videos, I'm going to give a kit another try.
After many reviews etc, it would seem some of these newer kits like the Munstons Hazy IPA have manage to near enough remove the 'twang'. Plus, it's a good time trade off vs quality compared to an all grain.
Probably going to try the Munstons Hazy and the Mangrove Jack Mango Pale, short brewed of course.
After many reviews etc, it would seem some of these newer kits like the Munstons Hazy IPA have manage to near enough remove the 'twang'. Plus, it's a good time trade off vs quality compared to an all grain.
Probably going to try the Munstons Hazy and the Mangrove Jack Mango Pale, short brewed of course.
A friend of mine did the Mangrove Jack Mango last year, it was an "ok" beer, still definitely had that kit twang but it was drinkable, as most kit beers are.
Morkai
Well-Known Member
Yeah, it can be hard to eliminate. The Muntons one seems to be the one that many say may have eliminated or that most people couldnt tell its kit. But, I'm having some mates over in a couple of months and after a few, I'm sure we wont care.
Morkai
Well-Known Member
Do you know what they brewed with, was it the Mangrove LME, dextrose etc?
