How to brew your own beer - The All Grain method

I would love to make mead at some point. Love the stuff, but its either: terribly weak and winey in places, or luducriously expensive!

Any good traditional methods which are strong and tasty as ****!
 
Just been in to our local home brew shop and have been given a sachet of this new Mangrove Jacks US West Coast Yeast as the owner knows we like hoppy US beers. So looking forward to trying it.
Might have to split a brew between two fermeters and do one with this, and one with US-05 and see if there is a noticeable difference.
Hmmm, but what to brew. Got a pack of Amarillo that we've not even opened, and I'm sure that might be good for a hoppy summer beer.
 
Well, I've kind of done the 2 yeasts from one brew. Was trying to get a 50/50 split of a longer brew length split equally across 2 fermenters, but instead have got 15l in one, and 10l in another.
So it's an APA,
6.5Kg pale malt
500g crystal
35g Citra at 60mins
10g Amarillo at 30 mins
20g Amarillo at 10 mins
20g Amarillo at flame out

15l of it has got Mangrove Jacks US West Coast yeast
10l has got Fermentis US-05

With 7Kg of grain BIAB, my back now aches.

I've also bottled an entire brew, split across some brown PET bottles, some clear glass bottles and some brown glass bottles. All out of direct light, but at least with some PET bottles I can try and judge pressure in them.
If anything I might have under-primed them because I don't want too much pressure to build up and they shatter. :eek:

So now a quick clear up so MrsS doesn't kill me, then sleep.

Beersmith works it out to be 55 IBU's, but with that much sugar going in, I hope it will be fairly balanced.
It's come out of the boiler at 1.056, and Beersmith is estimating about 6.5% ABV.
 
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seabiscuit said:
Well, I've kind of done the 2 yeasts from one brew. Was trying to get a 50/50 split of a longer brew length split equally across 2 fermenters, but instead have got 15l in one, and 10l in another.
So it's an APA,
6.5Kg pale malt
500g crystal
35g Citra at 60mins
10g Amarillo at 30 mins
20g Amarillo at 10 mins
20g Amarillo at flame out

15l of it has got Mangrove Jacks US West Coast yeast
10l has got Fermentis US-05

With 7Kg of grain BIAB, my back now aches.

I've also bottled an entire brew, split across some brown PET bottles, some clear glass bottles and some brown glass bottles. All out of direct light, but at least with some PET bottles I can try and judge pressure in them.
If anything I might have under-primed them because I don't want too much pressure to build up and they shatter. :eek:

So now a quick clear up so MrsS doesn't kill me, then sleep.

Beersmith works it out to be 55 IBU's, but with that much sugar going in, I hope it will be fairly balanced.
It's come out of the boiler at 1.056, and Beersmith is estimating about 6.5% ABV.
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citra, not a big fan i dont think its smells of cats like other people do, but its a acquired taste.
How did lhbs / you get hold of the Jacks US West Coast yeast, aint it as rare as rocking horse ....;)
 
FrenchTart said:
Should be making a Jaipur clone this weekend. First brew of ours but a friend that has done several brews will be showing us the ropes :)

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=498033#p498033
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Hey, that's fantastic. Enjoy yourself.

Squid said:
citra, not a big fan i dont think its smells of cats like other people do, but its a acquired taste.
How did lhbs / you get hold of the Jacks US West Coast yeast, aint it as rare as rocking horse ....;)
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I'm guessing a supplier/distributor sent them samples to see if they want to sell it.
They seem to be available from here and here anyway though.
You've got me a bit concerned now with the whole cat smell. :eek: When I opened the pack of Citra it just smelled of lime to me.
 
seabiscuit said:
Hey, that's fantastic. Enjoy yourself.



I'm guessing a supplier/distributor sent them samples to see if they want to sell it.
They seem to be available from here and here anyway though.
You've got me a bit concerned now with the whole cat smell. :eek: When I opened the pack of Citra it just smelled of lime to me.
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Amarillo gives such nice flavour anyway,they must be shipping to people in the UK now, heard it was good dry yeast.
 
Well, the jaipur clone was an interesting experience. We realised after making it that the quantities for the hops in the recipe we were using were absolutely ridiculous. I am pretty concerned that we'll end up with something undrinkable but I guess time will tell :p

Hopefully in the meantime we can make something a little tastier.
 
FrenchTart said:
Well, the jaipur clone was an interesting experience. We realised after making it that the quantities for the hops in the recipe we were using were absolutely ridiculous. I am pretty concerned that we'll end up with something undrinkable but I guess time will tell :p

Hopefully in the meantime we can make something a little tastier.
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What do you mean? Ridiculous in terms off too much? If so then calm down. Pretty tame hop amounts, and it calculates at 50 odd IBU which isn't much at all. More than drinkable session beer.
 
I got some Nelson Sauvin hops so with the influence of Schneider 2012 Tap X I made a wheat beer!

According to the info in the book 'for the love of hops' 2012 Tap X contains the following.
60% Hermann wheat malt 6 EBC
20% Marthe barley malt 6 EBC
20% Urmalz barley malt 25 EBC

Did not have the above so I used the following.
4kg Wheat malt
3kg Maris otter
160g Acid malt.

Tap X hops
Hallertau @ 50 mins 8 IBU
Nelson Sauvin @ 15 mins 15 IBU
Nelson Sauvin @ 0 mins 6 IBU

I used
Perle @ 50 mins
Nelson Sauvin @10 mins
Nelson Sauvin @ 0 mins

I started fermentation @ 16°C and will raise it by 1.5°C per day till maxed out at 24°

Will try and make this again using Weyermann malts from the malt miller as they are closer to the malts required.

Some pics of my new equipment, the fridges and chest freezer were all bought on Gumtree.

Using the fridge for fermenting and the freezer for conditioning but can use both for either.


Fermenting the said wheat beer at currently at ~17.5°C, lid open to get oxygen to the forming yeast head.



Lagering a Kolsh @ 0°C



Kegerator for serving cold home brew :)

 
That's a ridiculously nice setup, Jimmy321 :)

Our first attempt at a homebrew (a jaipur clone using a recipe of questionable quality) is into it' second day of fermentation. We tried a little of the wort earlier as we'd forgotten to take the initial reading and wanted to get at least a rough idea of the change in ABV and it tasted so much nicer than it was when it came out of the can. I'm a lot more hopeful that we'll end up with a good product now :)
 
Frenchtart...................relax.........................breathe......................your beer will be fine. ooo we did our first kit within the last 9 momths and it was awful we messeed with our wort so much but we still found it pleasant, here we are 2.5 years later making nice beer trust me or seabiscuit your address we will post a bottle of home brew.
 
Mrs Seabiscuit said:
Frenchtart...................relax.........................breathe......................your beer will be fine. ooo we did our first kit within the last 9 momths and it was awful we messeed with our wort so much but we still found it pleasant, here we are 2.5 years later making nice beer trust me or seabiscuit your address we will post a bottle of home brew.
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I know what you mean. I keep telling myself to relax about it but it's so stressful when you don't know what it's going to turn out like :p I don't have any point of reference really... much like when I first learnt how to cook remotely complex food recipes all those years ago :)

I think given how the wort tasted today it's best to assume that the end result will be good - an insanely insanely hoppy and over the top IPA but that's the kind of beer I like at the moment so hopefully I'll enjoy it (and hopefully the others that I brewed with won't enjoy it so I get to keep it all, muwahah) ;)

Mrs Seabiscuit said:
talkin of which Ive not seen the_bleu in yonks.
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He posted a few weeks ago in someone's thread when they were just starting out on making cheese. He's still around...just somewhat quiet :)
 
So just got a wit beer in the boiler at the moment. Using lager malt, wheat malt, flaked malt and oats (hopefully Mrs S can add the photos she took at the weekend). Got some Saaz hops on for bittering, and will be using Styrian Goldings at flame out, along with some orange zest and some coriander. Hoping that it will be ready quickly so can take a couple away when we go to Whitby with my parents.
Because the malt extract from these grain it so pale, it looks revolting in the boiler with the dark green from the hops.
Hope this message makes sense as I'm typing it from a mobile browse, and it doesn't fit on screen to proof read it.
 
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Great thing about wheat beers is they are ready to drink within 3-5 weeks from the start of the brew.

Bottled my Nelson Sauvin wheat last night and it tasted really good, primed with wheat malt dried extract to keep it all malt and should finish at 7.3% vol which is the same as Tap X.

Also have a cornie of wheat which I brewed for a beer night with some friends but theres a huge problem! It will ready to drink next week and the beer night is the 19th July.
 
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