My Homebrewing Escapades

JoshW

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re-circulation mash :) nice. but question when you say no chill?? as in not chilling during fermentation or at the time you rack it over to fermentation vessel?? i actually have a two vessel re-circulation mash in storage, a system that i made decades ago it is a bbl and half and uses a scottish ball instead of a sparge arm

Hi Dave,

The no chill method originated in Australia, hot and a lack of water don't make for a good pair. So instead of chilling the wort after the boil, you whirlpool until the twmp drops to around 80c and then transfer to a sanitised cube, the hot wort is also sanitary.

Then the wort can be transferred to the fermenter the next day, the next week, the next month or even over a year if your cleaning practices are good. Basically you fill to the brim, or push the air out until there's no air left in it and seal. If you leave for 6 months and the cube swollen you just turf it - easy visual indicator of good or bad.

I do intend on getting a blichman therminator which will allegedly use less water to chill than other chillers, but the $300 odd price tag i will explore no chill for a while. I will also recover the chilling water for the garden or something.
 

daveb

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ya thats what i was figuring, the only thing i would be concerned with is hot side aeration. if yu aerate to much while hot you can oxidize the wort. signs of it would cause a cardboard charatcer to smell or a sherry smell from hot side areation. the way you could get away with it is a ,wort heavy is SG then you want for finish and add in c water that has been boiled and super cooled in a fridge to the finish wort so it drops the temp as the whirlpool starts so you have less chance of hotside oxidization of the wort.
so just incase keep it in mind if you do notice a background hint of a cardboard or sherry smell and undertonesin the finished beer. the chillers i made is a re-circulation chiller that the reservoir is actually chilled by sitting in an ice chamber made from two coleman coolers filled with ice and water then salt to drop the temperature to super cold of the tank of chiller water inside
 

JoshW

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I'll keep an eye out for those flavours thanks

Transferred to the fermenter and managed to get a bit higher efficiency than the recipe so that's nice - 1.040 target, 1.044 actual. Pitched the yeasties - being Saison yeast it's just on the kitchen table and might need to grab the heat belt out if it doesn't warm up in next few days.
 
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JoshW

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I'm really bad at keeping this updated.

The saison is long gone, was a great beer.

Currently fermenting a Sour Apple Raspberry Cider.

The very simple recipe
14L Aldi Juice (no watering down)
Philly Sour yeast (really excited for this).

And then in secondary I will add 1kg of raspberries, I may need to up this after a few taste tests
 

Mark

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I have to say this is a tasty thread!

My brother-in-law is a master of homebrews and I really look forward to visiting them to taste the next new larger or stout - even things (like stouts) that I wouldn't normally order in a bar taste great homebrewed - well, his do that's for sure!
 

Mandy Onderwater

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Hi all.

Recently started getting back into homebrewing to save some money (lol).

This evening I poured the result of my first partial mash and I must say I won't be going back to the kit and kilo method of old.

Very, very decent NEIPA/Hazy IPA style

My fermentables were;

1.7kg tin Coopers Australian Pale Ale
1.4kg Barrett Burston Pale Malt
375g rolled oats
500g Light Dry Malt Extract

I used US-05 for my yeasties, and fairly substantial hop additions (which I will post the detail tomorrow - my toddler has taken my brew book into his room and he's in bed).

Starting Gravity was 1.050 and final gravity was 1.010 resulting in a reasonable 5.25%.

My next brew will be saying goodbye to the rim entirely, using ale malt and LDME and doing my own hop additions during the boil.

My system currently is just a Big W 19L pot ($20) and a Bunnings paint strainer bag (3 for $9) - cheap and cheerful, budget BIAB.

Cheers!

Wow! Sounds like you really know what you're doing! Have you been doing this for a longer while?

Also, do you think you could reshare this in the Article section under recipes? That way people would be led straight towards this instead of having to look through the forum! :D
 

JoshW

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Wow! Sounds like you really know what you're doing! Have you been doing this for a longer while?

Also, do you think you could reshare this in the Article section under recipes? That way people would be led straight towards this instead of having to look through the forum! :D

I am definitely an amateur brewer! I have brewed on and off for over 10 years, but these last 2 years I've stuck with it. Made some great beers, made some great slug trap beers too :ROFL:. I will sus out the article section when I'm not at work
 

Mandy Onderwater

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I am definitely an amateur brewer! I have brewed on and off for over 10 years, but these last 2 years I've stuck with it. Made some great beers, made some great slug trap beers too :ROFL:. I will sus out the article section when I'm not at work
Thank you! There are simply not enough articles and I'd love to fill them so people have somewhere easy to find what they need!
 

daveb

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i actually brewed and brew master for a pub for 6 years until the owner got into nose candy and lost everything and prior to that had my own home brew shop chain for 10 years i should dig out some of my old recipes :)
 

Mandy Onderwater

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i actually brewed and brew master for a pub for 6 years until the owner got into nose candy and lost everything and prior to that had my own home brew shop chain for 10 years i should dig out some of my old recipes :)
That would be lovely to see in articles if you're willing! :D
 

JoshW

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I'm really bad at keeping this updated.

The saison is long gone, was a great beer.

Currently fermenting a Sour Apple Raspberry Cider.

The very simple recipe
14L Aldi Juice (no watering down)
Philly Sour yeast (really excited for this).

And then in secondary I will add 1kg of raspberries, I may need to up this after a few taste tests

Moving into spring this is the perfect gardening drink

 

JoshW

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Thats a bit fancier than my plastic bucket :)

Nothing wrong with bucket if it works mate, I am still using the standard $25-30 30L fermenters you get with a kit. And ghetto temp control (or just use kviek and forget about it).

I have some pressure fermenter/kegs (ferment and dispense directly) but I need a spunding set up and a fridge for temp control to really make it worth using.
 

JoshW

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Latest brew, cheeky peak 3Cs (Citra, cascade, centennial hops). A bit heavier (6.5%) than expected but still quite quaffable.

 

DThille

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It's great to revisit this thread. I used to make a fair bit of wine - some from recipes, but most from kits...as I got better, I was buying the higher end kits - there's a big difference. Thinking about it, as we increase our fruit production at the country place, I'll have to revisit.

I considered brewing some beer as well. I understand it can be done with pretty much the same stuff as for winemaking. Is that correct, or was I mislead? Can anyone speak to how much the process differs for beer compared to wine?

A much simpler drink I've been working with recently is a couple of fruit liqueurs. I make a cherry vodka and black currant brandy from fruit we grow. They are far too tasty.
 

JoshW

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It's great to revisit this thread. I used to make a fair bit of wine - some from recipes, but most from kits...as I got better, I was buying the higher end kits - there's a big difference. Thinking about it, as we increase our fruit production at the country place, I'll have to revisit.

I considered brewing some beer as well. I understand it can be done with pretty much the same stuff as for winemaking. Is that correct, or was I mislead? Can anyone speak to how much the process differs for beer compared to wine?

A much simpler drink I've been working with recently is a couple of fruit liqueurs. I make a cherry vodka and black currant brandy from fruit we grow. They are far too tasty.

Not a wine drinker so haven't really explored the wine side of homebrew. There's a bloke I watch on YT, Simple Home Brew, has a few winemaking videos that may help, going from kits though not fruit.
 
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