Kettle to bottle

Get advice on making beer from raw ingredients (malt, hops, water and yeast)
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Eric
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Re: Kettle to bottle

Post by Eric » Wed Sep 08, 2021 9:14 pm

MashBag wrote:
Mon Sep 06, 2021 8:01 am
You can see where this is going...
Thanks Wales, it's worth having the odd clear bottle for observation purposes and some Coopers bottles should there ever be doubt for carbonation. That in the cask is presently tasting well, but not yet fully on song. There are 40 bottles from 500 to 750ml. I'll send you one for a PM with an address.

I'm very chuffed with those, Northdown, this year. My Bramling Cross are well behind those and even with three days of sun and heat they no bigger than a collar stud in diameter and length. (Is there anyone left who knows what a collar stud is?)

It's been a good year up here for the garden, not perfect and we hardly saw the sun last month through the cloud, but we didn't have the usual winds off the North Sea nor do we ever get rainfall like that which keeps Welsh Water in business, rains here is usually horizontal.

Sorry MushBag, I didn't fully consider that last post could hit a raw nerve. From this post on my scripts will be more precise. All this recent technology makes it easy for the like f myself to be trapped in a kind of time warp and be oblivious of how brewing has progressed and the effort required to be at the forefront of the sate of the art.

IMG_20210705_115433755.jpg
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Without patience, life becomes difficult and the sooner it's finished, the better.

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MashBag
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Re: Kettle to bottle

Post by MashBag » Thu Sep 09, 2021 6:49 am

Eric wrote:
Wed Sep 08, 2021 9:14 pm

Sorry MushBag, I didn't fully consider that last post could hit a raw nerve. From this post on my scripts will be more precise. All this recent technology makes it easy for the like f myself to be trapped in a kind of time warp and be oblivious of how brewing has progressed and the effort required to be at the forefront of the sate of the art.

IMG_20210705_115433755.jpg
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

No apology required. This brewing malarkey is 'proper hard work but someones gotta do it 😁

Interesting link... Is it worth a read?

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Eric
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Re: Kettle to bottle

Post by Eric » Thu Sep 09, 2021 11:04 am

Is it worth a read? Try it and see. Reading is always a more effective way of learning than writing without reading.
Without patience, life becomes difficult and the sooner it's finished, the better.

WalesAles
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Re: Kettle to bottle

Post by WalesAles » Sun Mar 06, 2022 4:40 pm

Eric,
Great pint!😎
Lovely taste and hoppy aroma.
IMG_20220306_152754.jpg
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WA

Bloody Lovely Mun! =D>

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Eric
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Re: Kettle to bottle

Post by Eric » Sun Mar 06, 2022 10:55 pm

Pleased you enjoyed it WA, and many thanks for the report. It's time to brew again and as all the ingredients for that beer are in stock it would seem a good candidate to repeat.

Cheers.
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Re: Kettle to bottle

Post by Trefoyl » Mon Mar 07, 2022 1:20 am

Eric wrote:
Thu Sep 09, 2021 11:04 am
Is it worth a read? Try it and see. Reading is always a more effective way of learning than writing without reading.
=D>
Sommeliers recommend that you swirl a glass of wine and inhale its bouquet before throwing it in the face of your enemy.

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Eric
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Re: Kettle to bottle

Post by Eric » Mon Mar 07, 2022 5:59 pm

Trefoyl wrote:
Mon Mar 07, 2022 1:20 am
Eric wrote:
Thu Sep 09, 2021 11:04 am
Is it worth a read? Try it and see. Reading is always a more effective way of learning than writing without reading.
=D>
Thank you.

Of course it is necessary to read the right material, and that inevitably means also reading a vast amount of poor and imperfect offerings. That's not just limited to brewing or reading, just think of the vast volumes of rubbish music you've heard in your search for quality output.

Compare the experience recently offered in viewtopic.php?f=2&t=83673 with that by Scott Janish in Chapter 4 on the subtopic Sulfate-to-chloride Ratio in The New IPA, also a current subject of interest in viewtopic.php?f=11&t=83685 .
"If the water tastes good, you can brew with it." This was the advice I was given when I first started homebrewing. I thought it was great advice because I didn't have to think much about water as other than an ingredient, however, experience and research has told me otherwise. The biggest drawback from this line is that it fails to consider the removal of chlorine or chloramine, which is essential in preventing chlorophenol production (medicinal flavors) during fermentation. So if the water isn't a variable you want to worry about yet, at the very least, you should filter your water with a carbon filter to make sure you are removing the chlorine and chloramine, it's hard to make good beer otherwise. Only catalytic or surface-modified activated carbon can remove chloramine, standard activated carbon and carbon block do not.
So there you have it, so if that book was your go-to-guide, you would start brewing in fear of an ever present bogey-man unless you had the right filter. Not all of that book is as disadvantaging as the above example, but a page on the virtues of RO follows the above with a couple of dubious profiles for a Dry Irish Stout for comparison and then ....................
While using the ratio as a guide can be a good approach for formulating a recipe, the raw amounts of the minerals themselves are just as important. For example, a chloride to sulfate ratio of 30:10 and 300:100 are both 3:1 but would result in different different tasting beers.
So far, so good, but while the next sentence would be OK for Carling, is the "Coup de Grace" for beers like mine.
Generally, I like to stay under 200 ppm of each as to not impart a minerally taste to the beer.
Well, my beer in the earlier pictures was made with my tapwater adjusted to the following profile.....
Calcium 200 ppm, Magnesium 47.7 ppm, Sodium 33.1 ppm, Sulphate 417.6 ppm, Chloride 222.4 ppm, Alk. mash and sparge average, <20 ppm.
If Janish's claim was true, it would have a minerally taste. Did it?

Not all in the book goes against my understanding, it's like the curate's egg, good in parts. Also I can't dispute that outside my field of experience, just bear them in mind to compare with subsequent reading and findings. It must be said I didn't buy the book, it was a kind and unsolicited gift on publication by F00b4r and I will be forever grateful. I found it disappointing that newer generations could be confronted by fundamentals that were settled decades past and problems that never were despite all progress in British homebrewing since 1963.

Just while on the subject, my advice to new brewers would be to ignore water profiling until you are familiar with your kit and can brew a basic beer (not a hop monster or whipped cream strawberry and sardine stout) to a point where you remember when the taps should be open or closed together with how and when to sanitise all that needs to be. Meanwhile find out your water's profile and your starting point.
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Re: Kettle to bottle

Post by guypettigrew » Mon Mar 07, 2022 7:29 pm

Superb post Eric, as always.

Diplomatic, thought through and very clear.

Thanks.

Guy

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MashBag
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Re: Kettle to bottle

Post by MashBag » Tue Mar 08, 2022 8:33 am

Eric wrote:
Sun Mar 06, 2022 10:55 pm

... you would start brewing in fear of an ever present bogey-man unless you had the right filter.

Thanks Ewic. Indeed a good review.

I always think its a shame that most people do start brewing in that way.

Unlike many hobbies, brewing does seem to have a veil of complexity and dis-information when it really doesn't need to.

A recent new brewer said to me "if you just follow tla good recipe is isn't that hard".

Or is it information overload. To many books/sellers biased instructions/websites etc?

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Eric
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Re: Kettle to bottle

Post by Eric » Tue Mar 08, 2022 4:40 pm

Thanks Guy, very kind and courteous as ever.

Hi Mashbag, what is for certain, few today will start brewing as those did in 1963, when white 2 gallon plastic had just began replacing galvanised steel buckets. There was lots of conflicting information then too, from winemakers, whose activities had not been previously restricted by need of an excise licence, as had brewing beer.

My grandmother always had made a bottle of wine for Christmas and my father several gallons of elderberry wine each autumn in a large earthwork vessel, strategically place above a Lancashire boiler, but neither knew much about making beer. Likewise many winemakers who were quick to provide advice to the rush of budding brewers, sometimes in never-to-be-forgotten book form. Of all, Dave Line probably clarified matters most, but it might be necessary to wade through many works by other authors first. A later major change came with Graham Wheeler's first book and a few others at similar time. What is now mostly different from the sixties is plentiful low cost stainless steel, single pots and the internet.

There can never be too many books or an excessive supply of information, just a lack of time or determination of the student to examine what is available. Brewing is complicated, but no more beyond the capabilities of those with a desire to learn, than the limitations of many other hobbies. Obviously, money can be a serious limitation, but any with the desire, some funds and physical ability can make a beer for less than at the pub. Success comes when the beer is not only cheaper, but better than that served at the local.

Recipes don't make the beer, a brewer does. Different recipes change beers and today, too frequently seen are many totally unsuitable for a novice brewer to develop his skills. It's much easier to fault find a clear pale ale with noble or traditional hops than a Hazy Raspberry and Camembert IPA that has just a little too much Jock Strap.
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Re: Kettle to bottle

Post by MashBag » Tue Mar 08, 2022 6:44 pm

Success comes when the beer is not only cheaper, but better than that served at the local.
Spot on. Well said.

I think brewing is as complicated as you wish it to be. Certainly time and knowledge help make it simpler.

There is a saying among winemakers "a busy winemaker makes the best wine". Do you think that applies to brewing?

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Eric
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Re: Kettle to bottle

Post by Eric » Tue Mar 08, 2022 8:14 pm

Wishing won't make beer, good beer in particular, but everything is easier when you know how.

I would say "a patient brewer makes the best beer".
Without patience, life becomes difficult and the sooner it's finished, the better.

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