Equipment needed for extract brews

[fractureman]

Have just bought an electrim boiler from ebay as got it cheap. Am buying a hop strainer which will fit on the tap as they are only about £11. Was looking at either buying or constructing a wort chiller as well.

Would this be enough for me to start extract brewing??? Am looking to go AG eventually after starting kit brewing this year, but am going to take the step to extract brews first & get some experience under my belt before going the whole hog.

Some advice on kit would be a help aso to whether I have got the right kind of idea on setup, also some advice on extract brews would be helpfull, I remember seeing somewhere that you need to make sure the water in the boiler is not too hot before adding the liquid extract or else it will just stick straight too it. So some help with that before I make the leap would be helpfull too.

[guidomax]

Hi Fractureman,

As you've seen in the other thread, I've started extract brewing too

Answering your questions - the only pieces of kit over and above what I was using for kit brews is the boiler and a thermometer.

I don't have a hop strainer (I'm putting the hops in a muslin bag to keep them all together instead), and also don't have an immersion chiller (I boiled less liquid than the pitching volume, and then made it up to final volume with frozen-till-slushy water; this brought the temperature down really quickly!).

No doubt that hop strainer and chiller are useful pieces of kit - the hops can get churned up more if they're loose in the boil (as opposed to in a bag), which I guess helps utilisation, and boiling the full wort volume will also help with hop utilisation as the gravity of the water in the boil is lower (less concentrated), but just to let you know that it is do-able without all of the extras.

That said, I intend on buying/fabricating both these bits of kit when I get the time and money so to do!

Oh, and make sure you have a decent (1g accuracy) set of scales. That I've found very useful too

Enjoy it mate

G

[Ingieuk]

As you may have also seen in the other thread I've just had a go at my first extract brew.

I too used a muslin bags so avoided the need for a hop strainer.

Cooling wise, I boiled the full volume of my brew (13.5l) and lost maybe 4 or 5l to evaporation/hops, I then decanted the hot wort into my FV and topped up with cold water. This brought the temp down to about 45 degrees. I then put the FV in the sink, filled it with cold water and added some frozen 500ml bottles of water. This took the temp down to 22 degrees is in about 30-40 minutes, changing the water in the sink for fresh when I remembered!

[OldSpeckledBadger]

I only used a muslin bag for one extract brew before I built my boiler and hop strainer. The boiler and hop strainer gave a much better hop utilisation.

[fractureman]

Thanks OSB hop strainer for the boiler it is then