This afternoon, it's time to get a couple of kits on the go. I'll document it here for comments, suggestions, future reference. My planned brews are:
Brewferm Pils, an old favourite, double batch
Bulldog Hammer of Thor, my first foray into Bulldog kits
Both should hopefully be fairly easy / lazy to brew, requiring no addition of sugar, hopefully just making up the wort to the correct volume. I'm brewing for the first time in a year or so, so sorting out the equipment is a bigger task than making up the kits. I've just cleaned up two buckets, lids, airlocks, stirring paddle, etc. (it took a moment to remember what I needed) and since they were pretty filthy when I started, I've decided to sterilise everything twice. These days I mainly use StarSan, but I have the remains of a kilo bucket of Chemipro Oxi so I took the opportunity to fill two buckets with it and soak everything for 10 mins.
Next up is to prepare a fresh batch of StarSan; last year's was good for a few batches, but it needs replacing sooner or later. Acidity is everything where StarSan is concerned, so 20L of warm water was treated with 30ml of carbonate reducing solution, left for 10-15mins to react, and then 30ml of StarSan. With the buckets almost ready, I opened up the kits and set the bag of malt from the Bulldog kit to soak in a bowl of boiling water. Now, down to business.
Having emptied out the first round of steriliser, I dumped the StarSan out of my first bucket, relocated to the kitchen and emptied the malt concentrate into the fermenter, at the same time putting together a lid and an airlock to keep the flies out whilst I'm waiting for the kettle. The Bulldog instructions call for 3L of hot water - I'm using bottled water for this brew - so I filled the kettle and rinsed out the bag (so much easier than canned kits, can see me making more Bulldog kits already), plus a second kettle full of boiling water - more or less 3L. Made up to 23L with bottled water, and put the kettle on again to soak the Brewferm kits. The wort from the Bulldog Hammer of Thor kit already felt cool to the touch, so I got on and pitched the yeast, then put a lid and an airlock on it.
I used the same procedure exactly for the Brewferm Pils; since they're small 12L kits I made a double batch, but slightly short at 23L. Putting the kits together went about as smoothly as it ever has; I put this down to fewer stages and less work to do. I've also taken a few minutes to review what I have in stock and decide what will happen in terms of priming and bottling. Both batches are to end up in 450ml Grolsch bottles; they're lagers and will require refrigeration, which means 750ml bottles aren't practical as I can't fit more than two of them upright in the fridge. As for priming, I have a bag of carbonation drops, but a) I don't have 100 of them and b) they are likely to under-carbonate a lager, so I guess it's batch priming with dextrose and/or table sugar.
All that remains (apart from recycling all the packaging) is to work out what comes next; I have plenty of bottles to fill but I'm limited for fermenting vessels; there's one spare bucket that's currently full of StarSan, but that's about it. And my syphon tubing is knackered. I can feel another order coming on...
Brewferm Pils, an old favourite, double batch
Bulldog Hammer of Thor, my first foray into Bulldog kits
Both should hopefully be fairly easy / lazy to brew, requiring no addition of sugar, hopefully just making up the wort to the correct volume. I'm brewing for the first time in a year or so, so sorting out the equipment is a bigger task than making up the kits. I've just cleaned up two buckets, lids, airlocks, stirring paddle, etc. (it took a moment to remember what I needed) and since they were pretty filthy when I started, I've decided to sterilise everything twice. These days I mainly use StarSan, but I have the remains of a kilo bucket of Chemipro Oxi so I took the opportunity to fill two buckets with it and soak everything for 10 mins.
Next up is to prepare a fresh batch of StarSan; last year's was good for a few batches, but it needs replacing sooner or later. Acidity is everything where StarSan is concerned, so 20L of warm water was treated with 30ml of carbonate reducing solution, left for 10-15mins to react, and then 30ml of StarSan. With the buckets almost ready, I opened up the kits and set the bag of malt from the Bulldog kit to soak in a bowl of boiling water. Now, down to business.
Having emptied out the first round of steriliser, I dumped the StarSan out of my first bucket, relocated to the kitchen and emptied the malt concentrate into the fermenter, at the same time putting together a lid and an airlock to keep the flies out whilst I'm waiting for the kettle. The Bulldog instructions call for 3L of hot water - I'm using bottled water for this brew - so I filled the kettle and rinsed out the bag (so much easier than canned kits, can see me making more Bulldog kits already), plus a second kettle full of boiling water - more or less 3L. Made up to 23L with bottled water, and put the kettle on again to soak the Brewferm kits. The wort from the Bulldog Hammer of Thor kit already felt cool to the touch, so I got on and pitched the yeast, then put a lid and an airlock on it.
I used the same procedure exactly for the Brewferm Pils; since they're small 12L kits I made a double batch, but slightly short at 23L. Putting the kits together went about as smoothly as it ever has; I put this down to fewer stages and less work to do. I've also taken a few minutes to review what I have in stock and decide what will happen in terms of priming and bottling. Both batches are to end up in 450ml Grolsch bottles; they're lagers and will require refrigeration, which means 750ml bottles aren't practical as I can't fit more than two of them upright in the fridge. As for priming, I have a bag of carbonation drops, but a) I don't have 100 of them and b) they are likely to under-carbonate a lager, so I guess it's batch priming with dextrose and/or table sugar.
All that remains (apart from recycling all the packaging) is to work out what comes next; I have plenty of bottles to fill but I'm limited for fermenting vessels; there's one spare bucket that's currently full of StarSan, but that's about it. And my syphon tubing is knackered. I can feel another order coming on...
