Hello fellow Brewers

[Pete21]

I have just returned to home brewing after an hiatus of 33 years, and I have been visiting your threads in secret over the last month or so , trying to get up to speed with brewing again,and thanks for your efforts and advice I am grateful, my favourite brews are IPA,s and rich nutty bitters, I have a Bulldog IPA on the go at the moment and a Geordie bitter, slightly doctored to suit my taste (only 20ltrs of water used instead of 23ltrs ). I have brought some ARAMIS and CASCADE hop pellets and I will be dry hopping the IPA around the last 5 days of fermenting and then kegging it.
I felt I had to introduce myself and say thank you as reading your threads has really helped me.
thank you

 

[Banbeer]

Welcome along @Pete21, happy brewing

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Welcome to the forum :thumba:

 

[An Ankoù]

Hi Pete, and welcome. Aramis is an unusual hop- I've got the rest of a 250 g packet I bought from Saveur Biere a while back and was wondering what to do with it. Let us know how your IPA turns out. It'd be interesting to hear from Alsace Brewer on his thoughts on Aramis.

 

[Pete21]

Hi Brewers, thanks for the warm welcome

 

[Pete21]

Hi Pete, and welcome. Aramis is an unusual hop- I've got the rest of a 250 g packet I bought from Saveur Biere a while back and was wondering what to do with it. Let us know how your IPA turns out. It'd be interesting to hear from Alsace Brewer on his thoughts on Aramis.

I have tried a small amount at the start of fermenting some bulldog premium IPA about 4 weeks ago, I boiled 25grams in a bag for 10 minutes and squeezed the bag and added the liquor at the start of the process. after 3 weeks in the bottle the beer has a slight citrus taste to it ,like fresh squeezed limes ,it is quite refreshing and light,however it's not the taste I wanted, it reminded me of those blond lagers you get from Belgium,don't get me wrong it is a nice drink. next time I will double the amount of hops and add them at the end of fermentation about 2 days prior to bottling , the brew I am doing at the moment is another bulldog premium IPA and I have just added a 25grm tea bag of Amarillo hops (boiled for 10 mins)) and in two days I will put it into a Keg with another 25grms of Amarillo hops boiled for 10 mins but minus the bag.

 

[GerritT]

Afternoon Pete!

Did you brew kits in the 80's or allgrain? Got any recipes from those glorious days?

 

[Pete21]

Afternoon Pete!

Did you brew kits in the 80's or allgrain? Got any recipes from those glorious days?

No m8 I only did the kits, Me and my ex did do a cherry wine from scratch with the fruit being taken from our cherry tree, we used champagne yeast and it was delicious and powerful,As I remember it took 4lbs of cherries with stones soaked in a bucket for a week then de-stoned before adding the yeast,it was so long ago I can't remember the full process and our other favourite was parsnip wine, a great wine and cheap to make, on the allgrain approach I am looking at making my own mash tun and brewing from scratch,but that will have to wait until after my jollies

 

[Pete21]

I am going to make the jump from kits to a mash, I have spent weeks trying to find a cheap 9 gal beer barrel or stew pot to make my own mash tun (cuz I'm tight) so I thought why not use a fermentation bucket, so I have ordered x2 kettle elements from e-bay(FROM CHINA) a spigot and a wattage controller and metal thermostat, it came to around £20 quid plus £10 quid for a bucket and it should be all good, next I will have to get some micro bore copper or a plastic tube and fit it to a cheap pond pump in a bucket of ice water to cool the wort.I'm sure a plastic syphon tube will work just as well as a copper coil bound with copper wire ,I am looking for a mesh container for the grain or may just go for a bag, what do you think. am I on the tight right track

 

[An Ankoù]

I'd have gone for a grain bag in a picnic box. Put a tap at the bottom of the box and sparge the grain through the bag until you've got time to get a bit of copper pipe to make a manifold. If you want to boil in a plastic fermentation bucket, then good luck. I'd get a stock pot, with or without a tap and put it on a propane burner. Check out what they've got at Calor Gas. You can find plenty of diagrams on t'internet for immersion chillers- I'm not sure what you need the pump for. Plastic tube won't work well as an immersion chiller.
As you're tight, think carefully. You don't want to be buying stuff you're going to have to discard later.

 

[Pete21]

I'd have gone for a grain bag in a picnic box. Put a tap at the bottom of the box and sparge the grain through the bag until you've got time to get a bit of copper pipe to make a manifold. If you want to boil in a plastic fermentation bucket, then good luck. I'd get a stock pot, with or without a tap and put it on a propane burner. Check out what they've got at Calor Gas. You can find plenty of diagrams on t'internet for immersion chillers- I'm not sure what you need the pump for. Plastic tube won't work well as an immersion chiller.
As you're tight, think carefully. You don't want to be buying stuff you're going to have to discard later.

The pond pump is to circulate the ice water from the builders tub round the immersion chiller and back into the tub, I would be adding frozen plastic bags of water to the tub as the water starts to warm up , I'm just doing my bit for the environment , I would have thought plastic would allow the heat to contact the cooling water quicker than copper, maybe I need to do some more research. EDIT, research done, plastic is an insulator so copper it is
EDIT AGAIN this is what I am thinking of,(not such a new idea) https://www.instructables.com/id/Build-Your-Own-Brewery-for-Under-100-STEP-2-/

 

[An Ankoù]

All good except I can't get round putting two (or even one) kettle element in a plastic bucket. Get a stainless steel boiling pot. If you have to use electricity then so be it, but it's much easier to stick it on a gas ring in the garden.

 

[Benjamin Tolmer]

hi @Pete21 !! Welcome and happy brewing.

 

[Gulpitdarn]

Yes! a late welcome from me too Pete.... A lot of fun is had from doing things on the cheap, I certainly have found so but I'm with An Ankou concerning boiling water in a plastic bucket... wont there be after tastes??

 

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Hi there Pete, I'm fairly new to brewing too but concur with the guys above regarding the boil kettle. I hummed and hawed a lot when I started putting together my equipment and went for SS boil kettle and gas burner combo. The thought of kettle elements and plastic buckets put the fear of God into me. Leaching was one concern, electrocution and melting plastic was the other. I'm sure many have tried it successfully but wasn't for me.

 

[An Ankoù]

If this is the so called "Brewmeister edition", it looks a cracking bit of kit and if I had to buy again, that's exactly what I'd get. Look out for the tap. My SS kettle came with a heavy, over-engineered ball tap (with a red handle) which I quickly replaced with the lighter (£12, blue handle) model. Other than that, SS isn't bad stuff at all

 

[Guybrush Threepwood]

This is what I got to start me off
https://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.u...er-with-Tap-Hop-Strainer-and-Thermometer.html

Interestingly they sell the pots with electric fittings in a bundle if gas not an option

 

[GerritT]

Get an electric thermometer. Costs a bit (a tenner?), saves a lot of stress.
Get an inkbird itc-308 and you got yourself set for a decade for £30 -ish.

And get one that works in the country you live in (plug-wise).

 

[Pete21]

I just brought a Mango chutney barrel for £11.00 delivered and stuck a £3,84p kettle element from china on it and got a kettle plug fitting from china and stuck it on a piece of cable I saved from tired old washing machine that I dumped and it all appears to work, the mango chutney barrel is HDPE but it has a white lining that I think is polypropylene, so hopefully no leeching, I have ordered a piece of voile net curtains to make a brew bag , which is a fraction of the price of a brought brew bag. my barrel is boiling at a test of 216.5F with one element and the barrel is holding up and not bending or distorting.

 

[Pete21]

pics of the boiler