DaveP
New Member
Hi all,
going to be making the jump to all grain soon (as soon as the brewzilla stockists are taking the next batch of pre-orders..). Quite excited as the possibilities are endless. Also quite cautious as the possibilities are endless, had a look at some transatlantic fora, and it seems there are a lot of folks out there just chucking stuff in a kettle, with little ideas about what's doing what, or how many kilos of high-alpha hops are optimal for their next project. But you guys seem to be a bit more reasonable round here from what I've observed so far :-)
I've been reading "Home Brew - Beyond the Basics" by Mike Karnowski, which is good and gives a grounding in the basic principles. Also like his idea of starting off with a single malt and single hop brew, to get a feel for the kit and what's doing what in the flavour mix. Reminds me of when I started doing B&W photography, and I got the advice of "stick to one brand of film and one brand of developer for the first dozen rolls" which is how I learned how to judge exposure index and push/pull the processing. When I moved to a second brand it was an quick learning curve to grasp the possibilities of it as a result. So I'm looking for some advice regarding how to similarly limit the brewing variables so I might do some proper learning, whilst brewing some nice beer.
Apologies for the rambling pre-amble. I'll try and cut to the chase.... I'm basically looking at putting together a basic stockpile of ingredients that would allow me to brew a few different types of beer, without blowing the bank or ending up with a ton of unused stuff. So thinking, 1 base malt, 1 general purpose yeast, small range of hops and speciality grains. So far I've got as far as:
Base Malt - A 25kg sack of Maris Otter would appear to be a no-brainer
Yeast - Nottingham would seem to be a decent all rounder which isn't too temperature fussy. Going for dried for cheapness and ease of use
Hops - Help required - Thinking 4 to start with. Possibly a couple of traditional such as Fuggles and Challenger, plus a couple of high alpha varieties. So 4 usefully different varieties to play with
Speciality Grains - Help required - could anyone suggest, say, 4 varieties of other malts which I could combine with the Otter to make a full spectrum of beers (yellow through to brown :-) ) of various styles. Idea would be to buy a few kilos of each.
So, the idea is to put together a simple "toolkit" of ingredients I can play with for the first half dozen to dozen batches, just to get a feel for the dependencies between ingredients. Whilst making great beer, obviously. Just keen to actually learn what I'm up to rather than just playing with constant new stuff.
All input appreciated
thanks,
Dave
going to be making the jump to all grain soon (as soon as the brewzilla stockists are taking the next batch of pre-orders..). Quite excited as the possibilities are endless. Also quite cautious as the possibilities are endless, had a look at some transatlantic fora, and it seems there are a lot of folks out there just chucking stuff in a kettle, with little ideas about what's doing what, or how many kilos of high-alpha hops are optimal for their next project. But you guys seem to be a bit more reasonable round here from what I've observed so far :-)
I've been reading "Home Brew - Beyond the Basics" by Mike Karnowski, which is good and gives a grounding in the basic principles. Also like his idea of starting off with a single malt and single hop brew, to get a feel for the kit and what's doing what in the flavour mix. Reminds me of when I started doing B&W photography, and I got the advice of "stick to one brand of film and one brand of developer for the first dozen rolls" which is how I learned how to judge exposure index and push/pull the processing. When I moved to a second brand it was an quick learning curve to grasp the possibilities of it as a result. So I'm looking for some advice regarding how to similarly limit the brewing variables so I might do some proper learning, whilst brewing some nice beer.
Apologies for the rambling pre-amble. I'll try and cut to the chase.... I'm basically looking at putting together a basic stockpile of ingredients that would allow me to brew a few different types of beer, without blowing the bank or ending up with a ton of unused stuff. So thinking, 1 base malt, 1 general purpose yeast, small range of hops and speciality grains. So far I've got as far as:
Base Malt - A 25kg sack of Maris Otter would appear to be a no-brainer
Yeast - Nottingham would seem to be a decent all rounder which isn't too temperature fussy. Going for dried for cheapness and ease of use
Hops - Help required - Thinking 4 to start with. Possibly a couple of traditional such as Fuggles and Challenger, plus a couple of high alpha varieties. So 4 usefully different varieties to play with
Speciality Grains - Help required - could anyone suggest, say, 4 varieties of other malts which I could combine with the Otter to make a full spectrum of beers (yellow through to brown :-) ) of various styles. Idea would be to buy a few kilos of each.
So, the idea is to put together a simple "toolkit" of ingredients I can play with for the first half dozen to dozen batches, just to get a feel for the dependencies between ingredients. Whilst making great beer, obviously. Just keen to actually learn what I'm up to rather than just playing with constant new stuff.
All input appreciated
thanks,
Dave
Citra of course 
