Fokke de Boer
New Member
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2024
- Messages
- 6
- Reaction score
- 17
Hi all,
I recently joined this forum to learn more on brewing and all that comes with it. As requested, a short introduction of myself.
I am a retired chemistry teacher, worked in the Netherlands where I was born. After my (early) retirement, I moved to France, and really enjoy living in the rural area of Burgundy. More specifically, near the village of Luzy, postal code 58170, in the department of the Nièvre.
In my student years, I did an internship at Gist-Brocades, and in their employee shop they sold, among other things, beer kits from malt extract. Being a beer lover, I tried it out a few times, but as it was difficult to work very clean (and I didn't know all the details back then), it was nog a great success. Many years later, I was offered as a birthday present to brew with a friend, all grain, making a beer of my choice, and get half the brew for myself. I really like the experience, and the beer was quite nice as well (a Duvel Tripel Hop clone). But I foresaw that I wouldn't have enough time to do it myself. Nor did I have sufficient room at the time.
But now that I'm retired, I'm back in the game! For my birthday I got a 5 liter Tripel kit from my children, and that set me off. I brewed another 5 liter kit, an IPA this time to verify that I still liked the process and the amount of work. I did. So I dived into the wonderful world of YouTube videos, and certainly those of The Malt Miller I loved and watched several times. A decision was made, and I invested in a 35 L BrewZilla gen4.1 and a FermZilla 2.1 27 liter. I also got a nice 3-roller mill, the Pill, the Bluetooth thermometer, the Temp Control and a heating mat. I found a second hand fridge that was big enough to hold the FermZilla, and started the first brew in early november of this year. That beer, a Doppelbock, is finished now, and put in 2 4-liter Oxebar minikegs, and 8 bottles. The former are carbonized using a gas bottle, the bottles have priming sugar. After tasting the first glass after a week of carbonisation, it was still somewhat undercarbonized, so I upped the pressure to 15 psi or so, and after two more days, it was much better. Of course there's room for improvement, but was to be expected, and is the heart of the hobby, right?
I now have a Stout on cold crash, but before I keg and/or bottle it, I want to add some minerals after finally learning the water profile of my tap water. Next I have planned a hazy NEIPA, a Lager and a Duvel clone. Many plans after that, I'd like to try many different beer styles like (Imperial) Porter, Bière de Garde, WC IPA, Bitters, etc etc. And of course brew some beers again to improve on them!
I'll add a few pictures of my brewing area.
I recently joined this forum to learn more on brewing and all that comes with it. As requested, a short introduction of myself.
I am a retired chemistry teacher, worked in the Netherlands where I was born. After my (early) retirement, I moved to France, and really enjoy living in the rural area of Burgundy. More specifically, near the village of Luzy, postal code 58170, in the department of the Nièvre.
In my student years, I did an internship at Gist-Brocades, and in their employee shop they sold, among other things, beer kits from malt extract. Being a beer lover, I tried it out a few times, but as it was difficult to work very clean (and I didn't know all the details back then), it was nog a great success. Many years later, I was offered as a birthday present to brew with a friend, all grain, making a beer of my choice, and get half the brew for myself. I really like the experience, and the beer was quite nice as well (a Duvel Tripel Hop clone). But I foresaw that I wouldn't have enough time to do it myself. Nor did I have sufficient room at the time.
But now that I'm retired, I'm back in the game! For my birthday I got a 5 liter Tripel kit from my children, and that set me off. I brewed another 5 liter kit, an IPA this time to verify that I still liked the process and the amount of work. I did. So I dived into the wonderful world of YouTube videos, and certainly those of The Malt Miller I loved and watched several times. A decision was made, and I invested in a 35 L BrewZilla gen4.1 and a FermZilla 2.1 27 liter. I also got a nice 3-roller mill, the Pill, the Bluetooth thermometer, the Temp Control and a heating mat. I found a second hand fridge that was big enough to hold the FermZilla, and started the first brew in early november of this year. That beer, a Doppelbock, is finished now, and put in 2 4-liter Oxebar minikegs, and 8 bottles. The former are carbonized using a gas bottle, the bottles have priming sugar. After tasting the first glass after a week of carbonisation, it was still somewhat undercarbonized, so I upped the pressure to 15 psi or so, and after two more days, it was much better. Of course there's room for improvement, but was to be expected, and is the heart of the hobby, right?
I now have a Stout on cold crash, but before I keg and/or bottle it, I want to add some minerals after finally learning the water profile of my tap water. Next I have planned a hazy NEIPA, a Lager and a Duvel clone. Many plans after that, I'd like to try many different beer styles like (Imperial) Porter, Bière de Garde, WC IPA, Bitters, etc etc. And of course brew some beers again to improve on them!
I'll add a few pictures of my brewing area.
. 
