Ben Matthews
Active Member
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2019
- Messages
- 49
- Reaction score
- 8
Hi people,
I'm just in the process of gearing up for my first delve into home brewing. I LOVE beer and have wanted to dabble with home brewing for a while but we've been doing up houses and moving regularly for years so haven't had the chance. Were just about to move house to our final home which comes complete with its own spring so I thought now is the time to start brewing.
I don't drink too much so was thinking of doing something like 11 or 12 litre brews once a month. (I guess about half the amount of your standard 5 gallon recipe size). As I'll not be heating up too much water and the kind of beers I love seem to call for step mashing I was hoping to use my kettle as a mash and later tun also. I've read somewhere once you get the mash up to temp I can just put the lid on and wrap in a duvet, then put it back on the cooker to take it up to the next temp etc. en route to mash out temp.
I've bought a second hand kettle in great nick with a tap and thermometer. Its got a stainless mesh hose on the inside attached to the taps bulkhead. My first questions to you guys is in relation to that. I read that when sparging the tap being on the side of the kettle will cause the water to be drawn down though the mash unevenly giving a fairly poor extract efficiency. Can I just stir the mash regularly when doing the sparging to help even this out?
I've also read I could maybe make a copper manifold to attach to the bulk head to make the draw through the grain bed more evenly. I've got all the equipment to make one here but wondered whether copper was a safe material to use and whether doing this was necessary if I could just stir instead.
I do have a few more questions for you all but thought I'd do them bit by bit.
Thanks in advance
Ben
I'm just in the process of gearing up for my first delve into home brewing. I LOVE beer and have wanted to dabble with home brewing for a while but we've been doing up houses and moving regularly for years so haven't had the chance. Were just about to move house to our final home which comes complete with its own spring so I thought now is the time to start brewing.
I don't drink too much so was thinking of doing something like 11 or 12 litre brews once a month. (I guess about half the amount of your standard 5 gallon recipe size). As I'll not be heating up too much water and the kind of beers I love seem to call for step mashing I was hoping to use my kettle as a mash and later tun also. I've read somewhere once you get the mash up to temp I can just put the lid on and wrap in a duvet, then put it back on the cooker to take it up to the next temp etc. en route to mash out temp.
I've bought a second hand kettle in great nick with a tap and thermometer. Its got a stainless mesh hose on the inside attached to the taps bulkhead. My first questions to you guys is in relation to that. I read that when sparging the tap being on the side of the kettle will cause the water to be drawn down though the mash unevenly giving a fairly poor extract efficiency. Can I just stir the mash regularly when doing the sparging to help even this out?
I've also read I could maybe make a copper manifold to attach to the bulk head to make the draw through the grain bed more evenly. I've got all the equipment to make one here but wondered whether copper was a safe material to use and whether doing this was necessary if I could just stir instead.
I do have a few more questions for you all but thought I'd do them bit by bit.
Thanks in advance
Ben