Possibly returning

[Fore]

Hi. 15-10 years ago I used to brew beer kits; mostly English Ales. Moved to France, sold all the bulky equipment and moved onto other interests. Was recently given a bottle of home brew and it all came flooding back. And English Ale is not so easy to get hold of in France, so the interest returns!

 

[bobsbeer]

Welcome. :

 

[dennisking]

Hi and welcome.

 

[PD]

You could always cross the channel and call in at one of our small supermarkets and buy some.....


Welcome to the forum...

 

[IPA]

Hi. 15-10 years ago I used to brew beer kits; mostly English Ales. Moved to France, sold all the bulky equipment and moved onto other interests. Was recently given a bottle of home brew and it all came flooding back. And English Ale is not so easy to get hold of in France, so the interest returns!

Where exactly in France? I'm here also. I can't see you on the map

 

[Fore]

Where exactly in France? I'm here also. I can't see you on the map

Just outside Strasbourg. Now I think about it, I think I had brewed for almost 10 years; longer than I thought.

In my search, why can't I find King Kegs with taps in the lid; do they not do them anymore? They were my favourite kegs.

If you want both ale and lager, it looks like Corny's would be the best bet. The 2-keg setups look great, just a shame that they don't hold the full 40 pints. I really don't want to do any bottling so start to wonder what I could do with the rest; 5l party keg or possibly a standard half keg. Is it absolutely necessary to cool the Corny's, as that would incur quite a lot of extra expense? Or would a tap with throttling sort it out, or am I going down the wrong path?

 

[IPA]

Hi
I use both cornies and plastic barrels. Two cornies in a fridge with taps for lager and wheat beer and barrels for ales. I sometimes put a barrel in a fridge during the summer months when it is just too hot to serve it at the right temperature. Contrary to popular belief you can get crystal clear beer from a cornie by priming and conditioning as you do with a pressure barrel. All you have to do is give it a squirt of gas after filling to seal the lid and then leave secondary fermentation to condition the beer. It beats me why some people use loads of gas force carbonating when the beer can do it all on its own. Of course you have to use gas to push the beer out of the tap but that is all. To answer your question you can connect a tap with a flow control straight onto the cornie and dispense your beer like that as long as you have a cool place to store it but steer away from the so called picnic taps because all the give you is a glass of foam. Here is a link to a guy here in France who sells setup that fits straight on to a cornie it even has a serpentin which absorbs excess pressure and stops any foaming.
http://toutpourlabiere.com/index.php?pa ... rie&cat=50
It's a bit expensive but it does do a good job.

 

[LeithR]

Welcome to the forum.

Why only "Possibly" returning - can I encourage you to be more committed?.

This is a great hobby/craft which you can enjoy to suit your social schedule and family needs. You can make it as complicated as you want to. Everything from kit brewing (Simple) to AG with mashing and sparging (Complicated) via AG BIAB (Brew in a Bag - in between)

Go on - you know you want to!!! :thumb: :thumb:

 

[RobWalker]

ironically, arguably the most popular english ale yeast is made in france - Safale S-04 :lol:

welcome back!

 

[joe1002]

Welcome to the forum :

 

[Fore]

Thanks everyone. My "possibly" stems from me knowing my weakness too well; if its there, I drink it. Anyway, once I get an idea into my head, it's difficult to shake.

A bit of reading later and I'm definitely gravitating to a 2 Cornie set up with 5l mini kegs for the remainder of a 40 pint kit (with Party Star Deluxe Tap). Initially I'd brew ales and store in the cellar without refrigeration, but who knows where this will lead? I like the flexibility the Cornies offer.

The direct connect taps are super expensive though. I'm assuming one can be used across several Cornies (plug & play)? What exactly is the advantage of the throttle; does it allow for greater pressure in the keg meaning more carbonation in the final beer? I don't want to spend 30 EUR extra on a throttle version only to discover I could achieve the same with lower bar in my Cornie. Sorry if it sounds a daft question.

Would you recommend 2kg CO2 cylinder or 5kg?

I'm thinking a single outlet pressure gauge with splitter further down the line. That way I can just add kegs with increased splitters; no particular need for a 2 outlet gauge.

Does this all seem on track?

 

[IPA]

Hi
The tap with a compensateur is the one to go for. Otherwise you with end up with half a glass of foam and have to wait ages to pour a full glass. This guy
http://toutpourlabiere.com/index.php?pa ... rie&cat=50 does a tap with a compensateur that clicks straight onto a cornie. I started with a 2 kg gas cylinder and just recently bought a 10kg There is so little difference in price you might as well get the biggest one which will last for years. If you are not going to use a keggerator a single oulet regulator will do fine. You just click the gas pipe on to whichever cornie you want to use. The guy at Toutpourlabiere is German and his brother has a company in Germany. It might be that he is near to you and you could collect and save on the transport cost.
Cheers Ian

 

[IPA]

Hi again
Just looked on the map and I think he ( his brother ) is in Stuttgart which is not a million miles from you. If you are really interested a can give him a ring a find out.

 

[IPA]

I thought you might be iterested in this http://www.roscha-bier.ch/bild.php?id=252 This guy is Swiss and he is holding a brewing demonstration in September. He is a really great guy and is passionate about beer. He is proffessional musicien who works as a bricklayer and he runs his little brewery as well. He has been to our house a few times and is great fun. If it is of any help he speaks English German French and The Swiss dialect and the venue is just down the A35 from you in Basel. If it were not so far from us I would be going. Click on this link to see photos of him and his brewery. http://www.roscha-bier.ch/index.php?men ... &menuid=69
Cheers

 

[Fore]

Thanks Ian. It never occurred to me that I could just quickly switch the gas line to the Cornie I wanted to draw from. I guess that means I need only one tap also then. Both the tap & gas are plug and play; great! For my own understanding, will the compensateur remove any of the carbonation? I'm assuming that the compensateur basically acts like a length of pipe, to reduce tap pressure, but the final outcome is the same as a length of pipe. So the tap you recommend is just a cleaner setup than a length of uncooled piping with no tap fixing point? I'm just getting my head around these basics which must be so obvious to you.

Now some location based questions:
- I'm driving to England in August, so in fact I have the choice of England, France or Germany from where to buy. Is it all a much of a muchness? I see perhaps the malt kits are best to buy from England, as most of the ones I want originate from there.
- Struggle to find the legal situation in France. Informed verbally that production volume is unlimited so long as for personal consumption. Correct?
- Where do you get your CO2 filled?

Thanks for the other details. I will likely attend some meetings once I've got my act together, as for now my questions are a bit basic.

 

[IPA]

Hi
The compensateur does not remove any co2 all it does is slows the delivery rate so that less co2 escapes in the proces and remains absorbed in the beer. Anywhere that you buy your ingredients will be cheaper if you collect rather than have them posted. Not true if you live in England where above a certain value are sometimes post free.This is a photo of two options. On the left is a cornie with tap and a 2kg gas bottle on the right is a basic keg with an S30 injector and S30 gas bottle. Two basic kegs with S30 gas bottle will cost you less than one cornie on its own and in my experience ( 20 years ) work very well. You will need to check/clean the tap threads and use a food grade lubricant on the sealing washers on the tap and the cap. I am not sure of the situation legally but if you google Biere Boutique and send an email to Madame Stettler she will know the answer.

Good luck with your brewing and I am happy to answer any more questions
Ian

 

[Fore]

I used standard kegs and top-lid-tap King Kegs for almost 10 years. King Kegs were great except I missed higher carbonation from time to time. Ended up with 40 bottles for larger but that was a royal pain in the neck. Back then it was about saving money, this time it's about having a hobby, so cost is less of an issue than "best of bling" (already deep in Braumeister reviews ).

Funny, the internet was in its infancy last time round, so there was no resource like this. I heard of Cornies but didn't know much about them at all. This time it's very different.

Time I moved to the real forum . Thanks again Ian :clap:

P.S. from where can I get the 2 decorative jugs in your 2nd pic?

 

[IPA]

Sorry didn't mean that one to be there! Hope nobody was offended

 

[Fore]

So I am indeed back. Just put on my first brew in 11 years! St Peter's Ruby Red.

I know this is an interest which will persist, so I decided to step straight to Cornie kegs (x3). I will also introduce a second 10 day fermentation (clearing) step, something I didn't used to do. I bought 8 different kits as a kick start and worked out that this set of 8, if you include the cost of everything, will cost just short of 3 pounds per pint. Once I'm through these 8, each further set will be between 50-60 pence per pint (that's how I like to see it anyway :)).

My first brew day back went OK, but I suffered:
i) The fermenter tap leaked, both at the joint and the tap itself. Good that I checked before I filled with wort, and a bit of vaseline and elbow grease seems to have done the trick.
ii) It took me 40 minutes to work out the correct dose of Star San, and to find an imaginative solution for measuring the small dose needed, i.e. child's medicine pipette.
iii) The water out of my tap was greater than 25oC. Everything had to come out of the freezer for 2 hours . Next time I know to prepare some refrigerated water.

Now I just hope the Cornie's and gas supply hold up and work as intended.

 

[godfrey]

i calculated in another thread the 20 litre brewmeister rig
will cost about £3 a pint for 15 batches including ingredients

after that it is just ingredients :-)

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