Hello everyone,
I wanted to say hello as I'm planning to re-start brewing again as I've just been given a fairly comprehensive collection of brewing kit.
My history with beer making is that I started off back in the late 1990s as a student, making beer kits to extend my student loan. I eventually became pretty proficient and made beer kit beers for parties and weddings in later years. Fast forward to about 2012, and I paused a career in IT, to go and volunteer at a local microbrewery in Cambridge, where I very quickly was offered a full-time job and ended up there for the next 5 years. I learnt how to brew commercially and did everything from brewing batches of beer on my own, to casking, bottling, and all the non-glamorous jobs like cask washing, selling, delivering and maintenance of the brewing equipment.
It was an absolute blast, and I enjoyed many beer festival and even ended up doing a presentation about brewing at the Cambridge University Science Festival. Sadly, in the end, I decided to move back to IT as although it's not as much fun as making beer and all the goes with it, it does pay quite a lot better! I've been away from brewing for about 7 years now and always planned to go back to it, and today I took a big step towards doing just that, as I inherited a pretty impressive collection of homebrew kit from a very kind neighbour who was moving house.
PXL_20230926_081301699
PXL_20230926_081253579
The only annoying thing is that he has lost the controller for the Grainfather - they're hopefully fairly easy to come by though. I think the only thing I need is a chiller, to keep my fermenter nice and cold - he's given me his fridge that he adapted for use with kegs so keeping it cold once it's kegged won't be a problem! Everything needs a jolly good wash after being stored for several years.
I'll post updates as soon as there's anything interesting to report. I've got ideas for my first brew as we used to make a beer at the brewery that was a real favourite but hasn't been made for years now. I just hope I can remember how we made it, and also work out how to reduce the volume from 5 barrels to whatever the capacity of my new fermeters is!
All the best for now
I wanted to say hello as I'm planning to re-start brewing again as I've just been given a fairly comprehensive collection of brewing kit.
My history with beer making is that I started off back in the late 1990s as a student, making beer kits to extend my student loan. I eventually became pretty proficient and made beer kit beers for parties and weddings in later years. Fast forward to about 2012, and I paused a career in IT, to go and volunteer at a local microbrewery in Cambridge, where I very quickly was offered a full-time job and ended up there for the next 5 years. I learnt how to brew commercially and did everything from brewing batches of beer on my own, to casking, bottling, and all the non-glamorous jobs like cask washing, selling, delivering and maintenance of the brewing equipment.
It was an absolute blast, and I enjoyed many beer festival and even ended up doing a presentation about brewing at the Cambridge University Science Festival. Sadly, in the end, I decided to move back to IT as although it's not as much fun as making beer and all the goes with it, it does pay quite a lot better! I've been away from brewing for about 7 years now and always planned to go back to it, and today I took a big step towards doing just that, as I inherited a pretty impressive collection of homebrew kit from a very kind neighbour who was moving house.
PXL_20230926_081301699
PXL_20230926_081253579The only annoying thing is that he has lost the controller for the Grainfather - they're hopefully fairly easy to come by though. I think the only thing I need is a chiller, to keep my fermenter nice and cold - he's given me his fridge that he adapted for use with kegs so keeping it cold once it's kegged won't be a problem! Everything needs a jolly good wash after being stored for several years.
I'll post updates as soon as there's anything interesting to report. I've got ideas for my first brew as we used to make a beer at the brewery that was a real favourite but hasn't been made for years now. I just hope I can remember how we made it, and also work out how to reduce the volume from 5 barrels to whatever the capacity of my new fermeters is!
All the best for now
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