# Opinions wanted-the mine field approach to brewing advice.



## Mozz (30/10/14)

I am extract brewing. Don't have the capacity for all grain brewing. If you were brewing using extracts as your base what would you do to best pimp up the depth of flavours in the beer? Going for mid strength pale ale style beers at the moment. 
I've only used kits to date. No boiling wort etc but I am happy to start doing that.
Also as a side question- I top up my fermenter with water straight from the cold tap. How risky is this?
Cheers


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## Ducatiboy stu (30/10/14)

Tap water is fine for your fermenter. No need to do anyhing with it. Old saying.....if you can drink it, you can brew with it.

You could start using speciality grains like Crystal, roasted grain etc by steeping them in hot water then adding the liquid to the extract

Adding hops will also help your kits


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## hoppinmad (30/10/14)

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/recipe/867-neills-centenarillo-ale/

Neil's centenarillo ale is a personal favourite of mine. When I'm low on beer and short on time it is the perfect recipe for pumping out a tasty American pale ale style beer. I highly recommend you give it a try.

With regards to topping up from the cold tap, I don't do it but thousands of people do with no issues so you should be okay if your sanitation practices are up to scratch.


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## Grott (30/10/14)

Hi Mozz, you don't say where your from but generally tap water is ok. I'm in Adelaide and use filtered water as a preference, we have a bad water reputation here. (Ducatiboy stu is on the ball with steeping grains) and you can look at steeping hops as well. Plenty here in the forums.
Cheers


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## Mardoo (30/10/14)

Also, going with premium extracts made a difference in my beers when I was doing extract. Briess and Weyermann extracts definitely added depth to the background of my beers. They're a bit more expensive but I felt the results made them worth it.


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## Trough Lolly (30/10/14)

+1 to the specialty grains approach described above. After starting kits, I grabbed a little sixpack esky and started mixing up specialty grains to really boost the flavor profile of my brews. It was then only a matter of time and equipment before I moved to partial then full mash brewing. And yes, tap water is fine...but it might be useful to check the water profile from your local water supplier once you get into more advanced aspects of your brewing so you can better match the water profile to the style of beer you're making...

Cheers,
TL


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## hoppy2B (30/10/14)

I use rain water for kit/extract brewing so boil my whole volume out of necessity. Prior to boiling I had off flavours and found that my beer went flat over time, usually only a few months. This tended to be accelerated when storing the beer under ambient temperatures during the warmer parts of the year.

I know that a lot of people on here will say there is no need to boil tap water but I have heard it suggested that boiling is a good idea to remove chlorine, and if yeast can live in it then so can other organisms.

Its up to you whether you boil or not, but you won't know for sure unless you do a side by side flavour comparison with a boiled batch versus not boiled. In other words, tap water might seem fine until you one day do a full boil and discover its even better.

If you do decide to try boiling or want to get into small batch all grain, then a 19 litre big W pot for $19 is the best value.

Besides specialty grains and hops, the next thing to look at is yeast. US05 for hop forward beers along with temperature control, is a good start. Alternatively, ferment your hoppy ales during the cooler months and your ester driven beers when its warmer.

There is a range of different yeasts available to home brewers, and you may also want to try growing the yeast that is found in some commercial beer bottles.

Edit: spelling


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## Ducatiboy stu (30/10/14)

Aaahhhh...the old chlorine thing.

It is true that boiling your water will drive out chlorine, most water supplies use chloramine which is harder to remove. Boiling does not remove it that quickly.

_*Some text stolen from Wikipedia about chloramine removale*_

Ascorbic acid and sodium ascorbate completely neutralizes both chlorine and chloramines but degrades in a day or two, which make it usable only for short-term applications; SFPUC determined that 1000 mg of Vitamin C (tablets purchased in a grocery store, crushed and mixed in with the bath water) remove chloramine completely in a medium-size bathtub without significantly depressing pH


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## manticle (30/10/14)

Some use chlorine, some chloramine. Should be able to find out from your water company.


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## Mozz (30/10/14)

Thanks for the replies. I'm in Darwin. Beer tastes good on the tap water. Water here is soft and very clean. Was more wondering about introducing infections with it but from what you're saying I need not worry too much. 
Enjoying a brew at the moment thinking if I can get that taste with not much input what else is possible....
Seems a few options for pimping the brew kits. Will give some a go. Cheers


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## manticle (30/10/14)

I would be looking mostly at quality of extract and decent healthy yeast, presuming you have sanitation and ferment temps under control (as well as conditioning and packaging processes).


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## Mozz (30/10/14)

Found Bribie's link on this topic which is gold- actually called pimping a brew kit. Happy with my disinfection techniques, definitely need to work on temp control (30 C is probably not ideal) and yeast starters.


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## manticle (30/10/14)

30 degrees is about 10 degrees away from ideal. Get that sorted first.


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## Eagleburger (30/10/14)

1. Bottle of starsan.
2 temp controlled fridge.
with that you will have decent beer.
3. some nice hops and a pot to boil them with your kit/malt extract
some very nice beer.
4. do some reading as it is a universe out there.


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## Mozz (2/11/14)

Cheers for the tips


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## Ducatiboy stu (2/11/14)

manticle said:


> 30 degrees is about 10 12-15 degrees away from ideal. Get that sorted first.


ftfy


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## Bribie G (2/11/14)

I'd second Neill's Centenarillo. I've never made it myself as I went straight from pimped kits to AG, but when helping Aydos a few years ago when he bought an urn for BIAB I turned up at his place and he had a fridge full of extract APAs.

They were really tasty, especially the Centenarillo. It's also noteworthy that the winner of the APAs in this year's national comp is an extract / partial courtesy of our Moodgett.


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## Mozz (1/1/15)

HoppinMad when I click on the link for the APA recipe it takes me the wrong page?

I don't seem to be able to link to any of the recipes?. Using the phone app to access the web page. Don't know if this has anything to do with it.


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## Mozz (1/1/15)

Yep its just the phone app playing up.
Got the recipe.


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