Introducing.....

[Bomber Watson]

Gday everyone.

Im Bomber, and im a beeraholic from Rockhampton, CQ

Figured i had best get around to starting one of these threads, as i've been a member for over 12 months now and stayed silent.

Honestly i discovered this forum due to it always popping up at the top each time i googled something, joined after having that happen quiet a few times, but have not really had to make a post as of yet as generally a bit of a look around answers most questions i have anyway.

Really good resource of knowledge you have here, and some very switched on seeming lads floating around.

I have been brewing for about 5 years now, although the first few years were just IGA selected kit and kilo jobs, at the time i thought they were pretty good swill but i would have to say my taste has improved a bit, moved from kit and kilo's on the bench in the laundry with a couple of fermenters to mostly unmalted extracts with my own hop additions in a 10lt pot on the stove, fermented in a 200lt chest freezer with a temp controller........all stuff i learnt from this forum.

Oh the benefits of cold crashing!!!!!

I actually tasted James Squire 150 lashes pale ale about two years ago, which taught me that beer is something other than the Corona, TED, Crown, Summer, etc that i was drinking all along and comparing my efforts to (no wonder i was content with the rubbish i was making)

This sent me on an epic whirlwind tour learning about hops (had no idea what they were for haha) and grains and yeast and water and and and and and....

Honestly i was amazed to learn that you DIDNT have to add sugar or a brew enhancer with a can to make beer....**** me how simple i was.

Still a very low level brewer at this point, I am setting up a converted 50lt keg with a 3600 watt element and a temp controller atm for a brew kettle, and did just pick up a mashmaster mill, so slowly working my way toward AG...Just being able to do full wort boils with the extract tins for now will make my life quiet a bit simpler.

Cashola to blow at this hobby is a bit tight as i have a few other hobbies, the other ones for the most part go vroom vroom and cost me a lot of money, have toys with four wheels, toys with two, and a toy that floats.....Mostly 60's-70's Aussie stuff.

Luckily i brought my house fairly young (am still kinda young i suppose) and dont have a SHMBO, so do have a bit of leniency as to where the spare funds go...And i like beer...And i nowdays like GOOD beer....so a bit goes there....Considering im drinking craft beer similar to something that would come out of a $10 tallie from Dan murphy's for around $1 a schooner im not overly concerned about the dollars spent here hehe.

Am a bit over bottling, i've probably bottled 3000 tallies in the time i've been playing this game, so kegging systems has been my most recent learning expedition...One day...Need to sell a couple of cars first......And maybe the Harley....Hmmm.....

Anyway, enough of a rant, Have fun, and see yas around.

Cheers.

 

[Lincoln2]

Welcome Bomber - sounds like you have things pretty much in hand. How's Rockie these days? Havent been there in over 10 years.

 

[TheBlackAdder]

Welcome to the forums

I would strongly encourage taking the plunge to AG asap as it seems you have the basics down well.
Since you mentioned limited funds for the hobby, here are two cheap as chips AG methods that work really well:

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/11694-a-guide-to-all-grain-brewing-in-a-bag/

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/60922-2-pot-stovetop-ag-with-lauter/

If you like 150 lashes, have a go at Dr Smurtos Golden Ale. It will be right up your alley and its a pretty easy recipe

Good luck and have fun

 

[Bomber Watson]

Lincoln2,

Cheers mate.

Rocky is grand. I like the place, but being born and living my whole life here probably helps. Its small enough you can go from one side to the other in 20 minutes on an average day, allow half hour if its peak hour on a weekday, but has most things you need handy, gainfull employment in general being one major token....

Compared to a lot of major cities i've been in its a ******* shithole, but alas, I drive 5 minutes to work as opposed to an hour or so, my mortgage repayments are **** all compared to the average in most major metropolitans, I have a reasonably cruisy job that pays the bills, you can walk around without huge fear of being mugged, plenty of places to walk the dog off leash, motorsport facilities of some sort fairly close......im content.

TheBlackAdder,

Always everyone on the "thou shalt go all grain" note.

Probably for good reason.

I actually had a bit of a think today whilst holding onto the blast hose (Im a spray painter by trade, currently work blasting and painting drill rigs), plenty of time to think whilst on the blast hose as its a pretty brainless job by my standards, and realized i actually do have most the stuff required to go AG.

Besides the 50lt keg i mentioned in the first post that im converting to a kettle, im also setting up another 50lt keg to use as a boiler for something thats apparently not allowed to be mentioned on this forum, name starts with S and ends with L.....

I realized i can set the second oh so evil boiler i mentioned up as a HLT when im not using it for its intended use.....

Also have a 47lt esky....and some buckets....and a mill....etc.....

Just got off the phone from my sparky mate, literally stopped typing this post at the last sentence ^ to answer his call, and he confirmed it will be easy enough to set up the two boilers with cords and plugs coming from them, and be able to plug in or plug out a SSR type controller that just goes hot or cold vs a temp controller type thing, so settin up the s***l boiler as a HLT will be easy as.

Dont get to excited though, this will all take a while, My boily mate who is going to tig up the boilers is a bit busy, the sparky mate is a bit busy, and I just took on a new "contract" (cashy) bare metalling and painting a WB ute for a lad, so weekends are a ******* bust for the lot of us for a while, but we will get there....

Right now i dont really rate 150 lashes, when i first tried it it was an absolute explosion in my brayne and on my licker, So as i said i stated researching, throwing shit into my brews, and most importantly (which i did not say) is trying more and more somewhat exotic beers.

Currently 150 lashes tastes to me like a corona did a few years ago, there lower than lawnmower. I've been brewing nicer tasting beers (with the sacralige extracts, i know) and sampling far better beers ever since.

Hasslehop from Burleigh would have to be up there atm. Sadly it was limited release.

I did check out Dr Smurtos Golden Ale, and considering i have a cubic shit tonne of Amarillo laying around i might just whip up an extract version using Morgans pale and Morgans Wheat as my next yeast starter (my last US05 culture got to the sixth generation of just dumping new brews ontop after splitting it a bit so im currently scrapping it) and see how it goes. Sounds like a delicious drop. Morgans because thats what the LHBS sells, and Coopers is Halal certified anyway, so I cant really use the stuff due to my beliefs.

When i finally get around to pulling my finger out of the sphincter hole something like that sounds like a perfect first go at AG, so will keep it in mind for sure, thanks for the hint.

Anyway, enough of a rant, again, aveagoodone.

Cheers.

 

[Maheel]

Welcome BW

i am ex rocky myself, i no what you mean by shithole...
are you a south sider or north sider? (or depot hill....maybe lakes creek....) lol

Lucky you have a Dans there now, used to be F'ing hard to find a quality beer there a few years back

i'll be there for xmas stocking up at Dans after flying in and heading directly to the beach

once you go AG it's hard to go back.... :icon_drool2:

 

[Bomber Watson]

Northsider mate, Berserker....Lovely suburb, im the worst neighbor in the area which suits me well hehe....And doesnt ******* flood.....

Old man has moved to the beach, lives in Keppel Sands now, another nice spot, but the hour drive to work would shit me.

Cheers.

 

[Bomber Watson]

I just realized this forum doesnt have a swear filter, used to my cuss words that i tend to blindly type as adjectives being autonomatically changed to something more pleasant....Must remember to cut back a bit.

 

[Blind Dog]

Welcome

Standard practice here re swearing seems to be to swap a few letters around. My auto spelling thingy always swaps them back though, which is irritating. My 8 years olds favourite is to sing 'it starts with f, it ends with uck...fire truck' or to ask 'everyone for coffee?'. I blame his mother, she blames me and because we're married I'm wrong.

Don't get hung up about the whole AG thing. As you no doubt know you can making some fire trucking good beers with extract. And if time is at a premium, still means you can brew.

As for 150 lashes I reckon hopthief is now the only decent JS beer. Rest seem to have returned to the tasteless, fizzy mould of all other Lion products. It's a shame

 

[Weizguy]

Welcome, Bomber, my new friend.
I appreciate that you read and took your time to research. That's an almost unforgivable sin for new members (I found out).

If only some other people learned to apply the filter and not just just instant reaction reply.

I'm sure you'll forge some long-term friendships here. I know I have, on AHB pub crawls and private pm conversations.

Sh!t, I sound like an old bugger.. Catch ya 'round.

Anyway, I'm happy to be one of your wheat beer helpers, if you find you like them.

Les out

 

[Bomber Watson]

Hey Les, thanks for the welcome.

Im a member of another fairly large internet forum, actually having a 3 month break from it (asked one of the seniour admin to ban me for three months lol) hence im hovering around here a bit more now, and having been on that forum for over 10 years and having over 15000 posts, trust me, i know what its like to have people ask the same question over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over (can continue on for some time).

So yeah, not afraid to put in a bit of time researching something before asking stupid questions.

Re wheat beers, i've had a bit of a shady past with them.

Some time ago randomly picked up a Morgans wheat beer kit, and knowing no better grabbed a morgans wheat beer unhopped extract as well, and proceeded to ferment it on my kitchen table with the kit yeast in the middle of summer....Lets just say the result was disgusting.

That kind of put me off wheat beers for a while, then i read Randy Moshers Tasting Beer, and noted how he flogs on about them so much, so started grabbing one of two wheat beers of some kind each time i was doing an APA/IPA grab at Dan Murphy's, none of which really sang out to me, some of which i utterly disliked....

Then, One hot spring Saturday a few months ago (here its like 28-30 degrees in the middle of the day come late August), I cooked myself a rather mild tastingn lunch of Chicken snitzels crumbed with basil, thyme and parsely mixed in the crums, and steamed potato's, broccoli and cauliflower, cracked some salt and pepper over the lot, then went searching in the fridge to what to drink with it....And spotted a Sierra Nevada Hefeweizen i'd picked up some time earlier.

That was sensational, probably not the perfect food paring by any scratch, but very bloody good, and i thoroughly enjoyed the beer, enough to make me wish i had picked up two!

So yeah, im now once again slightly interested in wheat beers, particularly being the middle of summer here now, but would certainly want to try a few more commercial ones before deciding on one to brew myself, would you have any suggestions?

Cheers.

 

[Grainer]

At least u have enthusiastic emails LOL WELCOME

 

[Bomber Watson]

Grainer, I notice you have a Coffee Chocky Chock Breakfast stout on tap atm, Care to link me to the recepie if its on the db or give me a quick run down?

I do love a nice chocolaty stout.....

Blind Dog, sorry mate missed your post, Advice taken on board, agreed and agreed.

Cheers.

 

[Grainer]

Ill send it to you soon ..It is all grain tho...from memory stalking wilbur does a good extract Breakfast stout

 

[Bomber Watson]

Sweet as mate, i'll either try to convert it to partial or have some patience and wait till I go ag

 

[skapinad]

Hi Dj

 

[Potta]

BOMBER!!!

And look, its Skap too!

How's QLD today?

 

[skapinad]

Sunshiney as usual Craig .

 

[Bomber Watson]

Yeah yeah righto.

Admin, ban those two haahaha.