Love the fizz

[Evanaught]

G'day all,
I'm a country Victorian who brews at work in the central pacific. Warm climate over here but I'm lucky to have an air-con keeping my temperature consistent.
I've only brewed with the DIY Coopers fermenter and have found a few brews that I really enjoy! However, I would like to look into taking it to the next level, the only this is I don't know where that is. Back home it's quite a cold climate and I'd have to use a heating blanket, would the next level not need a heating blanket and all the usual stuff the DIY kit provides?
I suppose I'd like to start brewing with ingredients rather than a can if you know what I mean.
I'm sure I'll do my research and find a solution in time but for now it'd be great to get you ideas!!

Thanks,

Evo

 

[manticle]

A fridge with temperature controller and source of heat is easy to set up and very common.
Brew in a bag or if you have some cash to splash - grainfather/braumeister are setups that are simple and require minimal equipment.

Extract or full mash/all grain brewing are 'next steps'.

 

[Evanaught]

Thanks mate! I'll start investigating!!

 

[djsmi4]

G'day Evo,

I'm also from Gippsland & joined here recently. I brew using kits & have two fridge setups outside, they work well both in summer & winter. I have two fermenters & use the fridges for both fermenting & bottle conditioning.

Setup 1)

Upright fridge, fan heater, STC-1000 temperature controller. Total cost $110.

^^^ Note picture taken before reptile enclosure heater replaced with fan heater

Setup 2)

Chest freezer, fan heater, KegKing temperature controller. Total cost $250.

Gumtree is your friend when it comes to 2nd-hand fridges or freezers! Just be sure to buy a dedicated fridge or freezer, not a fridge/freezer combo. Internal dimensions are important too so you can actually fit your gear inside. Before picking up the chest freezer I'd wasted a 100km round-trip on an upright that had fixed shelves, despite the seller assuring me over the phone that all the shelves were removable...

You'd be welcome to drop in at my place any time if you wanted to check out my setups in person.

Cheers, & welcome to the forums

Dave

 

[ChefKing]

As a beginner myself, the next step for me after I nailed down a couple of (kit & kilo brews), with temp control was to start blinging out my brews using specialty malt grains, better yeasts, finings, cold crashing, hops (added to boil & dry hopping) & kegging.

For me it was a good way to start learning about different hop flavours, and what different characteristic each specialty grain brings to a brew.

The difference in the final product has been great... My beer is really starting to taste good!

I have brewed a cpl of following prior made recipes found on here:

Brackos IPA
Passion fruit cerveza

Both turned out fantastic everyone who has tried them was blown away... Now I just create/tweak recipes myself that I think will work well...

The 2 I have in my fermenters currently are:

Brew A: Coopers draught with a specialty malt steeping of carapils & victory cracked malts, hop additions to the boil of Aussie cascade & Czech saaz hops with dry light malt extract, honey & US-05 yeast... Should be a lovely red/copper coloured beer with a nice full bodied mouthfeel with warm nutty, toasty biscuit after notes and nice hint of earthy, spicy citrus.
Brew B: Coopers Aussie IPA steeped with caramalt III,caramunich II & carapils cracked malts, LDME & US-05 yeast and hop additions to the boil of galaxy & experimental pine hops.. This should pack a punch of a bold beasty aggressive full flavoured IPA with a strong backbone of passion fruit and aromas of blackcurrant, dark fruit, strong herbal notes and resinous pine tree.

To me it seemed like the next logical step in brewing before I make the leap to AG...

 

[The Flyingscrapyard]

Welcome to the forum, Evo.
Controlling temp is the place to make a serious difference to your brewing success.
If nothing else, a controllable temperature gives you repeatable results.
If temp varies wildly, it is hard to replicate again if you find the beer is good, and hard to avoid more bad results if the beer is bad.
My set up is a motel bar fridge room for 1 standard fermenter, with a heater belt and temp controller to control both.
If you've never met a brewing temp controller before, it bypasses the fridge thermostat by turning power on and off to the fridge as required to maintain the temp you set. Likewise, the heater belt is kicked in when the temp controller says it is too cold. I would imagine most controllers are like mine, and can control temps to 0.1 deg C. I normally ferment with a tolerance of ± 0.5 deg C for my nominated fermenting temp.
Apart from this, thorough cleaning and sanitising practice is vital.
I never tried brewing from kits, just went to BIAB (brew in a bag) with a Crown 40 litre urn with a concealed element. The standard tap is replaced with a stainless ball valve so that hose can be attached to a barb fitting for transfers.
There are many great recipes out there for you to try (especially on AHB), but I have really enjoyed experimenting with made up recipes using Ray Daniels' book "Designing Great Beers". It doesn't have recipes, but it analyses winning recipes to guide you in proportions and ingredient types.
Brewing single grain or single hop recipes are a good way to understand your ingredients.
Anyway, hope you soon get set up and running with a rig of your own.
Keep good records so that you can record your successes and fails (both equally important).
Good luck.