New to AHB, Hello from Newcastle

[BottloBill]

Been brewing for 2 and a bit years now, love my pale ales, HSV's, camping and of cause brewing. I am also transitioning to all grain but has been slow due to a limited budget. CHEERS and I look forward to learning alot more about brewing from this great forumB)

 

[warra48]

Welcome BottloBill. Hope you enjoy the forum.

If you are transitioning to All Grain, I can highly recommend Marks Home Brew for your local supplier.

 

[Moad]

Welcome from a fellow novacastrian!

Go AG you won't look back

 

[Bribie G]

Heaps of brewers in the Hunter, a few of us up the coast and a lot more down the coast, you are in good company. Welcome to the forum. Also suggest Mark's Home Brew off Industrial Drive at Mayfield East.

 

[BottloBill]

Thanks for the warm welcoming! I have used Mark on one or two occasions but now prefer to use country brewer, Digger is the owner and is pretty helpful, I also use the new shop at Islington being Newcastle brew shop since losing my licence. Thanks again and Cheers

 

[Glot]

Hello Bill. Welcome. Good to see you have seen the light and joined us. You will find a lot of good info in here, both technical and sourcing.

 

[Glot]

Bill, forgot to mention, have a look about in here as a lot of us are on very tight budgets and have sourced/ devised economical ways to do things, eg, BIAB in a Big W pot on the stove.

 

[BottloBill]

Thanks Glot! BIAB is what I am going to do next although I am slowly building a three tier system on the cheap and am not in a real hurry to get it done.

 

[BottloBill]

Also forgot to ask what size pot for BIAB and what's being used to keep it off the bottom?

 

[Scooby Tha Newbie]

Hi and welcome. I made my bag to the size of my pot. Very simple.

 

[Moad]

A false bottom is what you need, I used a pizza pan with holes in it on my BIAB setup.

Now I'm on to a Braumeister

 

[warra48]

A number of brewers use a suitably sized cake rack to keep their bag from the bottom.

 

[Bribie G]

For a full size BIAB, you would be best with 40L upwards. A cake rack or a "curved roasting rack" from a kitchen shop is good for keeping the bag off the bottom. The other thing is, how are you going to heat it? Gas can be expensive per brew and by the time you have bought a big pot, burner and a gas bottle you could be up for a couple of hundred, might pay you to look at BIAB in a 40L electric urn, then you won't need to go to a 3v system. Versus gas, an electric system will pay itself off on fuel costs alone fairly quickly.

I use that system and produce all sorts of beers that have won a number of gongs in State competitions and recently at the Nationals, as have other BIAB brewers :beerbang:

BTW no need for a bag, just get a big square of Swiss Voile from Spotlight and cut / hem it into a big circle. I call my method BIABGS (brew in a bloody great sheet).

 

[idzy]

Lots of similar interests to me BottloBill. Hope you find heaps of info and enjoy the community here at AHB! Definitely worth checking out the stack ton of build threads on here to get inspiration! Lots on everything from wort creation through to fermentation control, recipe design, etc, etc.

Cheers,
Idzy

 

[Weizguy]

G'day Bill, good to to see that the BIAB guys have clued you in to a quicker and cheaper way to start all-grain sooner.

Are you interested in joining the Newie and regions brew club? Or have you already attended a meeting? We call ourselves HUB (Hunter United Brewers). Linky

 

[fletcher]

welcome mate!

 

[BottloBill]

Thanks again for the welcomes. I will look into a 40L urn before I venture into all grain and also hit spotlight in the next couple of weeks

 

[BottloBill]

And Les will definitely look into the HUB although my brews are a bit lower grade at the moment as we have just brought our first home and my storage area is a little weather board shed that hits 35+ on a 40deg day

 

[Weizguy]

And Les will definitely look into the HUB although my brews are a bit lower grade at the moment as we have just brought our first home and my storage area is a little weather board shed that hits 35+ on a 40deg day

Mate, we all started somewhere. That sounds a bit like my first brew shed at Holmesville. Not ideal, but prob didn't affect the beer too much, that I could detect at the time.

Attend a meeting or two and you'll see that we're not snobs and it's all about having a brew community and improving the beer you'd like to drink.

Les