Noob intro.

[garage_life]

Hey guys, newbie from North side of Brisbane.
Haven't got started yet but currently building a set up, researching, trying to educate myself around all the rookie mistakes.

My plan is to run a TA4-SSR PID controller to run my old beer fridge with a heat belt / IR lamp, thermowell in the fermenter and build a boil kettle with an old keg and a 3 ring wok burner and fabricate a frame for it to sit in. I'm a bit of a tech nerd and love hands on problem solving, been my job for.... too long.

Big hop head but into a lot of different styles, thinking i'll be going for a basic American pale / IPA from a can with some dry hopping as a first suck of the sav and maybe a fresh wort kit from All Inn to follow up as it'd be a good comparison and easy to knock out quickly.

So, g'day! The forum seems to have lot of great info and i'm pretty impressed with the interface, pretty slick compared to some I've used in the past.

Cheers!

edit: If someone can explain racking to a secondary and if it's a thing that is done when bottling it'd be greatly appreciated!

 

[Mardoo]

Welcome mate! Enjoy your slide down the slippery slope.

No explanation for racking to secondary, because you don't need to do it. It's one of those hanger-on things that got started by some of the early homebrewing books. You can, if you want. But you don't need to. Sorry, got to get my daughter to bed now, so a proper explanation will have to wait for someone else to expand on it.

Bottling-wise that would be transferring to a bottling bucket if you were bulk priming.

 

[Bribie G]

Welcome.
I lived on Bribie Island for ten years and can assure you that a heat belt is low on your list. I run my fermenting fridges on "cold" even during the winter apart from occasional spells when the ambient in the garage is about 17 - and we get cold winters in Kyogle I can tell you. I've still got my heat belt somewhere. I think.

Good idea to start with some pre-formulated brews to get the hang of fermenting and sterilising.

"secondary" is something that isn't done much anymore either, it's a hangover from the days when home brew was the little brother to wine making and a lot of the earlier practitioners made their beer as if it was a home made wine (the use of airlocks is another hangover).

To avoid oxygenation, most people would let the beer settle out well in the fermenter and just bottle from that.

 

[Bribie G]

Re the bottling
If you are using an assortment of bottles you can run the brew into a second vessel and add a pre weighed dose of priming sugar and mix well, so that each bottle gets it's proper proportion of sugar.
Advantage: quicker and consistent
Disadvantage: just another stage where infection and oxidisation can creep in.

I've never done it personally, but mostly keg nowadays.

 

[Brewnicorn]

Welcome garage_life. Sounds like you're kicking things off with a great set up. I'll be best hey! Plenty of experts here to offer advice I've found so, you're in good hands. Cheers!

 

[garage_life]

Cheers everyone, hopefully i'll get everything cobbled together and a basic ale happening soon. I figured the heat belt wouldn't really be necessary, the controller i'm using has a high and low output so the option is there, maybe just an idiot light instead of a heater in case something goes pear shaped will be more useful!

I was planning on using PET tallies as a start, and adding the sugar to a bottling bucket and filling from that to try and keep the trub out.

Does anyone go to the trouble of using a aquarium pump for initial oxygenation on a small setup or am i just going down the rabbit hole? Seems like it would be relatively cheap and effective addition to a basic setup.

I'll stop posting tech stuff in here now. Thanks for the replies!

 

[Mardoo]

I've used oxygen, aquarium pump and paint mixer on a cordless drill. If you aren't going to do oxygen - and you don't have to do so to make good beer - don't drop coin on an aquarium pump setup. Just use a brew-dedicated paint mixer.

 

[Bribie G]

When bottling in PET brown brewers bottles, the best method of priming IMHO is to just use one of these per bottle.



Also, don't bottle till the beer is fairly clear. Even if it looks quite clear to the eye, it will still contain billions of yeast cells to kick off bottle conditioning.

 

[malbeven]

When bottling in PET brown brewers bottles, the best method of priming IMHO is to just use one of these per bottle.

sugarcubes.png

Also, don't bottle till the beer is fairly clear. Even if it looks quite clear to the eye, it will still contain billions of yeast cells to kick off bottle conditioning.

Like the look of this. Do you need to mix the bottle at all to disolve the sugar? ie turn it over a couple of times, or will it just get eaten by the yeast all by itself? Never been too sure about this, but have always done it when priming with a teaspoon of sugar.

At the moment I'm bulk priming by disolving dex in a cup or so of water and gently stirring it into the brew so as not to disturb the cake, but hopefully enough to mix it through the whole brew. I then leave it to settle for 15 mins or so while I sanitize the bottles. Seems to be pretty consistant, but I do worry a bit about how much yeast and shit I might be stirring up. Looks ok, and seems to turn out alright, but just not sure. Any thoughts?

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Welcome to the Asyluim...you know, the crazy place brewers come to talk about beer and brewing and compare beers, and systems, and anything to do with brewing beer. You will get heaps of knowledge from established brewers if you ask the right questions

Ask lots of questions

 

[Bribie G]

I tip and shake a few times. Some ales can turn out a bit gassy but I just let them steam off in a jug.