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New fridge has arrived and has been set up with inkbird and heater. I should have paid more attention when I was ordering it though. The salad draw is shallow and can't be cut back as all the fridge gubbins directly behind it. Thankfully, there's just enough room for a 25l bucket and air lock sat on top of the salad box but it's close. When I get one for the keg I'll have to be a bit more careful.
Might see what I can pull together and do another small batch experiment the afternoon.
Today's brew ended up being an attempt at a stout. Only had cascade and mosaic for hops so I guess it's an American stout. Hit the OG perfectly - should come in around 5.5%.
And after that you're going to need a pump and filter,, but not straight away. You'll be amazed at how much wort you'll lose to the hops if you don't.
Already got a coil chiller - it came with the brew system I bought. Haven't got the fittings for it yet though.
Spent quite a bit on gear recently so I'm going to get a few more brews under my belt using what I've got. Might get a hop spider for the 30l system though. As you point out, loss to hops can be significant.
With a proper filter in the bottom of the kettle you whirlpool with a paddle on the end of a drill. This gathers the hop matter to centre, but it also allows the larger particles to settle first. Then when you start recirculating using the pump the larger hop particles create s filter bed to filter out the smaller ones. 5 mins of recirculating will create a clear wort. That's why a filter mesh is really quite coarse as you are relying on the hop particles to do the work for you.
Then if you slow the flow towards the end of pumping it out you can get all the liquid out leaving only damp hop matter.
Brew builder sell a decent disk filter, the mesh I'd about 500microns i.e. 0.5mm. Just small enough to catch the larger particles.
Realistically, how long from day 1 will it take to get a drinkable brew? A month? Much longer? Does it improve with time?
1 month is probably minimum. 2 weeks fermenting and 2 weeks carbonating/conditioning.
I think @MagicPigDetective will be putting the brew into a pressure barrel so will be priming with sugar. I've always believed this takes at least a week. Is this not the case?
I ordered some C02 with the barrels, though not clear if I will need them. The two can kit states no sugar required, but I gather I will need to put sugar in the barrel?
Yes, you'll need some sugar in the barrel for carbonation. Table sugar works fine and you don't need a huge amount. I'm planing a porter that'll go into my barrel and the recipe calculator is saying to add 125g for a 21l brew.
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I went straight from kits to all grain - the difference is pretty much night and day. The homebrew "twang" is gone and I have a lot more flexibility over what I can brew.
What size batches would you be wanting to make? You won't need a lot more equipment to do all grain with a boil in the bag method than you'll need for dried malt. As long as you've got a pot big enough to hold the mash then all you'd need extra is the bag.
It's only been conditioning for a week but it's already very drinkable. No hint of that homebrew taste mentioned above. Going to try and leave the rest for at least another week as it's still a little hazy.
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