Third mash day: BEGINNERS also Please come along

[brenmurph]

[size=14]Third South Kildare Mash day 5th Jan. [/size]
Full details on a link link soon. ALL FREE... NO FEES.. You pay for bus to get here and Kellie and I provide food and drink. All food and drink supplied however bring some tasters yourself and some small gifts of a bottle of homebrew are always graciously received and tasted.

The Hosts:
BRENDAN
My passion and profession  is exercise nutrition and health and I run a professional practise in Kildare. I earned a Master of Science degree in Exercise and Nutrition and have for decades had a particular passion for the whole area of nutrition. BEER is VERY MUCH PART OF THIS!!. If we are going to drink, we keep it nutritious and unprocessed! We have no Kids at home so our house is free for this type of event, thats what we do. Ive been brewing on and off since 1980 when we were so poor we couldnt afford beer in the pub or offy. This year we have produced 60 batches of 3 or 5 gallons; a mix of mash, kit and modded kit. It has all been drank, not a drop wasted!
KELLIE:
Kellie produces wine, some from the most unusual sourses. We like to blind taste our wines and get surprising results against some very 'good' commercial wines. Kellie is the assistant beer producer and chief taster at all stages although her main tipple is wine.
The Venue:
I am based in a fab area just outside Kildare. This is my professional Base where my Health-Fitness-Nutrition studio is located. We have lots of space, parking and an ideal base if anyone wants to park a camper as we have outdoor toiulets, showers and  green areas. A large part of our property is taken over by brewing!! Kellie also brews and is very much involved in the beer production. You have to witness our place to appreciate real beer passion!!! So comon for a fab beer day/ evening.

Once again all welcome ( you dont have to be from Kildare). Please note Green bus €5 from Luas red cow takes you direct here in 25 minutes, I collect guests at bus terminus in Kildare. If you wanna hop on train I collect you at station.
Mash day
is about witnessing a mash being done on basic but very good equipment. In between its about    chatting, tasting, and demonstrating equipment, gadgets and home made made gear.
We nearly always do some bottling and bottling can be done poorly or very well. Key areas are hygeine, oxygen preventing, carbonating/priming properly.
[size=14]The brew[/size]
This time Im hoping to have a debate about a recipe and produce a special brew that we can all call our South Kildare Special mash day entry in the B&C competition.

[ColinC]

Sounds great Brendan, thanks for the invite.

See you there! 

[brenmurph]

HI All and happy new year.

Re tomorrows meet, I just wanted to personally welcome you all to this event. There should be a good turnout at this one with some luck and I promise a great event. Come and witness real beer and food passion!

ALL welcome and all totally free of charge so dont be shy.

FOOD!!!

Nice secection:

Beef in beer stew with fresh hops

White wine casserole with cinnamon and roast vegetables

Chickpea curry with Bulgar wheat and special vegetable and spice rice.

Sweet and sour vegetbles, garlic mushrooms and lots of vegetarian bittty sides....oh dont forget the specially made malted beer grain bread with a whole bottle of my best stout in the recipe!!

Brew from Grain

We will be putting on an all grain/ full mash brew for the National Championships in march so we can all claim the credit if we have any luck with it.

Beer and wine tasting

Lots of beer to discuss and taste including a selection from 30 mature beers, 6 on keg, 1 stout on nitrogen, 5 in secondary rest (maturing) and 3 in primary (early fermenting stages). Plus a few home produced wines.

Banter

All welcome to test beers and comment, banter and debate brewing, beer and wine and we plan some blind tasting!!

Would really love to see ye here, if coming I will pick you up from the bus stop if travel by the green bus or otherwise train station. if coming by car or getting a lift please email me for directions if you havnt been here before. My number is 0862509937.

Best regards Brendan

[JD]

Just like to thank Brendan for his hospitality today. I went along to take part in his third brew day and had a great time. Looking forward to seeing how our competition entry turns out. Hopefully I'll get a brew entered myself as well.

Well done
/Justin

[ColinC]

^^^ what these guys said. Great day, excellent food & beer & fantastic hosts. Thanks Bren & Kellie. And Tube for being designated driver!! 

[IsMise]

I would certainly concur with all the above comments!
The range of beers for tasting, and quality of these beers was excellent, supplemented by detailed notes of each batch; examples of what could be done with small batch brewing and "modifying" kits certainly gave me food for thought.
Speaking of which, of course, the spread of food laid out was superb and would be hard to beat 
Was great meeting other experienced and new homebrewers. Overall hospitality was first class: if there was a prize in NHC for hosts of the year, i would defintitely nominate Bren and Kelly, (and not forgetting Keith). Thanks for a great day guys!  and big thanks to Tube for being unwitting "dessie" driver on the day, much appreciated Shane!

[brenmurph]

Thanks a million for dropping down, would have been quieter without ye. Thanks for sharing the ideas. Ive got my dipstick made yesterday and Ive been getting my head around the beersmith software half the day yesterday to try and get more focus on water volumes/ mash volumes/ gravities/ predictions and all that. Im new to the software so forgive me, yesterday was only the third batch using software.

All very welcome again, I'm happy the aims and objectives were met.....ye seemed to have enjoyed the outing....................the beer/ mash got made with out heads together.....and there was a hell of a lot of beer banter so roll on next one.... thanks again. Brendan

[Ciderhead]

Brendan,

Sorry I missed it family first I'm afraid

There are a couple on here cutting their teeth on Beersmith at the moment including Hop Bomb, so please post any queries you have as I and others are still learing and happy to pass on what we have learnt already.

Its great when it works, eg ipa I did recently at the end predicted 1057 OG and I got 1058, its done that a few times now and its scary.
Brewing beer is never supposed to be paint by numbers but sometimes I go completely mental and put in an extra 5g of hops in just to see what it does to bitterness, Mad or what!!

[brenmurph]

Brendan,

Sorry I missed it family first I'm afraid

NO worries theres plenty more pass the word and keep an eye on the calender and the kildare section.

I'm plannin an educational day that includes blind tasting of beers. Maybe an idea is to use a few of our own beers, some commercial ones and sit around a table. I use a template that asks participants to rate and describe the beers ( a bit like judging but more subjective personal opinions). The discussion could be 10 minutes per beer just like the Liffey meet ups and  everyone learns a bit more beer apreciation, yeast flavours, recipes and balance following the discussions on each beer then also everyone has a rating and feedback to progress their brewing skills.

Mash day in kildare will be mid feb, which is a full day of entertainment re beer and brewing and food. I brew every week ( usually saturdays) so members always welcome to drop down and get involved.
regards

[brenmurph]

Brendan,



Its great when it works, eg ipa I did recently at the end predicted 1057 OG and I got 1058, its done that a few times now and its scary.
Brewing beer is never supposed to be paint by numbers but sometimes I go completely mental and put in an extra 5g of hops in just to see what it does to bitterness, Mad or what!!

Ye I'm a bit better at it after this weekend's crash course. Tube and or Justin and others came up with great little ideas that I would have never thought of like making the dipstick which is so handy to be able to log the volumes of liquid at various stages of brew. Spend ages yesterday palyin around with it and discoverred my biggest mistake to date was not customising my brewhouse profile to tell the software exactly how my brew system works (volumes and so on) now Im enjoying trying to master it more.
if im stuck ill pass on a query so far Im gettin around it.
Also good idea to incorporate a beersmith workshop for members somewhere cover a walk through. I can do that as I have presentation facilities at my base / studio. we can project the laptop screen for the group and walk through the steps. Theres so much in that software that it needs a talk that would cover the important basics starting with your own brewhouse profile setup!!

[Hop Bomb]

There are a couple on here cutting their teeth on Beersmith at the moment including Hop Bomb

Ive fallen on my face & broken those teeth already haha. I never edited my beersmith profile properly either & ended up with nearly 10 litres of extra water/diluted wort.


What did you make your dipstick from? I made mine from a plastic curtain rail. Spent an hour graduating it only to find out on brew day it went all floppy from the hot water 

[brenmurph]

ah hard luck, made it from a piece of timber marked it with permanant marker. Thankfully mine didnt melt

[Hop Bomb]

That'd make sense.   Il keep an eye out for a suitable stick.