National Homebrew Club Ireland

Just started home brewing with a kit from Homebrewwest, its the Brewstarter kit with Mangrove Jacks Pale ale . It is in the fermenter since 9:00pm  18th Nov. Should i be checking it soon ?

Nah your fine if you only just started it. :)

2 weeks to ferment then have a look
Patience Patience ;)
welcome to the forum, introduce yourself we don't bite well those that are taking the pills don't ;)

Quote from: CH on November 25, 2015, 09:06:47 PM
2 weeks to ferment then have a look
Patience Patience ;)
welcome to the forum, introduce yourself we don't bite well those that are taking the pills don't ;)

I thought I did  do an introduction but , I live in north Galway work mostly in Headword so Homebrewwest is handy for me.

On the instructions for the Ale  it said to check the brew after 8 days do I ignore this , the temperature has been hovering around 20-22 degs

Welcome ddonlon great to see more Galway brewers :). Your temperatures sound perfect so your fermentation should be underway.
The instruction times usually a bit under estimated imho. if you have a hydrometer you could pull a sample at 12 days and again at 15 days.
if the two readings are the same you should be sound to bottle it up.

welcome to the mad house lol , have a look over in kit brewing section, makeing beer is very much like making love to a beautiful woman ......take your time .....relax ......have a beer and wait some more ......remember the kit makers want you to make it faster so you will buy more often but take it slowly maybe swop out the yeast and add in some hops ....before you know it you will be hacking a kit to your own tastes .
lord eoins kit hack guide is a great place to start , nice and simple and very easy to understand.
dont rush out to buy the world of equipment , reading up on here will point you in the right direction , and the membership fee gives you a discount with the main homebrew shops so its well worth it

Quote from: Frequent Sequence on November 25, 2015, 10:02:30 PM
Welcome ddonlon great to see more Galway brewers :). Your temperatures sound perfect so your fermentation should be underway.
The instruction times usually a bit under estimated imho. if you have a hydrometer you could pull a sample at 12 days and again at 15 days.
if the two readings are the same you should be sound to bottle it up.

Thanks for the information I will follow that ,I have had the brew belt on and off during the day and mostly on at night

Quote from: hopapotamus on November 25, 2015, 10:03:19 PM
welcome to the mad house lol , have a look over in kit brewing section, makeing beer is very much like making love to a beautiful woman ......take your time .....relax ......have a beer and wait some more ......remember the kit makers want you to make it faster so you will buy more often but take it slowly maybe swop out the yeast and add in some hops ....before you know it you will be hacking a kit to your own tastes .
lord eoins kit hack guide is a great place to start , nice and simple and very easy to understand.
dont rush out to buy the world of equipment , reading up on here will point you in the right direction , and the membership fee gives you a discount with the main homebrew shops so its well worth it

I want to make a beer with hops in it just not sure how to do that  yet, I have 50 euro christmas present to spend what would you recommend to use it on

if it was me id spend €10 on membership , you will save more than that in discounts ,
a bottle of starsan sanatizer €13 ,lasts for ages ,€2.50 on lidl oxyclean
and a bulldog triple tykes export ale €30 +discounted bucket €5, i think its a lovely beer( it comes with a hop tea bag) but its a personal thing
then as your drinking your home made beer throw a few euro in a jar for each bottle you have as your beer runs low you will have more than enough to buy another kit , another fermenter , ect ......this can be a very expensive hobby if you let it .just take your time and read as much as you can . check out your local club they are mostly friendly ..........but watch them lol , im in rural cork , but managed to go to a piss up in a brewary, sorry i mean a brew day and bbq , lads on here are very genourse with their time and more than happy to help , so remember there are no stupid questions .......might be a few dodgy answers lol .

Quote from: Frequent Sequence on November 25, 2015, 10:02:30 PM
Welcome ddonlon great to see more Galway brewers :). Your temperatures sound perfect so your fermentation should be underway.
The instruction times usually a bit under estimated imho. if you have a hydrometer you could pull a sample at 12 days and again at 15 days.
if the two readings are the same you should be sound to bottle it up.

I have just taken a sample for the beer and it is reading 1.012 its just lining up with the bottom of the black line on the hydrometer its a stevenson one , its been in the FV since 18th Nov (13 days) , bubbling seems to have stopped, is that a normal reading 

1.012 after 13 days sounds like its nearly there alright.  Wait another 48 hours and take another reading, if it's still at 1.012 then it's probably done fermenting. you can bottle at that stage but i like to wait a few more days to a week to let the yeast drop out of suspension, this means you get a much clearer beer.  What yeast came with the kit?  If it's Mangrove jacks british ale yeast then its definitely worth waiting a week as the stuff clears really well.

It's normally 3 consistent readings across three days, the fact that it has just stopped bubbling doesn't mean fermentation has stopped tho.
At some point in the future as you become more experienced you won't even bother measuring fg

Thanks for the replies ,will leave it as it looked cloudy when I took the reading, had a drink of it as well seemed okish , I'm getting Jacks craft wheat beer for Christmas so it will suit me to wait and have that one ready to start when this ones finished.

If you are happy it's finished fermenting and be sure to avoid bottle bombs! Bottle it leave in a warm room and crash cool after you know it's carbed
Easy way to know if it's carbed is use a coopers or lucozade bottle and it will be hard to compress
Outside in the shed for a couple of days to a week and it should drop clear
Your best bottle will be be the one at the back of the cupboard you find after 6 months

Quote from: CH on December 02, 2015, 08:48:23 AM
If you are happy it's finished fermenting and be sure to avoid bottle bombs! Bottle it leave in a warm room and crash cool after you know it's carbed
Easy way to know if it's carbed is use a coopers or lucozade bottle and it will be hard to compress
Outside in the shed for a couple of days to a week and it should drop clear
Your best bottle will be be the one at the back of the cupboard you find after 6 months

I have a set Coopers pet bottles that came with my kit so I will be ok, I'm also getting budwiser bottles off my local pub are they ok to recap.

Should i be asking these questions in the brewing/equipment section
 

Im almost ready to bottle , Looking for advice on if I have to sterilise the coopers PET bottles that came with my kit, I checked youtube and it said they came pre sterilised.
Do I need to rinse them out or just use them as they are
Thanks

If you have sterizer use it as although the bottles might be super clean they still might need a no rinse clean. You can make this up using vinegar and bleach.  DO NOT MIX THESE TOGETHER WITHOUT FIRST PUTTING THEM INTO WATER. Sorry for shouting but this can Kill as the gas is seriously dangerous.  :o

Be careful using the Budweiser bottles

A lot of them have very thin glass and might explode under the pressure of home made beers

Grolsch swing tops are the best you can get (My view) and you also get the pleasure of drinking the beer as well

Starsan for sanitation, bleach and vinegar!!

+1 on the bottles as some beer bottles mostly the green ones but some brown too are considered "use once" bottles. They can break at the neck when you go to cap them.
I mentioned bleach and vinegar and should have explained it more. Remember that sanitise and clean are two different things in brewing. Sanitise will not clean but will kill bugs ;)

the method of creating a cheap sanitiser is as follows,
1 use a clean plastic bucket and fill with 20 liters of clean water,
2 add to the water 31 mls of bleach and stir well,
3 add to the water 31 mls of vinegar and stir well.

you now have a no rinse steriliser with a low PH that will kill almost all known bugs in just 30 seconds of contact.

if you mix the vinegar and bleach neat you create chlorine gas which will mean we all get a day off work to go to your funeral :(,so don;t ;).
the cheapest bleach with no added crap to it and plain malt vinegar is all you need. :)

"Leg of frog and wing of bat"

Any new brewer I'd be pushing them in direction of starsan

Sorry if that sounds disrespectful to the "old ways"

The recipe of vinegar/bleach actually came from the inventor of starsan, Charlie talley of five star chemicals when talking about this on "basic brewing radio". ;) way back in marsh 2007
http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/3/9/0/390da96899933961/bbr03-29-07.mp3?c_id=1452161&expiration=1449845691&hwt=b16d9118a8bca7bfa25a64f82ab0caf1

My first kit was the full Coopers DIY kit. The instructions said rinse with water and drive on. I knew noting about sanitation at the time so I just did as the instructions said. I just gave the fermenter a splash of tap water and the beer fermented out fine. I rinsed out the PET bottles with tap water too and had no problems.

So it's fine as long as the bottles are perfectly clean. But how can you be sure? It's safer to sanitise.

Starsan is the berries but you might not have time to get some. The bleach/vinegar no-rinse sanitiser recipe is: Add 30ml of vinegar & 30ml thin bleach to 20 litres of water. As stated already, DO NOT mix neat vinegar with neat bleach. It will create chlorine gas which can be lethal.

30 or 31mls how do I measure that?!!

Go with just under a shot glass. Simples.

My shot glasses are 50cl hic

Bleach and vinegar if you have no other option, it doesn't ferment out and if you get it wrong ️

Quote from: CH on December 11, 2015, 03:22:58 PM
30 or 31mls how do I measure that?!!

Just measure it on your digital scales sure, how else are you doing your hop additions!!

Great suggestion on the no rinse sanitiser Dempsey, I was actually looking for a recipe as I'm moving into kegging so boiling the bloody bejasus out of it ain't an option on most plastic parts.

Quote from: CH on December 11, 2015, 03:22:58 PM
30 or 31mls how do I measure that?!!

so who does not cook in the kitchen ??? if you do not then ask the cook for a loan of their liquid measure jug,the little one,and remember to wash it after :P

Dempsey btw is Milton/baby sterilizer the same as plain thin bleach? It's the only thing I could find that's not perfumed etc.

Yep that will do, be careful to use the thin unperfumed bleaches folks if you are stuck

I have first refusal on an all grain brewing kit, there some special taps that suit stout ,imported from america, and a few kegorators and I think some stainless steel vessels and a lot of  flip top bottles, I have just done my first brew with a starter kit would this be too big a step for me at the moment.
Thanks

If you are wanting to do all grain then go for it. What sort of gear is it. :)

I went from kits straight to AG, if you like what you have done so for go far it.
Ignore the flip tops you will probably keg longer term
Post what you are being offered and we can tell you what they are worth, hope it's not somebody on here selling it

I'm looking at it over the weekend he wants to sell it all together he's told me a price that it will be going on done deal

Just been for a look at the kit and there is 6 corny kegs; co2 and no2 gas bottles with regulators and one small co2 with regulator ;2 converted barrels for heating and cooling with temperature gauge ;gas burner; converted cool box with copper pipe filter ; 2 fridges one with beer taps on it extra beer tap for stout; about 80 flip top bottles; box of various bits and pieces capper;temp gauge  SG tool spoons etc , I can have it all for €650
My main concern is that its a big step up from a starter kit to this set up and would I be able to use it. I have to decide later today as its going up on the web.
Thanks

Gas is not ideal and you may prefer to take 1 step at a time.
If you are serious about brewing beer longer term the above is ideal, do you have the space for it all?
It's ok value for money too assuming all working and condition is ok
Why is he selling it?
Personally I liked building my own kit, if you are not handy then this is for you I guess

Yeah I second ch, if it all works it's a fair price. I would perhaps ask for a good demo of the set up, write down as much as you can. It seems daunting but it's really only as complicated as you make it.

Quote from: CH on January 03, 2016, 02:50:52 PM
Gas is not ideal and you may prefer to take 1 step at a time.
If you are serious about brewing beer longer term the above is ideal, do you have the space for it all?
It's ok value for money too assuming all working and condition is ok
Why is he selling it?
Personally I liked building my own kit, if you are not handy then this is for you I guess

He is making goats cheese and doesn't use it any more , I have room for it in my garage / shed room is not a problem.
If it's not gas then I presume it's some sort of electrically heated vessels

Gas is old school and expensive v's electricity to produce a consistent result because of temp control

You would spend close to double that on bits if you did it in drive and drabs ask my missus!

I've been looking at prices and the corny are €100 each plus the regulators are €100 and it has 3 barrels of gas plus all the fittings  , I was thinking of buying it for all the bits I need and if I want to get an electric boiler later

Hard to give advice without pics
Corneys are 40
Regs 50-60
5kg tanks co2 filled are 40 with new valve
Your deal is fair but not Black Friday ;)
Go for it!!

No mention of pumps. How is the various liquids getting moved around.

Quote from: DEMPSEY on January 03, 2016, 05:59:40 PM
No mention of pumps. How is the various liquids getting moved around.

There no pumps with it ,have to be moved by hand or set up to use gravity

That could be tricky pump would be on your shopping list 70-150 depending on product quality