[Homebrew Shop] HomeBrewWest

[Flanagan]

Nah I am planning a brew for the bank holiday so I'll pick up a Mangrove Jacks one, one of the english ales.

I generally recycle the liquid yeasts so I don't buy much of them. But I never get any American liquid yeasts since trusty US-05 does the biz OK. Thanks for the reply.

[HomeBrewWest]

Do ye get liquid yeasts at all anymore? They are all out of stock on the website.

Apologies for the delay on these. Will order them this weekend. Any particular ones?

White Labs ordered. Will ship Friday for arrival early next week.

Web site is down due to DDNS attack, not just us . . . thousands of web sites. Hopefully it will be back soon.

We've added a deposit option on the next shipment of Bulldog Brewers. Should be here in a week or so.

And we've finally added all the Viking and Colarado malts, see here:
http://www.homebrewwest.ie/grain--malt-423-c.asp
and just click into the sections. We listed the Viking and Colarado malts first in each section.

Some of them are interesting and quite unique:
- American honey malt,
- American pale and crystal malts (10 oL),
- wide range of crystal and caramel malts, some look new,
- new speciality malts: enzyme malt, sahti malt, cookie malt and others.

Have a read, there are links to Viking PDFs for more details. It should be possible to create some interesting new beers with these malts.

[HomeBrewWest]

Bulldog V1 temporary improvement until we get extra sparge plates

Thanks to Damofto for pointing this out in the Bulldog thread: "the problem with the V1 Bulldog is the pump tube just slots into the lid and the wort flows directly down onto the mash from a height causing it to compact . . .  for now the silicone hose allows me to recirculate the wort more gently and it's working great."

So we are giving away 250 mm (10") silicon rubber tubing for free to V1 owners . . . just pop us an email when you reorder. I think we only have about a meter of the tubing left though.

Is 250 mm long enough? If not we could use thinner or thicker tubing which we have loads of. We have a new range of top notch certified platinum cured silicone tubing:
http://www.homebrewwest.ie/silicon-hose-tubing-food-grade-4mm-x-6mm-per-foot-6604-p.asp
http://www.homebrewwest.ie/silicon-hose-tubing-food-grade-6mm-x-9mm-per-foot-6605-p.asp
http://www.homebrewwest.ie/silicon-hose-tubing-food-grade-9mm-x-13mm-per-foot-1684-p.asp
http://www.homebrewwest.ie/silicon-hose-tubing-food-grade-13mm-x-19mm-per-foot-6606-p.asp
http://www.homebrewwest.ie/silicon-hose-tubing-food-grade-19mm-x-254mm-per-foot-6607-p.asp

As you can see, each one fits neatly into the next, all the way from 4mm ID to 25mm ID. Just use aquarium silicone compound to permanently fix one to the next one up in the range. So now you can join just about anything to just about anything!

[Damofto]

Fair play Brian, I'd say 10 inches would work fine, personally I'm using a 2 foot length that sits on the grain bed and creates a sort of whirlpool effect as it recirculates.  I think that's why I'm getting such good efficiency but I could be wrong.

[BrewDorg]

Just bought this 'sparge plate' in Lidl for €6. 28.5cm diameter.

Edit. Posting from mobile, not sure if the image resized right

[HomeBrewWest]

BrewDorg, looks ideal but maybe check with our resident expert that its food safe for sugary wort up to sparge temperatures.

CH, your renowned expertise is once again required!

There will be a Bulldog solution for the V1 guys, but we still have no timing on it.

To make up for any loss of efficiency in the meantime, anyone who bought a V1 in Ireland can buy Viking malts for a 50% discount (up to 25 Kg base malts per type, and 1 kg others, one time offer only). Whole malt only as we can't possibly crush for this price. PM me with your V1 order number for details (or the email address you used to order, or the name of the store in Ireland if not us).

[BrewDorg]

Was wondering that. It says it's made from silicone and used for straining pasta etc, so thought it would be ok. Would be a handy stopgap

[Leann ull]

That's good!
Real McGuyvers around here

[Damofto]

Nice find Brewdorg I will pick up one of those and try it out. Always good to get these things CH approved! 

[Leann ull]

I didn't know I was doing regulatory now as well.
The background is that like they are silicon based and apart from being inert it has a very high melt temp.
Walked into a stove shop the other day to replace the rope on a stove I have with the hard rope cement. They stopped selling it as all the installers now use silicone sealant to keep rope in place.

[Fal]

A quick thank you to Brian in Homebrewwest for sorting out a problem I was having with the bulldog brewer pump. I rang the shop with the problem wednesday and a new pump just arrived into my hands right now.

He also helped me with problems I was having understanding mash efficiency and hitting my targets.

Great customer service, highly recommended.

[HomeBrewWest]

Bulldog Brewer Hop Boiling
Do you take the malt pipe out or use it as a hop blocker? Hmm, different opinions on this one.

We've used pellets in muslin bags inside the malt pipe. Worked great, even for lots of pellets. Essentially, the muslin catches some of the pellets, the malt pipe catches more and the bazooka catches whatever gets through. All very efficient, with very little loss.

When we didn't use the malt pipe (Dublin Bulldog demo with Hambleton Bard and Kevin), we found that some pellets started blocking the bazooka but only at the very end . . . we may have lost a litre. Again lots of hops.

So I'd probably advise using the malt pipe. The only potential down side is that you have to empty it and rinse it before the brewer gets to the boil. But that may not be a bad thing . . . leaving spent malt lying around for too long is not a good idea!

[HomeBrewWest]

Bulldog Brewer Pump
Don't want to interfere with the main Bulldog thread, so won't post there unless its a safety issue or emergency.

I do want to point out that the Bulldog pump must not be turned on after mashing / sparging, because temperatures of 80 oC or higher will destroy it.

Its designed for mash re-circulation and for pumping water from the new Bulldog sparge heater (on the way).

Just heard that the next batch have arrived in the UK and should be here mid next week.

[HomeBrewWest]

White Labs Arrived
40 to 50 different strains all back in stock. System is updating, will be a few hours before they appear online. Some are new for Ireland.

[HomeBrewWest]

Bulldog Brewer Tips . . . the Pump
Run the pump in water after mashing . . . . wort is sticky stuff and when it dries along with hop debris, they can block the pump impeller.

And a reminder that the Bulldog pump should not be turned on after mashing / sparging, because temperatures of 80 oC or higher may damage it !