Home Brew
Table of Contents
Why?
I'm gathering as much info as I can and have been following The Home Brew thread over at OCAU and have also been reading a lot of AHB Forums.
The problem for me at the moment is there are so many forum posts, online methods and recipes that it's hard (for a beginner) to combine all of this knowledge into a basic method that suites my setup and situation. Plus there is a lot of variation on technique depending on who you ask! Once I've consolidated and practised enough methods I will settle on my own variation.
I'm also recording my recipes and recipes that I've found as well as details on ingredients and equipment that might be handy.
Update 2011:
I've also learned that it's pretty hard to really bugger up brewing (not including not being clean - this will destroy your beer) - sure it won't be right or you may introduce off flavors by missing rests or not hitting mash targets, but you will have beer at the end of it.
Brewing Technique
My collection of notes on different brewing techniques.
My Brew Methods
Old Brew Days that I've written up.
Hardware
Electronics
Other Projects:
- http://brewershardware.com/probeEnds.htm - Probe Ends from brewershardware.com. ~$16 postage to AU...
- The BrewTroller
My Projects:
- My Magnetic Stirplate - Works well except I dropped my only flat bottomed conical flask the other flask has a round bottom for direct heating.
- My Fermenting Controller - Although this works well I've abandoned it. The problem I have is the small netbook that I was given doesn't have a parallel port. Being so tiny it doesn't have a PCMCIA slot either. So it's USB. The USB->Parallel adapters I've played with all emulate a printer in Linux, not a port. That leaves USB or USB->RS232. So more development is required.
- USB Pic Digital IO - Work in progress 2010-01-08. The idea is to replace the parallel driven solution above with either a USB capable pic18 or with a combination of a pic16 and an FTDI USB->RS232 bridge chip. The pic would then be instructed to read and write digital IO to designated pins with some very basic commands via RS232. This will be used to control the fridge using a PC.
Equipment Ideas
- Heater Element
- Grain Mill Ideas
- My BBQ Mod for large pots. FAIL Don't build this. Too much heat loss, we're talking 1 hour to boil 20L. I bought myself a 3 ring gas burner.
- Mash Tun Project
Other Notes
- BMBS/Absolute Home Brew Hop Calculations
- Some other brewing calculators http://www.myhomebrew.com/hc0.html
Recipes
Kits & Bits
- OLD - Tooheys Classic Dark Ale Kit Based (Tested)
- Little Creatures - ESB 3KG APA Based (Tested)
- Little Creatures Clone
- Bock
- Kilkenny
- Holy Smoke Stout - Guinness Like Stout ~7% ABV Tested
Extract
- http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/index.php?autocom=recipedb&code=show&recipe=549
- http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=35657&st=0
Partial-Grain
- None Yet.
All-Grain
- SlamDunkel -- The Beers I tried at Belgian Beer Cafe Hofbräu
- OLD #1
- LCBA Clone
- Ross' Chocolate and Orange Porter
- Zwickel's Pretender Corona Clone
To Try Next
- Dr Smurtos Golden Ale - From AHB
- Abbey Ale - A Belgian Abbey Ale
Brew Shops
- Absolute Home Brew (The shop I use)
- Beerbelly Brewing Equipment
- Gryphon Brewing (3L Erlenmeyer Flasks)
- The Brew Shop Peakhurst
- Craft Brewer
- MashMaster - AG stuff, mills etc
- Grain and Grape
Other Brewing / Home Brew Sites
- http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/index.php?autocom=ineo&showcat=2
- AHB FAQ thread on Advanced Kit Brewing
Other Brewing Related Miscellany and Ideas
- Spent Grain Bread!
- http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Theory_of_Mashing
- http://www.practicalbrewing.co.uk/calculators/beerengine/index.html
Forum thread about automated gas temp control.
- http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=45244&st=0
Stainless Gear
- http://www.tsvalves.com.au/catalogue.html
- http://www.ifsaus.com.au/onlinecat.html
- http://www.prochem.com.au/
- http://www.geordi.com.au/product_index.htm
- http://www.swagelok.com.au/
- http://www.metalmesh.com.au/cfm/index.cfm
- http://www.temperature.com.au/Products/CompressionFittings/CompressionfittingsStainlessSteel.aspx