Yes, I finally have the kit in my shed!
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| (Clockwise from left): 1) How's that for a gravity system?! 2) Base of mash tun. 3) View from HLT to mash tun |
I'm still a way off brewing though. I've got to get me some essentials like Star San, a heat pad (because The Swamp is very, very cold) and ingredients. I've also been very busy at work, and have got make sure I've got plenty of money together for Beervana weekend (hope to see you there).
But I have given it a test drive of sorts. A few weeks ago, Stu McKinlay and I converged on Chris Banks' place to brew up a beer for the media/brewer pro-am competition at Beervana. It was great fun, and a good learning exercise. Chris taught me some of the little quirks my kit has, and Stu was a wealth of information on everything to do with brewing. I even learned some techniques I had no real clue about, like first wort hopping.
I probably can't tell exactly what we brewed, but I'm thinking it will turn out great. It should have enough of a difference to be interesting, without being totally wacky. I hear someone is using horseradish in their brew - seriously, what the hell?!
I also, still, have to decide what exactly I'm going to brew first on my kit. I'm wanting to do something for the autumn months, so a red or brown ale seems to be what I'm leaning towards. Do you have a good recipe, or know where I can get one? If so, please shout out!
And while giving the HLT its first test in the shed - albeit just to boil water to clean some bottles - I imbibed in one of Epic's many new offerings of late. Message In A Bottle was brewed to be paired with "Beer Nation", Michael Donaldson's brilliant biography on the history of beer in New Zealand. A big malty IPA, it comes bearing a truckload of caramel, toffee and marmalade. and leaves behind a slow-building finish which just makes you want more.
To me, it tastes like the perfect gateway from Tui to real IPAs. It has got enough sweetness to appease an orange can fan, but enough flavour and character to give them a beer which actually tastes good. And that can only be a good thing
Tasty McDoles Janets Brown ale is a great brown to brew.
ReplyDeleteIt is probably outside of what a classic american brown ale should be, but it is very tasty! Highly recommended.
http://beer-geeking.blogspot.co.nz/2011/07/all-grain-recipe-17-janets-brown-ale.html
Does look like a damn nice brown ale! I'm a big fan of them, so will have to give this a go.
DeleteYou're lucky Jono. I was wondering why it had been nearly a month since your last post. Building a brewery is probably the best excuse out there.
ReplyDeleteI'd recommend a porter. I'm not particularly a fan of porters, but this was my first all grain and turned out nicer than the majority of the porters out there. We wanted a ten gallon batch, so just doubled everything. Plus it's a great autumn beer.
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f126/black-pearl-porter-ag-24243/
Yea, I had to build a little stand for on the bench so I could get my HLT high enough. That took a bit of maths and some DIY.
DeleteI love porters. I think it's probably one of those underrated beer styles - very easy to drink, but very easy to ignore.
I've just realised I should have said a spring beer. Stupid me and my brain went all Northern Hemisphere on it.
ReplyDelete