Introduction

[Chris]

I had a break from brewing for a couple of years and am just starting up again. So far I have a bitter bottled, plus a golden ale and a lager bubbling away. I just brew from extract at the moment, no kettle involved, although I do boil hops and add to the wort. 

 

I've been brewing like this for about 7 or 8 years now and have had some great results, with one or two mishaps along the way. But now I'm getting interested in all-grain brewing, so I thought I would start with making a kettle, then maybe have a go at specialty grains, then BIAB and eventually the whole hog all-grain setup. I thought this blog might be interesting for people doing the same thing, I've discovered there's a hell of a lot to think about and a lot of research to do, but it's all pretty exciting stuff.

 

I grew up in England and lived there until my mid/late twenties, so was fortunate enough to have 10 years or so of drinking the massive variety of real ales available over there, both cask (gravity flow of course) and bottle conditioned. When I emigrated over here, I quickly realised that the real ale scene is a lot quieter than in the UK, although I am really pleased to see sites like this offering some exposure.

 

So the main reason I brew I guess is to provide myself with a pretty much unlimited variety of tasty beers. I try to stick to the Reinheitsgebot as much as possible and also try to source as much as I can from New Zealand instead of overseas. I do 25L batches and bottle condition all of my beer.

 

Anyway, more will follow, with a bit of a diary of how my mini-micro-brewery is coming along. But for now some photos; sorry about the camera-phone quality.

 

 

Brewer's PET Bottles and Brewer's pet cat

Empty bottle store. Note the homemade draining rack made from an old cupboard door and a plastic box. Used a hole saw (which gets hot enough to remove fingertips by the way)

Re-hydrating yeast: Used to do this under airlock but have recently switched to an Agee jar covered with sanitized muslin.

Stirring the wort

A hop-pat

[Tilt]

Good on ya Chris - thanks for introducing yoiurself and posting the pics - always good to see a bloke getting himself set up with a compliment of brewing gear and planning the next moves (referring to your other schematic here).  Welcome back to the addiction.

[Chris]

Thanks Tilt, yep it's a pretty exciting stage getting everything set up! Keep an eye out will post some updates as gear arrives (it's like xmas)!

[Tilt]

Excellent - look forward to seeing the beast grow!