TLB Brew Club

Matty speaks the truth
Ive brewed a few brews that were above and beyond the beer in local pubs
Ive also done a few where ive ballsed up and they were not as good
Ive never managed to cock up a brew that much that its wasent drinkable or made me ill and they have all got me piddled

Approx 20 litres of elderflower champers have been racked of and extra sugar added then airlocked
To avoid bottle bombs im going to wait till fermentation has started to slow before bottling up

The gobfull i got whilst syphoning off tasted lovely

 

Well the champers must be fermenting well
Im getting a nice fat bubble through the airlock once every 5 seconds
No wonder peoples bottles end up exploding when they bottle up too early

 

First pint of best bitter out of the keg tonight



Its not cloudy at all and has a realy dark ruby colour to it
Good head and a really deep thick taste

Considering i thought i may have messed this one up with temps creeping too high its turned out astounding
I really rate the wilkos own brand two can kits

Im going to start a wherry off tmw

 

Dont forget though the people at your local brewery shop will be able to give a lot better advice than the wilkos staff
I dont have a local homebrew shop so i make do with boyes and wilkos for my brewing bits

 

Same hear the barrel has a dome to the lid
What recipe did you go for

 

I made my own up lol

Rind and juice of six lemons
Carrier bag full of elderflowers
4 teaspoons of white wine vinager
2 kilos of brewers sugar
1 packet of cheap white wine yeast
That was to make it up to the 23 litre mark

I killed the natural yeast of on the elderflowers though as i didnt want the two yeasts competing and the natural yeast wouldent be good enough to raise the alcohol level as high as id like it

I put the sugar, lemon juice and rind,the vinager and the elderflower in the barrel then poured 4 litres of boiling water over them
Then topped up with the rest of the bottled water which was at room temperature when it was at 23 litres i stirred it like mad to get loads of air in and added the yeast

It started to ferment within an hour i moved it to the airlocked container today because the flowers were turning brown so i wanted them out of the mix

I added an extra 250 grams of brewers sugar today as i thought it was a touch dry on the old taste buds
It looks like the sugars going to get eaten by the yeast and im going to end up with a dry high alcohol yet sparkling wine
Im not going to ferment it all the way out
Im going to wait for it to calm to a reasonable pace then bottle up but keep a close eye on the bottles
I think a few days after bottling ill chill it all right down so it absorbs as much co2 into it as it can

 

Release some of that pressure matty otherwise it will blow the lid of through the night

 

Fermantation appears to have slowed right down this morning
So ive filled one bottle and squashed the top before fitting the cap
Ill keep an eye on it today and if the squashed top pushes out under pressure then ill bottle the rest
If not then i will have to add some sugar to the bottles to prime them

 

Mine still going for it

 

Its still carbonating in the bottle as i can see the bubbles rising but its not furious so ive bottled the rest up


Also started 40 pints of wherry off today
Ive a pale ale to start next but that may have to wait untill i can afford another king keg

 

I got fed up with paying out for the little co2 capsules to pressurise my king keg there expensive and dont last long at all
So i added two car tyre valves to the lid of my keg
One has a 0-15 psi tyre gauge attached so i can keep an eye on the pressure
On the other valve i can add co2 from a disposable welding bottle as ive attached an air pump pipe to the regulator
It works a treat and will save me money in the long run

 

I applaud your ingenuity.

 

How are you guys managing to keep the temps down in this heat? I am really struggling my cider which is in a brewing bucket is sat in a spare room with the window open so it has some ventilation and it is still 26 degrees in there I have tried sitting it in a bath of cold water but the water just warms up really quick!

 

Put a towel over your fermentaion bucket with the ends of the towel sitting in the tray of water
As the heat evapourates the water it cools the fermantation bucket
Adding ice packs to the water each morning will also aid cooling

 

im not fermenting anything until it cools.....

you could drap a towel over the bucket into the water in the tub ,
and the evaporation will cool the bucket..

 

he he he ....snap

 

Thanks for that art and para it has been covered with a towel which is sat in water and the temp has dropped down to 22.5

 

Cant beat a bit of evaporative cooling

 

Just bottled some strawberry cider for the misses. Brewed quickly in the heat. Left it for ten days which is 4 short of my norm