Home Brews

[coldspace]

Originally Posted by kinetic

will you two please cut it out! I have work tomorrow!
<sips>

i don't have to work tommorow, drinking as I speak and will stagger down to the observatory soon.

Matt.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I've just started an imaging run on Mr Ed. So I'll be outside for quite a while yet.
Think I'll join you in a little drinkie.
No work for me either.
What a nice night it is too. No clouds to harass us like last night.

[coldspace]

Yep, no clouds here.
Ching ching.

Matt.

[Darth Wader (Wade)]

Originally Posted by kinetic

Ahhhh just reading this thread was like sipping on a homie.

I prefer the dark Ales myself. Stouts being the Rolls Royce.
Black and Tans go well (mixing two cans into one kit).
Definitely brewers sugar every time, no residue.
I love the fact that home brew has less preservatives in it and
so , even after a decent session on the gear , I have virtually
no hangover.

I have made a few ciders too and the kids love the ginger beers.
I'm trying to perfect my holy grail beeyar though...the elusive
Guinness. If I could reproduce that baby, I'd lock myself away from
society and never be heard of again.

Bottoms up fellas...

Steve

Steve

The best way to add flavour is to gently boil the hops for a short while. Scorching them will destroy the lupulin glands in them and kill much of the flavour. For flavouring, I use 4-5 litres of water to boil about 15 or so grams (or a little more or less, depending on taste) with your additional sugars/malts per 23L batch.

If you're aiming for a fuller bodied beer like Guiness, I'd suggest using 500g light dry malt extract and 1kg Coopers Brew Enhancer 2. For aroma, add 15g at the end of the boil, then add the contents of the extract can and give it a good stir. Let the wort cool slightly, then top up the carboy with cold water to achieve your desired volume/temperature. For a Guiness clone, you'll want to use Goldings or if they're not available, Cascade. You'll also want to use a good quality yeast - Safale US-04 is a traditional English ale yeast and will change the flavour of you brew immensely, provided you keep the temp at around 18 degrees. There is a lot more to making a great Guiness clone, but this is a pretty easy and relatively inexpensive start that you should find quite drinkable. Good luck!

Cheers
Wade

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I'm still having problems with my guiding. I can go 10 minutes, but I lose a lot of subs. So I'm back to 5 minutes. Which is fine concidering only a few weeks ago I was happy to go 20 seconds. LOL
Whatcha drinking Matt?

[coldspace]

I am just looking at the tarantula now with an O3 filter and Mallincam. Just slewed over to it and is one of my favourite targets can get quite deep with the o3 filter on this one.

I am drinking tooheys extra dry, sometimes commercial beers are good, I like it all , probally will go back into the house a get a couple of rumbos's later.

Trying to get my focus sorted out, its a hard one with the 3.3 reducer and the video system. But for live viewing its ok.
Luv this imaging stuff, getting more addicted, next year will make the jump to "proper imaging" with a real camera, but for now its alot of fun.
Going to chase some nice NGC galaxies next with a CLS filter to clean up my bad light pollution down here in the burbs.

Matt.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Rum and ginger beer here.
I bought my 20d off the forum here. While I loved my Gstar, for the full colour experience, you can't go passed a dslr. Relatively cheap to buy and they're duel purpose, unless you get it modded.

[coldspace]

Yep, the Mallincam shows all the brighter Nebs in full colour live but the chip is too small and I want to start going into more dedicated imaging next year.
The mallincam has provided me some wonderfull views in colour in real time that rival DSLR's in one tenth the exposure time but lack the resolution and fine detail so post proceesing is not very advantages but for real viewing with the kids or the punters it can't be beat, but now its time to start getting more resolution and cleaner images for me to start mucking around with, I will never sell the mallincam as my daughter and her school love it.
I will probally go a cooled CCD camera next.
I went from visual observer, to video, next long exposure, long focal length, narrow band for the burbs, I am serving my apprenticeship well and don't want to be a sissy like AlexN says.ha ha

i got NGC 1365 up on the CRT now. Its one of my favourites, I love the two spiral arms and the way they sweep back, I always pop over to have alook at this every night if its up.

Next target will be NGC1316.

Matt.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

This thread is about home brew, we shouldn't hijack it.
I'll start another.

[coldspace]

Ngc 1316 is up on the monitor, two blobs, I have tried again as the night is clear but no more detail than other nights.

Going over to see NGC1566 its usually a nice spiral. Just waiting for Orion to gain alittle more height.

Rum time now. Bundy with lots of ice and a dash of coke.

Matt.

[MrB (Simon)]

Originally Posted by Darth Wader

You'll also want to use a good quality yeast - Safale US-04 is a traditional English ale yeast and will change the flavour of you brew immensely, provided you keep the temp at around 18 degrees.

And for the real deal, get a Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale smack-pack.
This yeast was cultured from the Guinness brewery.
Getting the right yeast is the most important ingredient when cloning brews, and then temperature control.
Edit: ah, and water profile. Dublin water is very high in carbonates... it's the whole reason Guinness is so dark... they couldn't mash lighter grains!
It's also why Pilsner is so light... Plzen water is almost pure, almost no mineral content at all... they couldn't mash dark grain.

[coldspace]

Sorry for the high jack, got into the drink now its clear, in the observatory, drinking, talking about Astronomy and brewing piss, life's good especially that I have an RDO tommorow.
Anyone want some receipies for some nice brews PM me.

Matt.

[GrahamL]

I was always terrible at brewing my own beer

I met my nieces new partner at my sons wedding a little while back
talk about a beer nut , after attending many lauches of new
products by a lot of differant breweries and flooding them with questions ,etc, they started offering him work . Cut a long story short he shut down his profitable buisness and now runs a brewery .

They met at a launch of a new beer , she who had not long been working at a home brew supplier, went up and told him she thought his presentation was pretty crap.

A match made in beer

[Darth Wader (Wade)]

Originally Posted by MrB

And for the real deal, get a Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale smack-pack.
This yeast was cultured from the Guinness brewery.
Getting the right yeast is the most important ingredient when cloning brews, and then temperature control.

Aah, too true. Never used the smack-packs before! Will have to give this a go myself.

[Ric]

This is turning into a very interesting thread.

I've picked up quite a few good ideas in the short space of time already.

It looks like we have quite a few seasoned and talented brewers in our ranks.

Cheers

[StephenM (Stephen)]

Hi guys,

Good to see there's a few other brewers out there! I've been brewing for over 15 years now. Mostly Coopers kits these days because they re so easy and reliable (and with 2 young kids there's not enough time to do anything more complicated). Don't mind the Blackrock Pilsner kits from NZ either. I bottled a Cooper's Ale about a week ago, and that will be my last for a while, as it's a bit too warm for good fermentation over the summer. I've got about 6 cartons maturing in the garage, so that should do me for the next few months. There's a European Lager that should be reaching it's peak just in time for Christmas!

Cheers,
Stephen

[Ric]

I have a little spot reserved in the cupboard under the stairs. I've found the temp to be perfectly stable between 19 & 22 degrees all year round.

I never even needed to use a heater pad even in the middle of winter.

[White Rabbit]

I've often thought about it, but never gotten around to doing it. I thnk the thing that puts me off brewing it is that I drink to much as it is and I think I'd kill myself if I had cases and cases of beer lying around hhaha.

My Ex's dad use to brew his own and it was pretty good. Might look into it again.

Sandy

[Ric]

Has anyone tried brewing the old ginger beer?

From some of the stories I've heard about exploding bottles I'd reckon it would be safer tap dancing in a minefield.