Tell me about your home brew journey

comete

Hi all, I’m a long time craft ale drinker, newbie home brewer, curious to hear about your journey.

I started with a geterbrewer all grain stovetop (BIAB) kit a couple of weeks back, and building myself up to bottle my first batch today. Quite like the idea of smaller volume brews as it means I get more regular practice, and because my wife is not a beer drinker. I’ve got ingredients for 2 batches of IPA to keep me going over the remainder of lockdown, and have already tee’d up a few other recipes to try when they’re bottled.

I’m in a position to treat myself with something nice for Christmas and am curious to know, from your home brew journey, what equipment you use (or have used and no longer use), how it has impacted your enjoyment or efficiency, and what you’d do if you were looking to move your hobby forward.

Right now I’m doing BIAB in a stock pot with no sparge, and fermenting in a glass carboy. I’m fascinated by the likes of the grainfather g30; it seems like a decent chunk of cash for a very glorified tea urn, but maybe they’re totally worth it? Aside from footprint, do they have any advantage over a multi vessel system?

I started doing kits in a starter set I got once (couple of buckets and all that). Doing biab in the plastic electrim one now and fermenting in the buckets and, like yourself, do smaller batches because 30-plus bottles is too many. I do more this coming time of year because the temperature is lower.

RasTa

Grainfather is worth it for continuous sparge during mash imo. However it depends on deep you want to get into it. It just automates the procedure more and makes brew day easier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Ao5L4wjt0

matt007

First homebrew I ever had was back in the 80s. A mate made a barrel from a cheap larger kit.
Spent many a good year brewing from kits. Experimenting with pure malt extract instead of sugar etc.
Progressed onto grain and rigged up mash tuns and a boiler from a cheap BURCO.



A few years back I bought a Brew Monk, theres a few different brands using the same model.
Half the price of the grainfather and Not bad. I enjoy brewday much more..



Also I like to use a refractometer to read the sugar content... with only a drop of wort, you get a pretty accurate reading...
This is an actual photo from my phone.

comete

Thanks for the input so far.

I guess what I'm trying to understand is if people have built home made systems, and then ended up with a grainfather/other all-in-one and wished they'd done that from the outset, or maybe you've tried the all-in-one and preferred a multi vessel system?

I've just done an IPA using BIAB last night and based on measured OG vs theoretical OG from brewfather I've hit 91% efficiency, however it would be nice to have a less manual brew day.

comete

comete wrote: »

Thanks for the input so far.

I guess what I'm trying to understand is if people have built home made systems, and then ended up with a grainfather/other all-in-one and wished they'd done that from the outset, or maybe you've tried the all-in-one and preferred a multi vessel system?

I've just done an IPA using BIAB last night and based on measured OG vs theoretical OG from brewfather I've hit 91% efficiency, however it would be nice to have a less manual brew day.

The only brew day less manual than a biab is doing an extract kit or buying one of those orange nespresso machine things. The brewmonk or grainfather or those kind of thing are biab just that the second b is basket and not bag, but its the same thing.

sharingan

comete wrote: »

I guess what I'm trying to understand is if people have built home made systems, and then ended up with a grainfather/other all-in-one and wished they'd done that from the outset, or maybe you've tried the all-in-one and preferred a multi vessel system?

The general trend with brewing that I can see is that over time, your personal time becomes more precious. Refinement over every stage of the process, like you would get with a 3V setup becomes less important, so a lot of people I know who had tricked out systems (either single vessel BIAB setups or 3 vessel setups) are upgrading and are quite happy with the compromise. They might drag out the 3V system for tricky brews or whatever they had specialised it to do that the all-in-one does better now.

Fad brewing tends to go away too - you are more likely to stabilise on some classic recipes that you enjoy well, than go crazy on pastry stouts that place big demands on your mash vessel.

If you have an involved brew day (e.g. a triple decoction) you are likely to find ways to adapt to the all in one system rather than dig out the old 3V kit. But if you are doing something special, like a high gravity xmas beer, you might dust off the mash tun.

I've just done an IPA using BIAB last night and based on measured OG vs theoretical OG from brewfather I've hit 91% efficiency, however it would be nice to have a less manual brew day.

Nitpick: if you are going to measure your efficiency, then measure your efficiency. Dont interpret correlated numbers to mean what you think they mean. Always refer to the type of efficiency (mash efficiency or brew house efficiency). I don't run the numbers on my efficiency too often, as its hard to measure volumes on my setup, but I would call bull**** on anyone with BIAB getting 91% brewhouse efficiency unless they were dumping all the kettle trub into the FV. (I leave behind 5L in the kettle from 60L at 0 mins - that alone will drop my efficiency by 7% or so).

Tip: if you want to easily measure your efficiency use the malt-sugars-versus-fermenter-sugars approach. You should be able to do that from your brewing notes after the fact.

comete

Great response sharingan, thank you. I have much to learn