Project:HomeBrew

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HomeBrew



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Possible?

I'm anti-brewing in the space for a few reasons:

  • Brewing is 90% cleanliness. You need at least a large, wipeable worksurface (which we don't have). You will also spill lots of wort which will turn the carpet into a mouldy, sticky mess. Not good - you need a tiled/wipeable floor.
  • Brewing produces loads of steam. Our kitchen has no extraction so it will condense on the walls and ceiling.
  • We'd need a temperature-controlled place to do fermentation, which would probably require putting yet another fridge somewhere.
  • It's possibly legally dubious (the same is true of compensating people who bring their own beer).

Notes

Raw notes so far...

Brew

  • Water is critical to brewing. London's domestic water supply is high in lime and otherwise quite soft, and is treated with chloramine. Classic brewing waters tend to contain higher amounts of minerals. Some homebrewers add these salts to "Burtonise" the water. The simplest water treatment, recommended for all London brewers, is to open boil all your water to ensure sterility and drive off some of the chloramine.
    • chloramine won't boil off, treat with campden power/tablets, 1 teaspoon/table per 5 gallons water (all brewing liquor) - b3cft
  • We could "hack" our own brew bin from one of those water cooler bottles. Again recycling = goooood.
    • b3cft has loads of brew bins, with bottom taps and fitted lids with airlocks, up to 10 gallon vessels.
  • b3cft has a 40-50 litre all grain brewery, [1] currently sitting idle in the garage, it's currently waiting upgrades with PID and electric pumps to convert to a single level brewery (as opposed to the 3 tier gravity version shown)


notes from russ and andys talk

  • 4 ingredients, they lie - you need yeast
  • (russ flow chart)
    • water
      • aka liquor
      • kind of important
      • london tap water works for most stuff
      • less is more
      • for hard water you can use lactic acid
      • the higher the achol content the less it matters
      • cholrine content in london can be reduced by leaving it to stand
        • chloramine doesnt evapourate so you can add camden tablets
        • charcoal/carbon + sand filters are great for removing chlorine - xTw!7ch
    • malt
      • wheat or barley that has begun to sprout/germinated, then growth is retarded by putting in kilm
      • coverts carbs into sugars
      • when left for longer than normal you get roasted malt, even more patent black malt - though these are only used as additives
    • mash
      • mix the liquor and malt
      • mix with heat
      • can be complicated
      • alpahamalase and betamalase convert starch into sugars
      • beer has two types of sugars, one gives flavour the other give the alchol content
      • conversion types depend on temperature
      • look at around 68.4 for a medium body beer
      • you can bypass the effort using malt extract
      • you can measure starch contect with iodine
      • takes around 60-90 mins depending on how fine your crush is

Ferment

Bottles

  • From what I can remember there is a bountiful supply of glass bottles from various hack space evenings. I think it would be better to reuse (remember Reduce-Reuse-Recycle in that order) these. Cheap hand-held bottle cappers are cheap, and so are the tops. Bench-top cappers apparently give better results although slightly more expensive. Overal I think glass bottles with metal caps give a better "Beer Experience".
  • Plastic beer reseals Pack of 12- clear -They fit most standard beer bottles that have had a crown cork on them. Press on but tend to pop off if there's too much pressure


See also

Intro to Brewing Beer

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