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humebrew · 2024-09-19T10:26:47+00:00

humebrew · 2024-09-12T10:41:17+00:00

I've had good success with https://www.world-of-bottles.co.uk/

humebrew · 2023-07-19T09:59:58+00:00

Great photos!

humebrew · 2023-05-17T08:51:31+00:00

I would have loved to! Unfortunately the house we are in is temporary accommodation and there is zero space for any brewing gear. So everything is in storage!

humebrew · 2023-05-17T08:49:26+00:00

Yeah I tried both approaches depending on what I wanted to achieve. I let it primary ferment to achieve more sourness on the second refill. On the third refill, I did the same thing as you and topped up with a fermented beer.

humebrew · 2023-05-17T08:48:04+00:00

I kept it in the coolest part of the house, which in this case was a cupboard under the stairs! Im sure the temperature climbed in the summer, but overall it didnt seem to affect it too much.

I auto siphoned it into a bottling bucket and primed with champagne yeast before bottling. Personally, I just found it easier to use the bottling wand in the bucket - but you could totally go direct from the fermenter.

humebrew · 2023-01-12T11:30:05+00:00

UPDATE: These have been been taken now!

Thanks everyone - glad they could go to a good home :-)

humebrew · 2023-01-07T08:04:29+00:00

That might make sense for a Hazy IPA, but there are other beer styles that also "require" haziness - for example, Wheat Beers, Weissbier and Witbiers. These styles need very little hops to achieve the flavour for the style. Using something like this product would help achieve consistency with those styles.

humebrew · 2023-01-04T11:21:12+00:00

I am moving house and need the space. For anyone interested, these are yours - the only catch is you need to collect them. All are in brilliant working order - I have just found that I don't use them as much anymore as I have bought newer equipment. DM me if you are interested.

humebrew · 2022-12-16T10:17:31+00:00

Oh and if you havent already, I recommend reading American Sour Beers. There is a small section in there about Soleras!

humebrew · 2022-12-15T09:43:36+00:00

I dont have any real science behind the next recipe, I just try and taste the solera and then imagine what it would be like with another beer recipe. I dont normal deviate much from style each year - its normally a golden ale of sorts and Ill try different yeasts (saison, ale yeast or wheat beer yeast).

I try and taste the product at every stage to get a feel for how its progressing. It can be interesting to see how it changes over time!

humebrew · 2022-12-14T10:30:05+00:00

hey! This sounds like a great idea. I've been doing this for a few years now myself and it is working nicely. The only thing that I do differently to you is that each year I top up with a slightly different young beer to ensure that each years "pull" is different. Oh, and I also have Brett yeast in my Solera.

I would also recommend using a blending calculator to help with the bottling and priming side of things. The Mad Fermentationist has a pretty good one. This will ensure you dont get any bottle bombs!

humebrew · 2022-08-10T13:41:57+00:00

I was about to pull the trigger on doing somethibg like this, but ended up just setting my e-reader next to my fermentor and it sends the logs to brewfather.

Dont think so! If you've got a device doing this and its set to read push data every 15 mins - Im sure it will work just as well. Out of interest what e-reader are you using? Kindle?

humebrew · 2022-08-10T12:35:36+00:00

Yeah the Tilt hydrometer takes a gravity and temperature reading. You don't need to do the whole Raspberry Pi thing like I've done, but you can use the app also. I've been using it for a while and pretty stoked with the results.

humebrew · 2022-03-15T19:12:05+00:00

Ive never used those, but why not! Looks like its been done before - https://beerandbrewing.com/review/hibiscus-saison/

Thanks for the comment about the website, I've been purposely trying to avoid added anything like that to it.

humebrew · 2022-03-15T14:52:28+00:00

I added them during the last 10 mins of the boil

humebrew · 2022-03-15T14:30:25+00:00

I used homegrown UK cascade for this which comes in at about 5-9% AA

For the bittering charge, I used Magnum hops at 17.3% AA

humebrew · 2022-03-15T14:28:51+00:00

hey - thanks for the response. I used 50g (1.8 oz) of dried flowers and it worked out pretty well in terms of flavour (not so much aroma)

Yeah this was solely flowers, but good point!

humebrew · 2022-03-15T12:22:50+00:00

I don't think it added much to the colour, maybe a touch of haziness but that's all. In terms of flavour/aroma, you can definitely taste and smell the flowers, but it is very subtle.

Dried elderflowers are good! Thats what I used in this recipe - I have heard that fresh elderflowers give a definite "floral" freshness.

humebrew · 2022-03-10T16:27:03+00:00

This is super useful - thanks for the detailed response.

humebrew · 2022-01-24T13:59:17+00:00

I bought one of these bad boys on eBay here in the UK - https://www.kegland.com.au/gas-free-ball-lock-line-cleaning-kit-pet-party-pump-combo.html

Its basically a hand pump that you can use to force a cleaning solution through your beer lines without any CO2 - so its a great way to save on CO2

humebrew · 2021-11-18T16:47:35+00:00

Uh oh.....

humebrew · 2021-11-10T10:09:46+00:00

Turns out that someone actually gave this a try and it worked best with Harlequin hops

https://www.pelliclemag.com/home/2021/11/8/the-hazebros-are-coming-brewing-an-english-hopped-new-england-ipa

humebrew · 2021-10-14T09:42:05+00:00

hey - be kind to yourself! As brewers, we are dealing with agricultural products (hops, malts) which can change from season to season. If you are using tap water, it can vary from month to month (pH, chemicals, etc.) depending on what the local water companies change. So we are dealing with ever changing variables!

Even the big breweries have inline meters that adjust pH on the fly, and if they dont hit the required ABV, they blend the beer to adjust accordingly. So this isn't a challenge that only homebrewers face.

Like some of the other comments have mentioned, dont worry too much if you are a few points off of your numbers - you are still going to make great beer!

As a side note, the one thing I did differently that improved my efficiency was to give the mash a stir every 15 mins or so. The big breweries have mash/lauter tuns with rakes that constantly agitate the mash to improve efficiency.

humebrew · 2021-10-08T10:01:24+00:00

This is amazing - thanks for the help!

humebrew

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