Bristol Brewing Circle meeting 17/03/11

BBC meet on the 3rd Thursday of every month at 7.30pm, upstairs in the Miner's Arms, St Werburghs.
Web: http://bristolbrewers.wordpress.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bristolbrewers/
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Capn Ahab
Posts: 887
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2011 7:32 pm

Bristol Brewing Circle meeting 17/03/11

Post by Capn Ahab »

Ever wanted to brew awesome beer, but not sure where to start?

Brew beer already and want to improve?

Love brewing and want to meet like-minded people?


We are Bristol Brewing, a forum for BEER brewers in and around Bristol to get together to discuss and drink beer, and to learn new techniques and improve our brewing skills. (We do have side interests in cider and mead making, but the main focus is beer).

We are holding our second public meeting upstairs at the Miners Arms, Mina Rd, St Werburghs, BS2 on Thursday 17th March, 7.30 - 9.30.

If you brew BEER at any level, or are interested to learn how, please come along! We are informal and sociable, with a focus on improving and learning from each other. We are hoping to have a talk from a local professional brewer this time round.

As ever bring any homebrewed beers you feel like sharing (limit two bottles), and as it's St Patrick's Day, it would be fitting to bring any stouts you may have made.

Don't forget to support the pub! We get free use of the function room, so please buy a couple of drinks before or after the meeting.

See you there!

The BBC
Eat sh*t or die trying
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SteveW
Posts: 264
Joined: Fri Feb 04, 2011 5:53 pm

Re: Bristol Brewing Circle meeting 17/03/11

Post by SteveW »

It was very nice to meet you all last night at the Miners Arms and to finally to put a face to your login!

It took me twenty years after seeing a friend brew a beer kit to take the plunge myself, after about a year I went for All Grain brewing and have looked back with dismay ever since at those wasted twenty years!

I to anyone extract brewing, take the plunge and go All Grain and Full Mash.
It really is not a scary as it seems, the process is fairly straight-forward, along as you sanitise well, and are strict about temperature of your liquor at all stages, such strike heat for your mash, water to sparge with then you will get good results. You really do have to be extremely careless or blasé to mess it up!

My equipment is really simple: my mash tun consists of two plastic buckets one inside the other, the outer one with a tap the inner one with list of small hole drilled in it. when mashing it goes into a cardboard box and is covered with towels and an old duvet for insulation.

My boiler is a large five gallon saucepan that I put on the gas hob to both heat my mash liquor and to boil the wort.
I sparge a la Dave Line with a small watering can.
While the wort is boiling I clean out my mash tun and sterilise it to be used as a hop back.
At the end of the boil I handball the wort from the saucepan into the now hop back using a large jug then I drain it off into my fermenter, another plastic bucket.

As I don't have a wort chiller (yet) I take my bucket of wort into the bathroom and put it into a bath of cold water to cool to about 25 degrees centigrade

You can spend a lot on equipment but you really don't need to at the beginning!

With this set-up I brew 23 litres at a time and produce beers I really like.

The biggest problem is I find, deciding from all the beers I want to brew, which one to brew next!

Go for it! You wont regret it!
The craft beer revolution will not be sanitised!
(Apologies to Gil Scott-Heron)
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