Hop shopping.... the last stop before lift off!

There are so many factors to a beer and so many types to try.... I've been doing way to much reading on yeast and hops and I think I'm ready to get back into the brewery (now partially located in the garage) and get my brew on.
As a keen hop head and lover of the IPA I figured the best way to get some of my commercial beer drinking (mainly lager) mates over to the ale was to brew steam/common and lager of my own. Then hop over to the pale ales and by next Christmas they'll be drinking porter like the best of 'em!

I've purchased some San Francisco yeast which will allow me to brew 'common' beer types and lagers. This will also force me to practice rinsing and propagation. Mainly because the yeast is so damn expensive!

I've purchased a few little add ons and will be making use of the fridge in the garage. Item's I've purchased are as follows:

Siphon upgrade - My current one is pants and this is a very important step to get right!
A fermenter with a bottler attached - This will be my lagering vessel and making bottling a lot easier!
Concial flask - This is for propagation
Thermostat - This is to control the fermentation and lagering temperatures in the fridge.

I'm now working out my four brews and what hops I'll need for each of them.... here's the list so far:

Cascade
Tettnanger
Centennial
Saaz

I'll post some info on these at some point soon as well as the base recipes I want to work from.

Mark Emiley - What a nice chap

During the early stages of my voyage of discovery in extract brewing I did a lot of reading on how to do certain things. Making a starter, steeping specialty grains and racking were areas of concern for me. Utilising the power of the internet and video tutorials I was able to see how these things were done by the experts. The best of these were the video tutorials by Mark Emiley. Not only an enthusiast and probably a great guy to have a beer with but also clear and consise in his brewing tutorials.

Sadly the lack of order of the videos and the titles make it pretty impossible to watch them in sequence without click on them (this may have been sorted now). You have to piece them together from what you can find too as there doesn't seem to be one place for them all.

Here's a link I just found it's a good starting place: Mark Emiley tutorials obviously youtube is another good source for them.

The stuff I've got so far

So many homebrew shops provide a great starter kit to help you on your way to brewing some nice basic kit brews. That's just dandy but there might be a few other items you might want to think about on top of your basic package.

Here's my current list of gear:

15 Litre boiling pot with lid
Glass Carboy - lovely but there are plastic alternatives.
Plastic fermenting bucket with airlock
Grain/Hop bags
Funnel
Syphon tubes
Racking Cane (Basic)
Bottler (basic)
Thermometer
Hydrometer
BIG spoon
BIG jug
Brewing belt (for temperature regulation)
Santisation powder

48 - 500 ml bottles with flip off tops
2 5 Gallon plastic barrels (although I'm a bottle convert so not in use)

On the wish list

Bucket fermenter with airlock and bottling tap  (little bottler)
1 Litre Jar
4 250 ml Jars with lids
A much better racking cane
Brupak Electic Boiler (Mmm pricey!)

So there's nothing quite like a home brewer taking pictures of his equipment and endlessly going on about it. If you're still reading this post then firstly well done!

Secondly in essence my lessons here are:

Hop and grain bags for extract brewing (your next step from kits) are invaluable
It's worth investing in decent syphon/racking cane - you want this to go smoothly
Buy a BIG pot for the boil - until you get a boiler.
Always have 2 fermenters

What are the jars about I hear you cry. They're for yeast rinsing covered in the R&D posts a little later.

The first post is always the hardest

Welcome to the New Bravon Brewery Blog

Perhaps I should start by stating what this is not first.

It is not an actual brewery - yet! I have dreams of opening a craft brewery like many homebrewers but I'm a long way off from ever achieving it.

It is not a brewing expert's blog - I am a keen student of the brewing art/science but I wouldn't call myself an expert. There are plenty of them about on other sites and forums. Check out the list of links in this blog to help with your enquiries.

I am not actually starting from scratch - I did start from scratch but that was about a year ago. I've decided to start this blog just before the grand opening of the garage brewery I'm setting up. I'll be posting a little bio of how I got to this point and what I've learnt so far.

So what can you expect from this blog?

Typos! - This is really a personal journal so although I try and keep it in tip top shape there will be typos and spelling mistakes.

Recipes - I'll be putting my recipes and brews here as a log book like all good brewers should! I'll write up my old brews here in the next few days.

Brew guides and tips - So as I've said I'm not expert but I have used the lovely web to help me figure out the basics. I'll share with you any resources I've used so far or discover en-route

Recommended Reading - I'll give you the lowdown on the books I've read and which ones I think are good and bad


Equipment - I've steadily purchased more and more equipment with a very frugal budget. This will give you the details of the good and the bad. I'm no engineer so for home made building stuff look elsewhere. Although this might change....in which case there'll be a new category.

Beer Festivals - My first beer festival is this year. I'll give you a outsiders view of the beer fest!

The Rivals - I like to view all other beers as rivals - it raises my game. I'll be posting any rival beers I have to admit are nice. 

Other beer stuff - This is where I'll be putting any beer realted stuff I want to share with you or rant about.

Well that's the intro out the way. Not that hard when I start gassing.... So on to the the potted history.