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Events

18 May 2011 – Edinburgh Midweek Meeting

Bring and Taste

Our midweek meetings are inttended to be an informal gathering of brewers where we sample and discuss each other beers. There is usually a good mix of new through to experienced brewers along with a mix of beers styles on offer to try.

Meeting are open for anyone to come along and join in. You can either just turn up on the night or drop a note onto the forum so we know to expect you.

There is a small charge to contribute to the hire of the room and Davie, who runs Edina HomeBrew, sorts us out with some pies for supper.

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Events

15 May 2011 – Hands-on Brewday

Tryst Brewery, Larbert
John McGarva, owner of the Tryst Brewery, has kindly offered to let us loose on his 5 BBL brewery for the day.
John said that he would be getting things started early (around 8am) and would like help to dig out mash at around 9:30 – 10:00 (we expect that the people taking cars will have to take care of that duty).

Earliest Trains:

Edinburgh Waverley – Larbert
Dep: 9:34 Arr: 10:30

Glasgow Queen Street – Larbert
Dep: 9:38 Arr: 10:02

The brewery is two minutes walk from the station.

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General

Diacetyl Force Test

This is another simple quality control test I learned about from Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff’s yeast book. This one is even simpler than the forced wort and forced ferment tests, requiring nothing more than some means to pull a sample from your fermentor, two glasses, some foil, and hot water.

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General

Forced Wort and Forced Ferment tests

The “forced wort” and “forced ferment” tests are simple tests you can use to assess some aspects of your brewing. They’re new additions to my brewing procedure, and maybe not obviously useful until something goes wrong… Hopefully nothing will, but they’re easy enough that I think they’re worth experimenting with.

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Articles

The inaugural AG story

Oh, how the days of anticipation and planning have flown past!

A brief history – if I may be so indulgent – late in the year 2009, for some forgotten reason, but possibly because of some time wasting chat at work, a rather tall scotsman started to take an interest in the world of homebrewed beer.

Despite the search term ‘homebrew’ fetching back some rather perplexing sites talking about unpaid software developers writing code for various electronic devices, eventually THBF was discovered, and a login procured.

Now as this tall scotsman’s Mrs wasn’t exactly keen on the idea, he instead proposed a starter kit as a Christmas present. Not that his wife was swayed, but his almost equally unfeasably tall sister did, and one plastic barrel and some odd tubes and a very long egg flipper were gifted on that day.

Full of enthusiasm, but woefully short on knowledge, the two cans of concentrated wort in the Scammonden Dark kit were diluted in the plastic barrel, and then the dawning realisation that you couldn’t drink it straight from the barrel!! Oh, the naivety!!!

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Articles

SCB 2011 January Meeting

scb_yeast_trial_feb_20111It had been a few years since the last SCB yeast trial so we thought it was time to try it again. We selected the January meeting as traditionally it is a well supported meeting and we were sure that this type of experiment would attract some of the local brewers.

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General

Review – Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation

yeastI was really quite excited when Calum told me about this new book by Chris White (of White Labs) and Jamil Zainasheff (of The Brewing Network). Those of you who know me from the Edinburgh meetings will know that I’m really enthusiastic about yeast (even for a brewer), so as soon as I heard about it, I had to buy it. I’m pleased to say that I was not disappointed, but before you all run out and buy copies, you might want to read this review first…

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Articles

Skipton update

The Scottish Craft Brewers had a small but successful visit to the National Craft Brewing festival at the Copper Dragon Brewery in Skipton on Saturday 18th September.

The event was organised by the Northern Craft Brewers who were rekindling the event after a break last year. Steve Taylor, the owner of the Copper Dragon Brewery and founder of the Northern Craft Brewers, has kindly offered to host the event at his state of the art brewery in North Yorkshire so the NCB had grabbed opportunity with enthusiasm and laid on a memorable event. This turned out to be perfect as the festival was able to spread out across an enormous warehouse which had plenty of space for the entrants, visitors and also the retail partners who supported the event.

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General

Batch Prime your Bottling

I was bottling last week so thought I would throw together an article on how I perform it as some questions do come up from time to time. The process that I am going to describe is what I use for bottling. I am not advocating that this is “the” way to bottle but simply “a” way that might give some brewers some thoughts on how to improve their own results. However, if you have a competely different process or perhaps made a piece of equipment to help then please tell us about it.

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General

10 Tips for Successful Fermentation

  1. fermentorUse the freshest yeast possible.
    • Yeast is sensitive to temperature extremes and light.
    • Keep refrigerated and use within 30 days of manufacture.
  2. Culture up yeast if not at peak freshness.
    • If over 1 month rejuvenate with SG1.020-1.025 half litre starter, cooled to 75°F before pitching.
  3. Use sufficient quantities.
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