It's been a long time since I've mentioned brewing so here's an update showing some of the improvements Martin and I have made to our garage brewery (Pacific Way Brewery). After taking our previous brew in a bag setup (BIAB) to the next level by designing and commissioning a gravity fed brew tree we moved from Pacific Way (Martin's house) and into my garage. We've been adjusting and upgrading our equipment to get a faster brew day (into a brew morning) and have concentrated our efforts on efficiency, ease of use and cleaning. We're still experimenting. I'm researching styles and creating recipes with help from the wisdom of the online collective. After the success of my Black IPA … [Read more...]

In July I noticed an all-in-one brewing system being tested for the UK market by James Kemp, I was curious as this product resembled the Still Spirits Turbo 500 boiler that Martin and I started all-grain brewing with a year ago. A quick search confirmed that Imake Ltd the parent company for Still Spirits based in New Zealand had launched a new product - taking the Turbo 500 as a base boiler and adding an internal metal basket, a pump, a temperature controller and a counterflow wort chiller The Grainfather had been born. Flicking back through my brewers notebook I confirmed that my own sketches of a Turbo 500 conversion had become a reality! So excited by this I emailed Imake to find out more … [Read more...]

After attending the Twissup in Burton Upon Trent (2010) I was sent a demonstration of the Tap A Draft Coors Home Draft system (see the post by Andy) and at the time we speculated that this would be great for homebrew if the CO2 canister could be replaced. However, this particular Coors system was designed to be recycled and it is manufactured for single use only. Just before Christmas I started to look at options for storing my homebrew as it quickly became apparent that cleaning and bottling with 500ml glass bottles wasn't exactly a quick process. Most home brewers opt for a cornelius keg to store and serve up to 37 litres of beer, but I didn't have the space to store one of these and … [Read more...]

It all started in 2009 when I was discovering the different styles of beer and exploring micro breweries in my area (Derbyshire, UK) I was invited to Nutbrook Brewery to learn about the process of making beer. These guys were making beer from water, grain and hops (as you do) in their garage and I realised that this was something I wanted to do myself. In 2010 I went with Twissup to visit the Shobnall Maltings site at Molson Coors in Burton Upon Trent, this showed me where the 'Malted' grain comes from that is used in brewing (can you believe, it's not straight from the field!) and this furthered my interest in brewing my own. It wasn't until 2011 that I got the chance to design my own beer … [Read more...]