Just quickly - whats the best online home brew shop? I may need to pick up a couple of things. Namely a larger kettle, I think I might head down the BIAB method rather than the kit+kilo.
When I looked up gear a few years ago, commercial kitchen suppliers were good as well. Cheap larger stock pots
I used https://www.craftbrewer.com.au/ when I was in Brisbane, but thatâs because I already knew Ross the owner through BABBs.
Hooking up with your local brew club or the for sale section on AHB, https://aussiehomebrewer.com/ will get you access to people with spare kit. I.e. if you were in Melbourne I could hook you up with a 70L stainless pot and lid for your BIAB, as well as the swiss voille to make your own bag.
Grain and Grape.
If youâre serious about BIAB, look into getting a 40L urn or Robobrew or similar.
Yeah, I have seen these electric urns like the Grainfather / Robobrew / Braumeister etc. quite a big cost layout. But then if I am about to spend 80 bucks on just a large pot�
^ Sure, it all depends how serious you are and how much you intend to use it. Keep in mind a 40L pot isnât going to go so well on an electric stove, so youâll probably need a propane burner if you donât have one already. Then youâll need an immersion chiller to cool the wort. Then youâll realise emptying a 40L pot full of wort into the fermenter isnât much fun and it would be really handy if there was a tap in the pot. Then youâll go out and buy an electric urn, but at least youâll have a spare 40L pot to do some soup.
yeah, I have an induction stove which probably wonât work too well with 40L, but I could do 20L right.
^ Yeah - sorry I didnât consider half batches. A pot would probably be OK in this scenario.
Canât believe you didnât design a brewery into your house 
It was always going to be in the shed â and I just freeâd up a lot of space over the weekend which will be perfect for some home brew shenanigans. I will probably just start with something simple for this round. A friend has a robobrew, and another friend has a grain father so I will see if I can do a batch on each system and see how it all goes.
Anyone tried the above beer?
I have done some searching online and canât find a clone of it, but I have found the Balter XPA clone which I am thinking I can swap out the hops to those that are used in the Philter â as I donât yet understand which hops are for bittering and aroma yet, can the experts her offer any advice?
Balter XPA Clone
https://www.aussiebrewmakers.com.au/libraries/resources/Pale%20Ale%20Recipes/Balter%20XPA%20Style%20Recipe%20Instructions.pdf
So, Balter XPA requires
- 50g of hops: 20g Centennial / 15g Amarillo / 15g Citra steeped for 20minutes
- 3 x 25g teabags dry hopped: 25g Centennial / 25g Amarillo / 25g Citra
Now Philter mention they use Mosaic, Galaxy, Simcoe and Citra Hops. I know that the galaxy hop delivers the passionfruit flavour as found in Stone&Woods pacific ale, but to be honest. I donât remember tasting that in the Philter beer.
Any advice on this one? Thanks chaps.
Brew the Balter and then tweak the recipe from there. Then we can drink the failures as you go.
So the longer your hops are steeped/boiled, the more bitterness you will get. The shorter your hops are steeped/boiled the more hop aroma you will get - but you will still get some bitterness. Thereâs been a trend over the past few years to exclude hops at the beginning of the boil and just add more hops at the end of the boil. That way you get all the nice aromas without the harsh bitterness. That gave rise to the XPAâs that have been on trend.
I wouldnât worry too much about which hops you are using - if you know what Philter use then go with that. Clones rarely mimic their original exactly, so dive in, make notes and refine for next time. Itâs all part of the fun.
That Philter is bloody delicious!
Does anyone still have a link to Antmandans Pale Ale?
iâm pretty sure i changed houses in between the last two batches, so thatâs not it, though I just left my job where I could have tested my tap water for free, so thatâs a bit unfortunate.
iâm thinking temperature control, or maybe some de-oxygenation, the descriptions of autolysis sound like what the taste is. Mark Dredge - Beer: When beer goes bad: Autolysis
also, if anyoneâs interested, CWW has general info on their water quality tested across a range of locations on their website, and you local supplier probably will as well. My initial pH should be about 7.3 based on that.
https://www.citywestwater.com.au/documents/Drinking_Water_Quality_Report_2017.pdf
BINGO! Thank you
Belgian summer ale or an XPA (just so you can battle Ezy) - either way you know who to ask to test your work 