The Red Barron (American Red IPA) had mixed fortune, from the keg it was a great success. Took it to a friends house warming (but not party!!) and it all went within a few hours. No joke! all what I had left was some slurry at the bottom of the keg. No only it seems everyone finds it remarkably cool to see a keg on the kitchen top, people also like free beer.

From the bottle it was more of a traditional english ale as I gave a 6 pack to my dad. it certainly wasn't designed to be relatively still, I had thought that it could be the case in the bottles as my sample ones were the same. So all in all I am not completely happy with the results.

There wasn't as much hop flavour as with my other batches in the past.




When I came to build and order my next recipe (Fimbulwinter Black IPA) I noticed that the hop quantities for the Barron were around the same as I have done with my 12l batches, however the Red Barron was in the region of 19l so all I can think of was that is was slightly diluted and I amended the recipe volume after I purchased the hops and forgot about it.

A shame and it didn't help also that I was adjusting to using a new brew setup (my Ace Boiler) and had a real ball ache to cool and transfer to the fermenter.  I will redo this batch in the future, I owe it to myself to do it again to make 12l to see how it turns out. I really do like the 'Seasonal' takes on IPAs so I will ear mark it for next year.

I must remember I am a 12l batch brewer!!!
I must remember I am a 12l batch brewer!!!
I must remember I am a 12l batch brewer!!!

What I have taken from this though, my keg setup works very, very well. I will utilise this going forward and will carb it in the keg and transfer enough when fully carbonated to bottles to give away.

To do this I have recently bought a growler/bottle filler to fill the bottles straight from my tap. I will also buy in the next few days a mini regulator adaptor so I can use larger co2 bottles (same as the soda stream machines) to connect a direct supply to my small keg. The mini 16g cartridges are good to transport with to parties but are not great and consistent enough to carb the keg.  I will also purchase a smaller 6l keg for kind of an overflow/bottling/testing keg before I tap my 9l keg.

If this all works out well with my Fimbulwinter Black IPA. I will get rid of my massive 30l bottling bucket.

Until next time.....Happy Brewing

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I've been abit slow on my write up with the last brew day and the first go with the Ace Boiler.

It was a good bit of kit and worth while purchase to get off the stove that if you wanted a dedicated system but didn't want all the extra parts like a induction hob and kettle or fork out on a more expensive system like the Grainfather.






The boil/heating of especially my powerful 2500W model made the biggest initial impact as it cut down so much compared to heating on the stove, something like 20 minutes and with the double wall insulation it maintained the temperature for the duration of the mash.




I did sparge this time and the colour of the first runnings looked good, it was a bit of a heavy load to then fit to put the wort back in the boiler. I might have to put the kettle lower to the ground rather than on my kitchen top. Trying to lift 19L of warm wort head high (given the height of the boiler on the counter) was a struggle. So that was my first personal note.


 The boil went well and got pretty vigorous a few times, my next personal issue came when I tried to cool the thing.....It took ages, I use a immersion chiller which got the temp to around 35-40 from near boiling in about 15-20 minutes but getting it from that temperature to pitching got me really twitched,

I have since picked up the trick (from a forum member of the HomebrewForum) of stirring it constantly for the chilling time which should get it down to pitching in a under 30 minutes with a chiller.

 The last personal issue was when I was ready to transfer to my fermentor, this was a real pain as the hop filter got surrounded by crud and just couldn't pass anything through the tap.

I have since bought a different filter (well some heavy grade tubing that goes directly from the boiler tap to my false bottom which should do the job better. As after having such clear wort I kicked up all the Trub by having to manly using a measuring jug to strain into the filter.

These were my only issues, just 3, which I have/will hopefully rectify come the next brew so they aren't brew day killers.

I look forward to using this again,

Until Next time........Happy Brewing

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