After much deliberation I took the plunge on buying a Tilt Hydrometer, its not a cheap piece of Homebrew Tech by any means. It came to £144 pounds from Malt Miller, pretty good as it was the updated v2 of the Tilt which usually goes for nearer/over £160.

The Tilt V2 has some improvements over it's predecessor:
Range: Better reception and range. With the increased transmission power your Tilt will send data through larger, thicker-walled fermenters.
Precision: Upgraded sensors. With an improved temperature sensor and accelerometer your Tilt will operate with more precision.
Efficiency: We’ve reduced power consumption so more brews, less battery. New Look: Newly designed custom circuit board and harness.

There are two ways to keep track of your brew, One which the google sheet is hosted for you, which you get access to, or you can host your own cloud app and store the brew sheets yourself. I wanted to do the later so I can keep hold of the sheets and felt bit more in control knowing its all hosted in my own 'google space' I followed these instructions on how to do it.



see also written instructions/links to sheets template

I did a few 'test brews' basically just putting the tilt in water to get use to the cloud logging/tilt setup and I just had remember to email the cloud url to myself and copy the link into the tilt app.

Another thing to note is that if you want a constant stream of data throughout the day, you will need to have a bluetooth device in range of the tilt. Fortunately I found an old iphone (probably the wife's!) that I keep plugged in next to the fermenter in the garage. You will also need to stop the phone/device from going into sleep mode or switching off.

iphone sits on top of cool brewing bag (housing fermentor)

Initial Impressions

The Tilt does not control fermentation, nor will it make a better brew. I still have an inkbird (probe goes into my SS brewtech termowell) to control fermenation temperatures.  

It is a great piece of equipment. Having that data and seeing the trend in fermentation opened, has helped stop obsessing over & wondering what the brew was doing. It's allowed me to gain extra control over the fermentation process - avoiding stalls and knowing when fermentation is done without taking numerous samples to find out.

I currently have my Saison Of Love in the fermentor with the yeast being pitched on 27th August.  

I could track easily when fermentation kicked off and the rate it was going, allowing me to increase the heat source in my brewing bag to maintain the temperature to slightly higher than room temperature (26c). It now appears (5 days later) that the fermentation has slowed, even though my OG was 4 points lower than my estimated OG of 1.052 the belle Saison yeast has been a monster and eaten 93.75% of the sugars. Apparent Attenuation is another bit of info the tilt allows you to track, so even though I was looking at on estimate a 5.5% saison, I am now looking at something in the region of 5.9%.

Screenshot of the Tilt Report Sheet

I have noticed however, that the during active fermentation the sheet did record some fluctuations of gravity readings, sometimes only 1 points sometimes it jumped up to 3 points.  You could however see a trend in activity so these blips can be ignored as it could record 2 'blips' say over several hours.  so nothing to really worry about, I could see the trend visually using the chart sheet.

screenshot of the Tilt Chart sheet

How the new Tilt V2 holds up in a heavy dry hopped brew, that is something I have to find out. The V1 Tilt apparently wasn't very accurate when using lots of dry hops as they were effecting the sensors.  The battery was another well documented flaw of the V1 with  a lot of users expressing frustration with the Tilt V1 cutting out mid fermentation after just using the Tilt for 1 previous brews before hand. Make sure you keep the Tilt upright when not in use as that will conserve power (puts the Tilt in sleep mode).

Both of these I will have to wait and see if the Tilt V2 has overcome, but my initial use of the Tilt V2 is that it could be a welcomed gadget in my home brewing arsenal.

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I've been wanting to try Denali hops for a few brews now but haven't come up with a suitable recipe/hop schedule. However after reading an article in a recent BYO magazine on Award Winning Home brew APA recipes, I got a few pointers and fleshed out a new recipe. Even though I have a few cans from them I also wanted to create something like thairannocitrus from staggeringly good, using Kaffir Lime leaves too.

I aimed this brew day to coincide with Fathers day, so my dad could have a full keg (of my 9l keg) and I could have some too.
During the mash the target temp was more like 70oC than the 67oc target. While I over spared my preboil gravitiy was 10.40 instead of 10.35, I did this sparge as my boiler was heating up, so it seemed to take less time to hit boiling temps which has been litterly like watching & waiting for a kettle to boil in the past - pain staking!

SG was 1050 and FG was 1014 making it 4.7%

When it came to kegging it filled my 9l keg full for my dad (as it was a fathers day present) and probably about 1/2 that amount in one of my full sized kegs for myself.

The very small sample when I kegged it had a sweet pineapple/peach aroma, tasted the same but the lime came through after. Not too overpowering.

I waited 4 days after applying the gas, and although still slightly under carbed it tasted so so nice, full of citrus (aroma and flavour), then the aromatic lime taste from the kaffir lime leaves.

Basically was like Staggeringly Good's Thairannocitrus but super charged! If I have a craving for their beer now I might just have to brew my own.

Very pleased with the results so far. Have to drink this fresh! I could be the first new batch that gets added to my 'core range' (brews to brew again). 

See the full recipe on brewers friend.






Until Next Time...... Happy Brewing

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Have you ever wanted to give your home brew as a gift/present but only have a keg setup? Since moving house and using my keg equipment more I have been thinking the same..

I use to syphon some beer off into a bottling bucket and condition x amount of beers (usually 6 or 12) to give to, say my dad, as a gift or fathers day present. However in the past the carbonation of the bottles have been somewhat inconsistent and on one occasion (bottled version of my Breakfast Stout) a bottle bomb could of happened. Well almost - upon opening it frothed out more than the Kilauea volcano (too soon?)  so my dad didn't end up having much apart from a big head on a few bottles. You also always get unwanted sediment and the time to condition is always an extra factor to take into effect.

So I thought of the idea to use my keg and use my bottle filler to bottle from my keg directly. Knowing I can get the carbonation right and will eliminate the issues I've had with bottling.
One problem however is that if I give a full 6/12 pack to my dad he could not drink a bottle for a few weeks. Which could mean that the carbonation levels drop in the bottle. All the how to videos I've watched state you should cap on foam and you purge the bottle before filling.

Something that is quite common when bottle filling from a keg, regardless of the way you transfer it. Counter pressure fillers work well but I wouldn't want to leave for 2/3 weeks to find it was flat. A week seems the cut off before carbonation starts to drop.

Transferring to a Flip top bottle.

So this leaves me with doing some 'Beer Tokens' that I intend to give to the amount (in pints/bottles) that I would usually give. In my case for this Fathers Day I intend to fill my 9l keg for my dad and have beer tokens to the amount (in pints) that the keg holds.

If you have someone that lives close you could do a few bottles a time to take around/they come to you whenever they want, it'll be like having your own personal tap room!

It might even be a bit more fun for them to get stamped for the beers.
I still have my old bottling bucket so can give this a try this time and if it doesn't really work then I can go back to bottling. 
Have you any other good ideas to give your home brew away as gifts?

What beer tokens could look like

Until Next time......Happy Brewing

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Since my last post, Ive been working on improving/modifying my most successful brew (G.E.B. Pale Ale) after reading back at my notes in my brew diary and the memory I have of it the malt backbone was slightly week compared to the hops.  I like flavourful hoppy beers but it was a little one sided. So I set to work on this aspect of beer for improvement.

During this time Strong Island announced their 7th Annual Home brew Competition, I set out the plan to get this beer ready in time.

G.E.B. Pale Ale 

Fast forward a few weeks from brewday. I've been trying my allocated test bottles prior to the competition this coming week at Meat & Barrel, Portsmouth. After 2 years of brewing I am still taken aback how the bottled beers change overtime.
Over a space of a week of 'testing' the beer went from very malty to the hops coming to the forefront and being quite bitter to achieving a nice balance with a punchy tropical aroma blended with a slightly spicy malt base.

I've now had all my bottles and have 1 non competition bottle left, which I'll give to my Dad (it's named after him after all). Hopefully the taste wont change much from now till Wednesday, I may have to chill them down abit more just to be on the safe side.  The beer is certainly in the 3-4 week sweet spot - so its been perfectly timed!

In myself I am happy how this beer has turned out, really very happy, the competition if nothing else will allow me to get unbiased, expertly judged feedback. I would love to get in the prize spots (don't we all) that would just be a bonus to me.

I'll report back on how I did next week.






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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Its being a while since my last blog post, so I thought Id write on a hot topic with homebrewers that is a long disputed and much asked question...to keg or bottle? 

Some like to bottle so they can keep track on how much they have drunk and like to just chuck a bottle or two in the fridge. Its cost effective to bottle, the equipment you need is very minimal. You will only need a capper, caps and of course the bottles which many I expect you could have from empties collected. 

When I first majorly bottled I 'minesweeper-ed' a lot of empties from a friends BBQ party. However there always is a constant rinse and clean cycle, which when it comes to sanitising and filling come bottle day some find it quite tedious which you also may run out of space in the kitchen surrounded by bottles. Bottling however is a great way to share the fruits of your labor. 

Kegging is very convenient, after a long day you get home and fancy a beer but only 1/2 having a keg is very handy for this. It also reduces alot of time come bottling day and cleaning. For carbonation and clarity kegging is the way to go. 

There are many entry levels to kegging you can get a 5l mini keg or Tap a Draft (TAD) that are seemed as a good stepping stone into the world of kegged beer.  

I have used a TAD when I first started out, I really liked using it, however after 4 kits (one which was a stove top extract kit) I quickly went into 12l BIAB batches as I didn't see the need of using these as I could easily just bottle 18 or so bottles and let them naturally carbonate over a few weeks. So I have lined this up to give to a friend who has very recently started home brewing, catching the bug very quickly however he has had problems with a leaky pressure barrel.

For me I would dearly love to do a DIY Kegerator however I know the powers that be (aka Mrs B) will not have that until I have a man shed or such area she can lock me away in.  So if I can push it to just a 9L corny keg (tucked away in a corner) with a regulated Co2 charger and chrome tap will cost in the region of £130. That's not including a cool jacket or Co2 capsules. 

You never know I might try my luck placing it on my upcoming birthday list. 




There is so many pros and cons for the two so I'll leave it here....How do you do yours? do you bottle, keg or a mix of the two? What do you prefer?

Are there any Home Brew Suppliers/companies willing for me to test/review keg products? 

Until next time......Happy Brewing

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BrewDog have now released all 215 of their recipes online for free in one handy PDF. 

Titled DIY Dog, the free download includes a manual on equipment and ingredients needed for each beer - and suggests food pairings for each one.  

BrewDog have made all of their 215 recipes available for download on their website, via www.brewdog.com/diydog. 

With each recipe being scaled down to home-brew volumes of five gallons or 20 litres.

This is amazing news, as a fan of their Punk IPA Im really excited to give that one a go first off and trying to recreate some more of their beers now I have an actual recipe from the brewery themselves. Will this inspire other breweries to follow suite? I probably don't think so (I hold my breath) as BrewDog do like straying away from the norm. 

Regardless the PDF is immense! Especially as they could charge for a full book format, considering the only other official recipe came with the pre-packed beer kits that are on the higher priced side. 

I'll save this document just encase this is a timed free exclusive, the works printer best not run out of ink come Tuesday when Im back in.

Time to get punked! 

Until Next Time........Happy Brewing

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If you are like me and have been struggling on what to do with all the spent grains after brew day?  

It seemed to me wasteful to just throw them away, I don't have a dog and although my parents have a small allotment and compost bin, if I wasn't going to see them for a few weeks I didn't really want them laying around until that point. After some searching I found a recipe on Beer Drink Run. I believe they got the recipe from somewhere else originally.

You will be able to substitute some items if you don't have them in the cupboards and some are also optional. 

Ingredients:        

2 cups spent grains- dried
2 cups rolled oats (quick cooking or old fashioned)
1/2 to 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
1/2 to 1 cup chopped dried fruit (optional)
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup barley malt syrup — can be substituted with Maple Syrup or in my instance Black Treacle as I didn't have enough Maple Syrup
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon salt

You can also add some milk chocolate chips (I had these on the side, staring me out and I forgot to actually add them in the end).

Directions:

1. Spread the grains on a cookie sheet and dry in the oven at 80°C (175° F) for 2.5 hours shifting the grains around every 30 minutes.
   
2. Increase the temperature to 160°C (325° F) for the final 30 minutes with the oats and chopped nuts to roast everything together.
3. During the final 30  minutes of roasting, start to mix the “wet” ingredients. Take a small saucepan and slowly heat the syrup, honey, butter, peanut butter and salt. 
4. Bring that to a boil and them simmer for 5 minutes stirring frequently. Once the syrup mixture was done simmering, mix it with the dry ingredients completely combining them.
5. Combine all the dry ingredients and set them aside in a large mixing bowl.
6. Spread the mixture out in a wax-paper lined 13 x 9 baking pan. Allow this to cool several hours at room temperature, cut the bars, and wrap them in a wax paper square.

Mixture left to cool. Hardens pretty quickly only took 40 mins or so, then a sharp knife was required. 

The verdict: They were very good, very moorish.  I could taste the malts especially since I brewed with Chocolate & Medium Crystal (60L) malts. I had a background flavour of the syrup with the honey coming through. A bitter sweet snack. 
They would be nice for a mid-day snack, I can imagine it going well with a coffee or an even an evening snack with a beer. 

A cheeky test corner.  

If you feel like you want to give it a try, the only other thing to remember is to properly store the grains you want to use before you start. So if you froze them for a few weeks and make sure you put them in the fridge for a day to thaw them before to keep them fresh.

Until next time.........Happy Brewing

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Do you listen to music while brewing? Do you have a dedicated playlist or create one based on mood prior to the big day?

Regardless if I've only brewed a kit or an extract on the cooker top I've always liked to have something on in the background. I write what I'm listening to in my beer journal to keep track of what I've been listening too, its a nice little remembrance thing like in a normal diary, a piece of history. Even though current musical tastes are lent towards the Alt. Rock side of the spectrum. 

Like the saying that people play music to plants to encourage growth, its like in beer you wont get the same outcome playing two different styles of music. My wife must even think I talk to the brew during fermentation. I've haven't done this yet, but I've been very close to and always "tuck it to bed". 

With now not owning a dedicated CD player and not really using my iPod very much now, I've virtually gone digital within the "cloud".

I'm brewing my second extract brew (Hob Goblin Clone) tomorrow and have setup a Spotify Playlist built around the punk rock songs from early 2000. Clocking in at just under 4 hours for a complete run of the playlist should cover most if not all of the brew day activities.
Feel free to follow the playlist yourself (or play via the embedded player below) and enjoy some classic songs! On your own brew day. 

 Until Next Time.......Happy Brewing 

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Are you like me that have limited space & resources, unable to have variations of equipment for brewing? 

Do you struggle to get through 40 odd pints of the same beer because you are unable to brew two batches in close succession, allowing them to condition over the same period of time? Or just find 40 pints of the same beer too much?

The last statement is quite generalised, I haven't had a problem with my 'Way to Amarillo' Pale Ale, its a very nice brew (best one Ive done to date) but every brew after the 30 something pint I really fancy a different beer - variety is the spice of life! 

So now that I have got into Extract brewing & starting to either devise my own recipes or scale down others -  small batch brewing is on the cards! 

3 Gallons batches (11 Litres) which is roughly 20 pints, if you take into consideration the trub and other loses during fermentation, you'll probably end up with 18 or so 500ml sized bottles. 

I did need to do some research however as I only have a full sized 23/25l bucket, I had a small 12.5L bucket in the shopping cart ready but before I committed myself I wanted to check if I was able to use my original, existing bucket.

And you actually can! 

Many people have done the same, fermented 3 and even 2 gallons in a 5 gallon bucket. 

For example, for every 2 gravity points creates one volume of CO2. So a gallon of beer, dropping from 1.050 to 1.010, will make 20 gallons of CO2 over the course of its fermentation. So any oxygen will be purged from the bucket. 

If you decide to condition a beer for a longer period of time in secondary, like if it's a very high alcohol beer, you would want as little headspace as possible to minimise the risk of oxidation so then I recommended to rack into a similar sized vessel. 

For the duration of primary fermentation (up to 3 weeks) there appears to be no problems using a 5 Gallon bucket.


This not only will allow me to potentially brew two batches within weeks of each other but I can now scale down a recipe to test it out to see if I like it, rather than having tons of bottles of 'meh' beer to get through. Essentially giving them away to associates just to clear the numbers. Some people windge that they don't get any beers but others have, but that's another story for another time. 

If you find yourself in the same predicament like me....I would say give small batch brewing a go. 

Until next time..............Happy Brewing

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When I started this new hobby some six or so months ago, I knew I would like the whole home brewing scene but if you told me that I'd get the chance to write for an established community I would both be hesitant with the idea and tell you that there are other more seasoned and experienced Home Brewers out there. 

Over the last few weeks, I have been contacted by one of the Admins of TheHomeBrewForum asking if I would like to write some articles for them, they have an excess amount of topics that they would like publish. It was quite a coincidence as this was the same kind of time that I was setting the ground work on this blog. 

I gladly said yes, my knowledge on aspects of Home Brewing has increased quite considerably over the last few months. Its a hobby that not only gives you 40 odd pints every few months but has a lot of Science and a bit of Math involved, so if you open yourself to wanting to learn more then it gives more back.  Besides all this, it is a very interesting subject matter.

So two weeks on from my initial contact with the Admins, I now have a list of topics (78 to begin with) that I can pick and choose what I would like to cover. Some topics I already know quite a bit on and others that I'd probably need to research into, however those would be good for future projects, such as using Raspberry Pi in Home Brewing. 

To my surprise any articles will not only be syndicated on TheHomeBrewForum.co.uk (which alone has over 15,500 members) but also HomeBrewSupply.com and WinemakingTalk.com. It must be a week of exposing my name, as at work a project statistics email I distributed to my internal team was eventually pushed right up the chain to effectively what would be 'The Board' or the Bosses of my Big Boss's Boss (try saying that when you've had a few Home Brew!)  

It was all good and proving that the work I was doing is becoming successful but when you get your big boss sending the email chain back to you and notice who its gone to its quite exciting and unnerving at the same time.  I'll have to think how I word the emails in future. 

Exciting prospects on the horizon, 

Until then..........Happy Brewing

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With my current brew 'Way to Amarillo' bottled and having 12 or so bottles left my thought is now going to my next batch. 

The weathers dark, dank and miserably....Spring has no sign of coming around soon (even in Home Brew terms), my idea of brewing a Spring ale has been put on hold until a few months time. 

I then got thinking/a craving for Hobgoblin, one of my favourite beers. Its perfect for this time of year.

After a few afternoons & quieter periods at work! I found an Extract clone of HobGoblin by the Home Brewer Orfy.  This was dated back a few years, however it has been well tried and tested by many and recently too. 

I also thought that before I did a brew completely from scratch it probably was a wise idea to get a feel for Steeping Grains with a recipe that has got so many good comments back from it. Saying its very close to the commercial HobGoblin. 

Until next time.......Happy Brewing

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For Christmas I was lucky to receive a Strainer and Stand, from The Home Brew Shop.

Hop Strainer clipped on top of bucket

I have a standard 25L fermenter bucket and also a 30L bottling bucket, both of which the stand clips on it very securly.

The bag has 4 slits that go through the top of the stands arms, was a bit fiddly to find if it was inside out or not, so I made sure the seam was on the inside, although some hop debris did collect around it washing it in a bowl of hot water easily removed any Klingons.

In order to strain my wort I used a sanitised jug and poured a jug full at a time into the strainer. Once all the wort and hops were out of my boiler pan I decided to pass the top up water through the strainer that had all the hops still in place.
I must say that I was concerned (as once I passed water through it did pull quite tights) if this would split the bag however as the recipe used 50g it wasn't enough to do so.

I wouldn't want to put any more than this in the strainer, also the hops were leaf hops not pellets so I'll have to keep this in mind if I use pellet hops next time.

Once the required amount of water was in the fermenter the strainer was just about touching the top of the wort, but it was already slightly aerated.

Emptying the strainer was simple, just turned the strainer inside out and the hops plopped into the bin. I set aside the strainer in my boil pot until I finished aerating and pitching the yeast.

I know there are other methods of straining, many people just simply use a coarse colander and I've read into hop spiders,bazookas or filters that can be directly used within the boiling wort.

I've been really impressed with how clear the packaged beers have been. I force carbed 1 TAD and a week after initial carbonation you can see straight though the glass once poured. Something of a luxury that I never have had before. An instant success which I look forward to using next time.

The only thing is that it could be a little stronger and also larger inner dimensions, just so it could be comfortable in holding the hops without the fear of it splitting or ripping of the arms, this is only minor as I wouldn't think I'd put much more hops than this in one batch, I like hoppy beers but not overly hoppy.

4 1/2 Bottles out of 5

What do you use for straining hops/wort, if anything? Have you noticed any improvements using one compared to not?

Until next time......Happy Brewing

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I maybe still new to Home Brew in the grand scheme of things, but I find researching into certain aspects very interesting so probably my overall knowledge is quite high for someone who has only really brewed for 6 months. It helps with the all the established home brew forums out there.
The best one I repeatedly go back to is The Home Brew Forum, it has certainly been usefully diving into the forum & the established members are usually very swift and knowledgeable to help with any issues or the like.

As I have a background in Computing,Multimedia, Web & Graphic design I have always enjoyed designing & creating labels of some description for all the brews Ive done. 

Labels don't go on all the bottles, I usually save my nice 500ml flip top bottles for either myself, social gatherings or family so I know I'll get the bottles back and I tend not to put labels on if only I'll be drinking it. 

Front Labels of my previous brews

I do however put labels on ones that I either cap or go to friends or family as Homemade presents, as it rounds it all off into a neat presentation. It gives me a sense of pride giving something you've spent lots of time on that also looks the part. 

I originally started making labels like luggage tags (see left) that I hole punched at the top and tied them on via string to the neck of the bottles. This gave a nice handmade country shop feel to it but was quite labor intensive so I only attached the labels as and when. 

Way to Amarillo Label
(next brew to bottle)

I have recently found some avery labels (ones that are designed to fit a 3.5" floppy disk) I must have had these ages! Finding the label template on the web, I started redesigning the layout of my designs for future brews. As I use Photoshop I always either have a basic design template saved as .psd or I modify an existing brew label, if I want to save some time.  

These look a perfect size for any shaped & sized bottles (300ml or 500ml)


I also produced a back label, The luggage type had it printed on the reverse, the new avery style will be stuck on the other side of the bottle.  I needed to do this as many 'give away' bottles people were just pouring the whole bottle in, so the sediment was being disturbed and yeast sometimes going in the glass. 

Back Bottle Condition Label

So this back label was made to tell the drinker its bottled conditioned, do they read it and pour carefully......probably not all the time! 
It really does make me cringe if I see how they pour it from the bottle. 
Hopefully now, as Ive stepped up my labels to mirror a proper packaged bottle it'll be more striking to drinkers.







What do you think? Do you label your brews & how? Do you want to label your brews? 


Until next time.......Happy Brewing

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When I first started brewing I bought 2 boxes of swing top bottles from the The Range they were £9 for 12 500ml bottles, good value! Although they wont last forever they are a great style of bottle that allows the beer to carbonate very well. I love the sound they make when they open. 

Over time I've boasted my individual bottles from either the odd supermarket bought bottle or from a BBQ or house party and helped with the 'recycling' by taking a few empties home with me.  

Now I have enough bottles to probably do a complete batch in bottles if I wish (or do 3/4 bottles and 1 TAD, so I have some leftover bottles for a batch sooner than waiting another month. 

I've basically found that there's certain types of bottles that wont cap well due to the neck being a bit more dumpy, so my hand capper can't fully grip on the bottle. These I've found are Kopparberg, Wychwood and Badger bottles, some bottles like the Proper Job or 660ML Punk IPA bottles have either the label on a piece of plastic then glued onto the bottle (which stinks and leaves the bottle very sticky if you do try to remove it). Which I then have had to recycle for real. 

Really easy bottles to reuse I've found Budweiser, Rekorderlig or the standard ale bottles that you usually get in the 3 for £5 deals at the supermarket. These labels generally just soak of after some time in hot soapy water, you'll then just have to lightly scrub off any label stickiness that is left.

It's nice to have a mix of swing/flip top, standard capped bottles (that look good if you are giving them away for presents) and a larger dispensing system.

Until next time........Happy Brewing. 

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Brew Diaries/Journals//Notes I keep one, I expect you keep one but they are a great means to keep track of how the brew has gone and any unexpected outcomes during the course of the brew.

I have kept one since I first started brewing up kits, even the simplest form of brewing your can come up with noteworthy points, especially points on how well its conditioning over time and flavour development.

I also keep a track of the music I am listening to at the time, its a nice little remembrance thing like in a normal diary, a piece of history. Do you remember the study/saying that people play music to plants to encourage growth, its like in beer you wont get the same outcome playing two different styles of music. 

As a standard each entry in my Brew Diary I'll have:

• Recipe (instructions from recipe packs/kits or a list written by me and affixed to the page) 
• The name of the kit or beer I'm brewing (this could be a made up name if the recipe is my own) I usually have given a kit a nickname for the brew as it looks better on the labels I make on ones I give away and its also abit of fun
• The date of brew and bottle day OG, FG and ABV
• Any noteworthy points or observations from the start of the brew day all the way through to the drinking the beer after conditioning. Things like how well the brew day went, how long it took before fermentation started, if the temperature drops during primary fermentation, flavour development during conditioning
• Things I would do differently next time if I brewed this again - like reducing or increasing volume, making sure I strain hops better etc.

There are many forms out there, I just use a spiral binned A5 notebook, some probably buy a premade book, others use blogs.  All aimed at doing the same thing.

What do you keep in yours? How long have you kept one?  

Until next time......Happy Brewing 

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