TOPIC:

Didn't get them out today, manic (always manic!).

But its a bank holiday weekend, and we wanted to make sure all orders were delivered tomorrow (Friday).

We will ship them on Tuesday for delivery on Wedns. Sorry about that, I guess this weekend would have been the ideal time to experiment . . .

As an aside, we just got Erlenmeyer flasks from Brouwland in response to a request from a Beoir brewer:
[url:3vgev0io]http://www.homebrewwest.ie/graduated-jugs-erlenmeyer-flasks-222-c.asp[/url:3vgev0io]

Aparantly, they are ideal for yeast propogation. We only got a few, but can get more.

Brouwland have an amazing variety of products, and we need help to decide which ones to stock.

They also have gear costing thousands to tens of thousands.

We have a cunning plan formulating in Galway:
- we buy the gear, and
- rent it out as required.

Examples are fruit presses for cider makers, its so seasonal and the presses are expensive (the bigger UK shops all do this). We also allow locals to use our simple grain mills in shop to crush grain for free (maybe we should invest in bigger mills).

We would invest in more speciality gear for the community if it makes sense. So all ideas are welcome.

A lot of homebrew shops in the US have large grain mills and allow customers to crush their grain in-store. Usually they buy the grain from store un-crushed and then bag up what they want and go back to the shop and get it crushed.

Keeps a loyal customer base and also, having them back in-store might lead to further sales. Spur of the moment impulse buys and the like.

Some nice 2L growlers would be good. They are hard to find here and would be very handy for filling from a corny. You could even stick a HBW logo on them for some publicity <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->

Grain mills finally shipped out and will be delivered tomorrow.

TIP: we see from guys crushing grain in the shop that a relatively "loose" setting is enough to crack the grains. A guy crushed 2 Kg in a just a few minutes today. I wasn't counting but I figure it was defo no more than 10 mins.

He kept going on about the "aroma" so I went over to see what he was up to; the fresh smell was indeed impressive (crystal malt).

Looking at how guys get on in the shop, I wonder if we really need to attach a drill? If you can hand mill a few Kg is 15 mins or so? I think the critical factor may be how the mill is adjusted . . .

This is why your comments here are so important to us.

Cool cool Brian.

My typical grain bill varies from 5-10kg of grain depending on brewlength, so I would see the drill being pretty important.
Looking forward to getting stuck into this

Drills make us feel manly.