TOPIC:

Hello,
my name is Gian and I live in Italy.
Since one year I do all grain beers.
My interest is towards Irish stouts and Belgian beers, like Rochefort, Orval, etc.
Now is fermenting a Guinness clone... <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

Thank for all the help you can give me.

hi guys

Gary here
been lurking a little while, found this place through BeerNut's extremely helpful posts on boards.ie, which lured me into the Home Brew forum there and got me thinking about having a go

I have one previous brew under my belt, an Easons-bought kit beer circa 1992 when I was in college, to which we added two extra bags of finest irish Sucra thinking it would make it deliciously strong yet sweet (with faint beet notes).
Several other corners were cut with timing, and certainly hygiene, and we ended up with something which we stomached for one night but hastily poured down the toilet the following morning

Going to try my first kit since that this weekend - the Coopers Pale Ale. Hoping to dry hop that with some cascade.

On boards, in a similar case with a noob, Beernut suggested splitting the brew and dry hopping half of it. I'm fairly confident I will prefer it with the hops but at the same time it appeals to me to make concrete the difference for myself and start educating myself.
I'm just wondering how to go about this - the kit i have has only one bucket (it's the Coopers kit).

Am I ok to bottle half after the primary finishes, then add the hops to the remainder and leave for another week or two? Or how would I go about it with one bucket?

thanks, looking forward to using the forums here.
Gary.

Welcome to the site, Gary.

Yeah, bottling half and dry-hopping the rest should work. It's worth investing in a second bucket, though. And a third.

Hi guys,

I'm Fro, I'm based in Dublin. I've been doing extract brewing for a few years now but i'm about to make the move to all grain for my next batch.

I've a query i was hoping you might be able to help with. I'd like to get a fridge set up with a temperature controller to properly control my fermentation temperatures and then to lager batches. I have heard that some people use fridges and some use chest freezers. Which is the better option and why?

All advice appreciated.
Thanks,
Fro

I'd say the better is which ever is easier on your back, which for me would be a regular fridge.

If you're going to use a fridge for laggering then you will need to over-ride the fridge thermostat and use a temperature controller like an ATC-800+

That way a normal fridge can easily get down to about 1C for final laggering.

I took mine down to -2C and still the compressor wasn't running more than about 60% duty cycle.

Its amazing how using a domestic fridge in the kitchen ( i.e. Openning the door ) warms up the inards. After about 6 months there is still hardly any ice on the freezy bits!

If not happy with modding a fridge then use a freezer but you wil still need a temp controller!

Will