The excitement of home delivery...

[Tyberious Funk]

Delivery arrived from G&G today. I got sick and tired of bitching about how far away they are and their limited opening hours and decided to just accept the $6 delivery fee. Provding you buy enough stuff, it is certainly worth it (particularly given current petrol prices). Can't complain about the service... ordered on Sunday, got a phone call confirming the order on Monday morning and the goods were on my doorstep on Tuesday afternoon.

The SO didn't really appreciate my excitement at all the grains and hops and stuff. She just doesn't get it.

[undercover1]

Good on you TF.
We will share the excitement if you want- what did you get?

[Tyberious Funk]

Mainly some Light DME, some Coopers liquid wheat extract and some hops. But the exciting stuff is my first purchase of grain... got some light crystal grain and some carared which I plan on steeping mainly for the colour in a red ale. The other cool thing is my first liquid yeast... Wyeast Belgian Wheat.

I'm such a brew-nerd.

I would have purchased much more but I'm always struggling for bottles so there is a limit to the number of batches I can make. Hopefully it's gonna be a big Christmas!

[gregb]

If you're struggling for bottles you could mail order a Keg system......

Cheers,
Greg

[Dogger Dan]

WaaaaaaaaaHOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The goods are in, have you brewed it up yet?

Dogger

[Tyberious Funk]

I'll be brewing this weekend. Unfortunately, I need to get a new pot first...

The fermenters have been empty the last few weeks. I was supposedly "too busy studying" to be brewing. Of course, I reckon I can study and brew, but Mrs Funk tends to disagree. Semester is now over though

[peterd]

> The other cool thing is my first liquid yeast... Wyeast Belgian Wheat

A much more fun way of obtaining a Belgian Wheat yeast is to buy Hoegaarden, drink it, and cultivate the yeast from the dregs. It is a little bit cheaper, provided you dont buy too many Hoegaarden. Roughly, you get a four pack (I know it sounds silly, but that is how they come) for the same price as the yeast. Good deal eh?

[silkworm]

Ty,
How did the carared go? I bottled my first partial mash last night and the first thing I thought of was that the colour was a bit drab. Just asthetics I know but its all in the same picture and adds to the pleasure of the drinking.
I used carapils and had not heard of carared. Is it similar?

[Tyberious Funk]

Ty,
How did the carared go? I bottled my first partial mash last night and the first thing I thought of was that the colour was a bit drab. Just asthetics I know but its all in the same picture and adds to the pleasure of the drinking.
I used carapils and had not heard of carared. Is it similar?

Carared didn't really turn out all that red. Admittedly I didn't mash it... I'm not quite at that stage yet. Just steeped it for maybe 30 minutes. But I can't say I got that much colour out of it. Actually, let me rephrase that... I got plenty of colour, it just didn't seem very red. I also used some crystal malt, so that probably contributed more to the colour than anything else.

Having said that, as I poured it into the fermenter, I noticed a slightly reddish tinge as the liquid caught the light. This may start to emerge more during fermentation.

I only used about 300g of the stuff. In retrospect I should have used the entire 500g that I ordered. It's not like I have much use for the leftovers. I used it with a tin of Cooper's Pale Ale which I think was a good choice because it already has a fairly light colour. But I added some Dark Malt (I think I should have used Light Malt) and the aforementioned crystal. This was because I wanted a deep red colour. Still, I think this particular brew should taste ok.

I can't really comment on carapils versus carared (having no experience with the former)... but I imagine the carared is a darker colour. G&G list carapils as 3-5 EBC, and carared as 40-60 EBC.

[silkworm]

Cheers Ty - G&G ??
I will give Carared a try some day soon.
Sounds like a good brew you have down.
I did get a deep red colour last year when I added fruit tea (wild forest berry junk left over in pantry) to a Tooheys Lager kit.
I got over Tooheys Lager kits quickly.
The colour was a deep rich golden red / bronze. The brew has just become drinkable after aging for 8 months. Initially the berry was overpowering but now is a decent quaffer.
Happy drinking