Hiya all, this is going to be my Brewing homepage.
I am a relatively new brewer in the Ottawa, Ontario area.
I started off by READING - I am a scientist at heart so I had to know a bit of what I was doing before I started. My first read was How To Brew by JJ Palmer. I can say that that was the book that turned me on to homebrewing - I purchased the paperback version very quickly.
My first batch was a pre-hopped canned kit from the supermarket - Loblaws - where I purchased my starter kit. Besides discovering that the stove was inadequate for getting the wort boiling in a reasonable time, I made a pretty good beer. I moved next to The Brewhouse kits next - and they are an amazing kit to be sure. No boil, and they have a nice range of styles that taste great. Some have complained that there is a "twang" in the kit but I have given a Pilsner kit to a few that have told me they can detect the twang and they didn't notice it...
I then found out about Rec.Crafts.Brewing and that led me to the Members of Barleyment - the MoB - a virtual homebrew club in the Ottawa Area that has members from the maritimes, quebec and all over the rest of Canada.
My first all-grain was at the Big Strange Brew II - hosted by Pat Brochu and sponsored by Strange Brew and Drew Avis, a member of the MoB. It was a CCCA and it was great - much to my wife's dismay as I now wanted to get deeper into this hobby.
I have since acquired a kegging system, many cornies, an all-grain brewing system (a steal from a former brewpub in Ottawa - thanks go out to the guys that were involved in the purchase) consisting of a nice (read: sweet)
50 L mashtun (pic 1)50 L mashtun (pic 2)50 L mashtun (pic 3)a
64 L aluminum pot, a NG burner from
B3 and a propane burner from
Rona. I use a march 809 pump to move the hot liquids around and I have a second hand CF chiller from Alan - Garden hose and copper - works great. Here is a look at a recent Brew session - an APA -
Nov 11 - Remebrance Day.
My favorite styles are... beer. I like Hoppy ales (APA, IPA, etc) and I aspire to make an I2PA that will set you on your ear ! I also like Stouts, am discovering Porters, Alts and many other new styles. I have found a taste for Anchor Steam Beers and am getting to discover many more.
My latest acquisition will be (as of Jan 11/04) a plastic conical from Minibrew. I am going to get the 15 gallon model so that I can easily do the batch sizes that I need - at least 42 L but larger batches if I need to. I will hopefully post a report on bodensatz.com after I have a chance to use it for a while.
Update - Jan 22 - I have ordered the conical and I can't wait for it to arrive....
My Conical arrived Jan 31 (from California and through customs!!) while I was unfortunately out of town. Photos can be found here. I have not managed to use it yet but I have plans....
Links to my brewery and various bits can be found here.
More info to come as I get the time to fill out the page.
Sean Hopkins
