Heading for “The Dark Side”

(picture from The Malt Miller website)

The forum regulars do seem to refer to moving to all-grain brewing as being a move to the dark side.  Kind of ominous…

I’ve been headed that way for a while; two attempts at Riggwelter, one a complete failure, one a qualified success, using my boiler as a mash tun.

Well, for this xmas my parents have bought me a mash tun.  Actually, I picked it up myself the other weekend, from Rob at The Mash Miller in Didcot.  I’ve bought a few ingredients from Rob, and been extremely happy with his service -grains ordered one morning, delivered to work the next day, and you can’t ask for more than that.

Anyway, the mash tun is shown in the photo to the right.  It’s a 45 litre “Igloo Ice Cube 48” coolbox, fitted with a lever tap and a copper manifold.  It all seems very well made, and while, yes, it’s the sort of thing that anyone reasonably competent with plumbing and power tools could put together themself, I ain’t that competent!  I think the price is very reasonable – it’s £95, but the coolbox itself seems to be around £40, plus the plumbing, plus the time to actually make it, so all in all it’s a bargain to me.

I went for this one rather than one of the 25 litre coolbox types from other suppliers because I’ve seen happy comments on the forums about it, and while it’s a few quid more than the 25 litre ones it gives me plenty of room to do larger brew lengths and mash stronger ales when I get properly stuck in to this all-grain lark!  I’m already coveting his 50 litre steel pots for a bigger boiler… maybe next xmas!

I haven’t used it yet – I’ve promised I’ll wait until after xmas – but I have grains all ready to go in the few days I have off between xmas and New Year, especially since m’dear wife is at work on the Thursday and Friday.  I also gave her the choice of my first beer, and after flicking through Mr. Wheeler’s wonderful book “Brew Your Own British Real Ale” she chose Big Lamp Bitter.  Expect a posting when I do the brew!