newbie questions

Hello, I'm new to homebrewing, about to purchase my brewing equipment.

I've read How to brew by John Palmer and also lurked on here for some time, however I still have some questions:

I'd like to start with malt extracts, however I'm located in Europe and I seem to have trouble finding a shop that does sell any, most products are either hopped extract kits in can (like Cooper's), which are apparently no-boil kits, or straight all-grain "sets"
take a look - https://www.brouwland.com/en/our-products/brewing/brewing-kits
I'm confused about what to buy for my first batch. Does anybody know any place that sells malt extracts that aren't no boil? Should I just try to boil canned no-boil kits?


Also, should I worry about boilovers of almost 6 gallon batch in a 9.5 gallon pot? If so, are there any good methods other than using Fermcap, as it is not available in Europe AFAIK.


Any advice on cooling wort after boiling? My pot doesn't fit in the sink and I don't have a bath on the same floor as kitchen.
I've read about freezing pet bottles and throwing them in wort to cool it (after sanitizing with StarSan of course).


And regarding StarSan and PBW, I would like to reuse them to save money, I've heard StarSan isn't friends with plastic, so what should I store them in? Also can i mix StarSan in boiled tap water (cooled down) instead of bought distilled water?


Thanks!

 

Living on the other side of the world I can't help w/supplies...

 

https://www.brouwland.com/en/our-products/brewing/malt-extracts/spraymalt

They do sell DME. Find a popular extract recipe online and build your own

 

simethicone / polydimethylsiloxane is what FermCap is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simethicone

It's so handy, even if you can't get it locally it's worth paying some shipping to get a bottle, which lasts forever.

 

OP - while generally better to do full boils (6 gallons) for extract beers, you can do a partial boil- say 2 gallons of water +extract with the hops. Then part of your cool down is bringing the wort up to volume. This also allows you to use a smaller pot initially.

I'm using an electric range that can't boil more than about 3 to 4 gallons of water, I only do partials.

 

Thanks a lot for help guys, I'll look into what you advised.

Any ideas on storing PBW? I suppose it's not a good idea to store for longer time, but wil I be fine for a few weeks?

 

I use the store brand Oxiclean sold in the grocery store for laundry, instead of PBW. It works the same as PBW, is readily available, and costs very little. I don't believe that it is recommended to save it from one brew session to the next though.

I use a food safe 5 gallon bucket to mix and store my Star San and have never noticed any issues.

 

Actually, only one of the 4 ingredients in PBW will be gone after storage. And then if desired you can add a little oxygen cleaner (Sodium percarbonate and Sodium carbonate), which can be had fairly cheeply, to boost it back up when you want to use it later.
Even without the boost, it's still an effective soap/detergent/chelate. The O2 and H2O2 just make it even better at breaking down organic deposits.

 

Thanks for responses, I live in Europe so I'm not sure what's our Oxiclean equivalent that would be suitable for brewing, I'll try to look it up.

 

Good to know, however, my point was more to the "why bother trying to save it" line of thinking, when the cost is literally pennies per brew session to make fresh.

The dollar store near me sells the stuff, for a dollar, in a 2# tub. That's 64 oz. for a buck. That's 64 gallons of mixed up cleaner for a dollar. That's less than $.07 per gallon.

There must be a place in Europe, that sells the same kind of stuff at a similar price point.

 

And this is what Palmer says:

"3. Clean and sanitize.... Clean all equipment that will be used during the brew with a mild, unscented dish detergent, making sure to rinse well. Some equipment will need to be sanitized for use after the boiling stage. You can easily make a simple sanitizing solution by filling the fermentor bucket with 5 gallons of water and adding 5 tablespoons of chlorine bleach (a concentration equivalent to 1 TBS/gallon, or 4 ml/L). Soak all items that need to be sanitized in this bucket for 20 minutes. After soaking, dump the sanitizing solution and pour in some of the pre-boiled water for a quick rinse to remove any excess sanitizer."

 

Ya, palmer, as a chemist working with biologicals, really likes bleach because it is *very* effective at killing stuff, and it's cheap. However also read his appendix on metallurgy ( http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixB.html ). The hypochlorite ion (active part of bleach) can pit and destroy stainless steel and aluminum if mishandled or left too long. It can add bad tastes if not fully rinsed off.
With modern no-rinse phosphoric acid sanitizers being so handy, there's little reason to use bleach.

 

Yeah, I don't use bleach myself. I'm a StarSan man. I like the idea of seeing the foam in the bottle/carboy as I bottle/rack.