We’ve been busy sourcing new products so the inventory on the webshop is growing. We are importing quite a bit direct from manufacturers as well so those will take a little bit of time to go live but we are pleased to be bringing those products here and look forward to adding more as we find them.
The listings will be added to for the next couple of days as stock arrives but we have some hydrometers, test jars, air lock bubblers, fermentation bins and some other interesting stuff on the way
I scour book fairs and events for books, not just pub books but any books that interest me. I’ve always been interested in trading pub and beer books so we do have a few in stock at any given time; I will get them onto the webshop and keep it updated as and when stock changes.
Obviously, anyone who’s interested in our great British pub industry will want to have this work of minor genius on the shelf and, weirdly, we do have a few left…
Delivering malt, hops, wholegrain recipe kits and more across the Fylde Coast
The webshop is live, has been for a while now, and should be very simple to use. Malts are marked by the kilo and you have the option to pick a quantity on the product page. Same with hops in 100gm quantities.
At checkout you will have the option of delivery or pickup. Orders over £20 will give a free delivery option, orders below £20 can still be delivered but will be charged at £3.50. There’s always the option of picking up from Thornton for free.
Deliveries are currently Saturdays only. We will work with you if you’re in a rush and can’t wait for Saturday to come around, just drop us an email: steve@shedbeer.co.uk, and we will figure it out.
Recipe Kits
We do keep a selection of recipe kits and those are available via the webshop in the usual way. Our kits use 22-23lt kettle voulme to give some 18lt into the fermenter. They’re designed that way so that most homebrewers already have the gear they need, the very common plastic buckets most folk use are 22lt or so which means 18lt gives sufficient headspace. We are not stuck on that volume though, so if you want more we can bump up to whatever volume you work with.
We can make kits up to order as well if we have the stock, again just drop us an email: steve@shedbeer.co.uk, and we will have a look at your recipe and see if we can help.
Bulk Purchasing
We get asked fairly regularly for bulk purchase discounts and that is something we can do. We may not always have the same idea of what ‘bulk’ means but we are always happy to have the conversation so, again, just drop us an email.
We’ve seen some inspiring creativity in the world of home bars during the last few months and we’ve been asked to fit a few out or resolve some technical gremlins. Who knew that the humble pallet was so versatile?
Behind the bar though, people want beer and if you want beer on draught then it’s an extra level of commitment. What we are doing with this post is going through what that commitment will entail.
So, what do we need to get beer from our keg into our glass?
Well, gas will drive the beer from the keg (don’t need to know how do you? Thought not) but we want it cold don’t we? And we don’t want a glass of foam; cold or not.
The gas we use, typically, is CO2 and we can get CO2 in cylinders. The trouble is that CO2 cylinders run at 850psi or so and beer is dispensed at 12psi; give or take. Please don’t take a CO2 cylinder into your life without understanding its needs. In all honesty it’s pretty simple; make sure you buy food grade CO2 and for fuck’s sake don’t try and save ten quid by using a welding regulator.
I went to a job this week that genuinely scared me. He had a welding regulator wide open and the pressure into the keg was phenomenal. The beer was firing out of the tap like a damn fire hydrant and I felt like we were one step away from a very messy end, although it would have been a pretty rock’n’roll way to go. Take CO2 cylinders seriously; they can do some serious damage.
Regulators aren’t expensive, think £50 or so, and should be thought of as an absolute must; don’t cut corners there.
Okay, so we’re out of the keg without putting the man cave into orbit but we need the beer to be not only at non-lethal pressures but cool as well, not Fonzi cool neccessarily, but pretty damn cool. How are we going to make that happen? Well, one of these would be an excellent solution.
This is an under bar or flash cooler. This is what is going to sit between your room temperature keg of beer and the ice cold pint in your glass. This one is a typical ‘4 out’ Maxi, they work by passing the beer through a stainless coil which sits in a cold water bath. The two pipes that point upwards are connected to a water recirculation pump which can be used to keep beer lines cold between cooler and tap and also to cool the font on the bar. The ones that ‘sweat’ condensation? That’s from a water recirc pump chilling it.
Flow Controller
Gas Regulator
Sankey Keg Coupler
So the flow is CO2 from the regulator goes into the keg via the coupler at 12psi or so. This forces the beer out via the same coupler and into the ‘in’ side of the cooler. The beer is chilled and then exits the cooler on the ‘out’ side heading for the tap. Between the cooler and the tap we fit a flow controller, we use a flow controller to, erm, control the flow of the beer.
The enemy of a good pint is excessive foam (fobbing) and our number one weapon is the flow controller. They’re not expensive and should really be viewed as a must have piece of kit.
This isn’t particularly complex work, setting up a home bar to give you decent beer, but it can be tricky to get right and there’s not much more frustrating than a glass full of foam when you wanted a cold beer. If you want to do it yourself it isn’t beyond you; honestly. Just treat the C02 with respect, follow the flow logically, and give us a call if you get stuck.
Update
We are increasingly seeing continental style lagers in home bars and those don’t play very well with CO2; you can run into pretty bad fobbing problems. The answer is mixed gas, usually 60/40, and a different regulator setup. If you’re planning to dispense continental lagers then mixed gas is the way to go.
