There have been a few sweaty hours spent in my brew dungeon this summer! It may have been hot but that doesn’t stop this beer lover from brewing. Crazy temperatures aside, brewing has actually been good recently. My tastes have been evolving, for one. I’ve never really been one for Fruit Beers, but whilst developing recipes for this issue I’ve had a lot of fun and a few surprises. I really enjoyed the Raspberry Wheat Beer (again, normally not a fan) and am currently eagerly awaiting a sample of the Grapefruit IPA. I’ve also pillaged my in-laws’ garden for rhubarb to make another batch of Rhubarb Sparkling Wine. It’s already smelling outrageously good. The plan is to enjoy it at Christmas, though I’m not sure I can keep my hands off it for that much longer!

But I can’t always hide in my brew dungeon - which is a shame as it’s all a bit doom and gloom out there, isn’t it? First a global pandemic, then a war on our doorsteps, now it seems drought and the energy crisis is upon us. Who knew? Well I guess a lot of us knew, but nobody prepared to do anything about it. 

But it does mean that there is no better time to get homebrewing - what with breweries struggling and the ever growing price increases in energy and grain. And if you are on the fence about equipment, I would take the plunge now as hardware will soon be going up with a very weak economy and manufacturing getting costly too. Insider tip for you there! 

With this in mind, I’ve been playing around with a few energy saving methods to crawl back a few pennies on a pint. I think this is where the Brew Tank’s insulating properties definitely come into their own, helping reduce power consumption and increasing efficiency.

But it always seems you save in one way but spend in another. For example, I tend to adjust my recipes and do most brewing with no sparge, mainly to keep things simple but possibly saving a little money too. I guess heating an additional 5L during strike vs heating 5L for sparge is marginal. But I simply prefer it. 

Another small saving I’ve made is by reducing my boil time to only 30 mins, which on first taste seems to provide very little difference to a 60 min boil. As you well know, at Dark Farm rules are there as a guideline, so why not experiment!

Doing a lot of brewing has allowed me to put the Brew Box through its paces. Sadly, we did find a couple of necessary updates, which has caused a delay to our launch. The additional feature of being able to control your element and pump makes the brewing process more refined than simply turning it on and off. But the changes we’ve had to make have made it a better and more versatile product, so even though it’s caused a small delay we are happier with the final product. Like all our products, it’s only when you get your hands on it that you can feel how good it is! 

Well, hopefully one day I can write this small section with more positive and upbeat news! But until then, keep brewing my friend - everything looks better with a pint in your hand.