Ironthumper Ale part 1 (of 2) 

In pt 2 we shall have a Q&A not just about beer but about anything! Questions welcome: maximusironthumper@gmail.com

Max & Mark, I've become accustom to the two of you being clever and broadly skilled individuals. But every time Sally makes an appearance she startles me with her observations and intelligence, given her age. If I had any guarantee I'd get a child like her, I'd opt to have children.

I loved the part where in the vitamin pills you say crush it up and make snort able. Carry on chaps you doing well.

Mark knows lots about lots

Stoic as far as stoic can get! Always honest and real as the day is long. Excellent, very much the dogs b*ll*cks!

A young beer maker in the making, making beer 👍

Haha that's wise thinking! I sent you money to buy a crate and you invest in grain to make barrels! Like your thinking :D

That girl is charmingly mature. Must be upbringing and the people she hangs around with!

I like marks wood burner idea. For an easy efficient boil Burner I'd highly recommend a simplified rocket stove build. I know they are a bit of a fad now, but they do light quick and boil well. Use mine a lot alongside my home build tent stove. The rocket boils / steams food well or, with a cast iron pan to distribute heat, frys well. Awsome video as always.

Snortable lol, my old mate David " Dai " spoons would have loved that, 2 in Welsh is dau and Dai is short for David in Welsh so we nicknamed him Dai spoons short for David two spoons, bless him.

i've just put on 40 pints of lager and 10 litres of elderflower presse (like an alcho-pop) a nice elderflower summer drink that comes out at about 6/8% and it's fizzy! :)

Ironthumper Ale I like the sound of that! It’s great that everyone is involved! If I was a kid I’d be right in there!

Great... I am loving your little helper... Great way to learn a bit of Science... Project Alesome !

I agree with mark about the cooper kettle idea because that's what the guys in this country use (USA) in Louisiana to distill whiskeys. I made my own beer with a Mr. beer kit and it turned out really good for a caned wart you do at home.

Found this by chance after coming across the metal bashing/truck fettling/off-grid housebuilding stuff yesterday. I used to make beer from extract (and stopped after I got too fat!), but never did get on to all-grain because I thought I needed separate mash and sparge/lauter tuns and a big kettle for a full volume boil - which would have been too much kit for my small kitchen. Nice to see you doing it all in one vessel chaps, and has got me fired up to get my brew-head on again! Nice simple, gentle hop profile too (Challenger and EKG), and I'm guessing it tastes a bit like Pedigree. Yum!

Excellent vlog, great laugh at some of the things you get up to.Thanks.

Ha ha love the numerous cans of Stella on the table!

The "why bother" line at 17:33 cracked me up.............well done guys

Hi, all good fun. I have made beer many times whilst spending a day in the workshop. 30 pints water, 6 Lb cracked pale malted barley for 3 hours at 70 degrees C, then boil with 4.5 oz hops. when cooling the wort add an extra 1.5 oz hops to give extra zing. All the best, cheers, Andy

Maximus: Mark, can you come over and help me? Mark: I'm busy Maximus: I'm making beer Mark: on my way :)

Really liked this. Mark's a bit of a legend along with your diminutive assistant. Well done all.

Great to see a youngster taking note and asking and trying the various ingredients, 🙂

Looks very interesting. I use to make win, Elderberry and Cider. A school, fishing mate was very good at beer. Its good to see this, I hope its good.

Coil some copper piping to make an immersion cooler. That'll save you about 5 hrs. Boiling off water also boils off the hop volatiles that you want. I'd go for a large Rocket Stove solid fuel boiler for a quick boil. Stick a tap in an insulated cool box to make a separate mash tun. This way you can rinse the grains without disturbing the bed.

I made a heat exchanger by wrapping 10 metres small bore copper tubing round a demi jon. and connecting it to the cold tap. That way I was able to drop to yeast pitching temp relatively quickly. I need to start brewing again. Great video Max.

I use to work at Botanix in Eardiston where we process the hops into pellets for the brewery, now that shutdown and got made redundant there is only one place left and that's down in Kent,Germany have taken over having machines run 24/7 :(

- Why did you choose to live the off-grid lifestyle? - Did you one day decide today was the day to do it or did you move to this lifestyle gradually - Do you have much social interacting with how you life your life? you dont have neighbours or anything like that - Did your family/friends agree with your choice - When you are no longer able enough to complete the living requirements of your lifetyle what do you plan to do? - Are there more home improvement projects coming? I enjoy the project awesome and other things you create but I love when your making improvements to the building/land

Congrats on your first all grain brew! It’s a hell of a lot more work, but like most things, the end result is worth it. Looking forward to seeing your solution to the boiler. Cheers, literally! The recipe sounded fantastic, by the way.

Id be more then happyto watch youand Mark just drink beer seeing as what effort youput in to making it Im not a drinker myself

Thanks for showing the whole process Max. Only ever used the kits before. Hope it turns out OK. We used to keep our beer in a CO2 pressurized plastic keg, after making...

Also wanted to poi t out how awsome it is for Mark to randomly be discussing wiring in an arduino to beer making.

Can't beat a good drop of proper beer, only problem is I want to have some beer now and I've not been awake all that long!!! :S

When I was a youth Max (18ish) a chap at work made beer this way.....well I thought it a good idea, tried it....total failure. Anyway, after all the work it does make you realise the price of a pint aint too bad. Since then, using kits I made loads quite a few years ago. Dead simple, never had a failure. One thing I did discover is that the temperature you store the bottled beer at is crucial to the taste......Then of course supermarkets started selling it cheaper than you could make it.....enjoy your 'wife beater' (Stella as my mate calls it). Hope this gives you a grin :)

Great video, I gave up brewing because It kept "Evaporating" while waiting for it to be ready to "Drink"!!

I knocked my boiler up from a fermenting bin and two £5 tesco kettle elements, also use another bin to mash in but have a flexible stainless water connector with the inside pipe cut out leaving the mesh as a strainer. It always amazing that beer making takes so long, yet when you remember doing it it only seems a couple of hours! Hope it becomes an exciting hobby for you

Brilliant! Thankyou for posting!

Hey Max, love that you are a jack of all trades! Good for you. Enjoyed your vids.

Carbonation drops are no use for 500ml bottles, they are meant for 1 drop per 350ml. It's best to use 1/2-1 teaspoon of dextrose, aka, brewing sugar, that's why your beer was quite flat.

Enjoy ... always wanted try make cider straight from apples

After my fifth or sixth batch I quit doing that specific gravity nonsense. The airlock tells you all you need to know about the state of your fermentation. When the bubbles stop, give it a few more days and siphon into a settling carboy. You use glass carboys so you can see the state of clarification. When its perfectly settled you can then siphon into a bottling carboy add sugar for the secondary fermentation and BAM!! Two weeks later after the bottles have clarified you have a drinkable ale. Better than anything you can purchase, even the craft brewers do not get carbonation from yeast. The secondary fermentation adds a flavor you can't get anywhere else except home brew. If you refrigerate for two weeks you get the chill haze settled out and you are drinking the most flavorful, perfect ale known to man. That is why it's worth the work.

I had a great time watching this whilst drinking my own homebrew. What a cool video!!! :)

Thought I didn't need another hobby, that is until another one of your videos inspires......Keep em rolling Ironthumper HQ

Brilliant vid! 👍

i like making beer i havent done it for along time i also make dandelion wine when the season comes in. that is some strong good tasting wine!

Yum yum look forward to the tasting !

Great vid again

Quality video.. Looking forward to your next one 👍

Multivitamin beer, great marketing idea.

Snow we’re talking,well done guys.loved it👏👏👏😁👍

Love every episode, thanks for sharing :)

I think you need to set up a kickstarter for a brewery on your plot sir :)

What you boys need is your own television program, I'm thinking BBC 4 an 9 a clock!

You have a brother in the brewing industry. Lucky you

Thanks very much for another great video! All the best, Gavin from Bristol. 👍🏻

Really clear explanation, great video.

get some copper pipe and a coil it up then attach a hose, should chill your wort in half an hour you can use the hot water left over for a bath or just to clean kit.love your videos brew day could be easier.

Used to make beer out of Geordie kit's, a lot less pissing about than your brew. Still, yours might taste better. Also used to drink crates of Stella at work. One garden I built had a a pear tree called Stella planted by the owners due to all the Stella I drank. Many stone walls I built have Stella cans or cider bottles as part of the fabric. Now I wouldn't touch the stuff, same as Special Brew. Whatever your tipple, cheers Max, have a good wet.

Really glad to see your channel gaining traction now, 34k followers! double that of when I subscribed! well done dude

My mum used a home brew kit in the 70s called geordie in a yellow box I can taste and smell it watching your vid 👍

Look forward to watching the Q&A 😀 if the is good the answers might get good and silly

Another great video... last i heard of ale... a mate didn't put the lid on properly , rather than dumping it he knew someone with a still . Once it went through 3 times he said it tasted Devine with a massive taste of more from it

Loved this video have made beer from kits, wine from fruit juice and cider. Freeze distilled my cider to make apple jack totaly legal in the uk, got 31 % proof. This was awsome looking forward to the tasting 👍

Well done max👏👏👏😁👍

A crate of Stella???????? Come on!!!!!!!! 😂😂 Old speckled hen at least man!!!!

That mossy at 4:21 scared the crap out of me :)

Looks ace. I hope all get very merry. Cheers and best wishes to all. 🍺🍷🍷🍺🍷🍺🍷🍺🍷

Again a great entertaining video Max with a bit of luck it will turn out to be excellent falling down water. ...good luck.

that vwp stuff makes me sneeze without fail

Love it, thanks

I don't want to spoil a potential fun Arduino programming project, but the basic temperature controllers from TC Direct (et al) work very well. tcdirect.co.uk Couple one with a 25A SSR and you've got a full PID temperature control system for less than £100, minimal effort and they just work.

Oh!, by favourite drink by chance...hold on, I'll be around tomorrow to lend a hand!...

Keep it up like how your page is so varied.

when are you going to make a Wind power?

Brew date was my birthday. Can't fail.

I wonder, as you run your LR on diesel - why didn't try to filter used cooking oil and use it as cheap replacement?

Yes!!!!

If the Zil still has its original engine you should stick a pint in the carb and see if see runs, after all she is said to run on most liquids but i guess beer is not great on the flammable side of things lol.

Lol, men making bear in their socks!!

Interesting you decanted into a bright tank type setup, you could bypass that, it will save you a week of waiting, i find after bottle conditioning my beer is pretty clear unless i shake the bottles up, there's always a bit of sediment in the bottle but if you let them settle a bit before drinking its usually fine. You also dont need to let the mashout at 75 go for an hour, you can start lautering after pouring in the 75 deg water, it will still work. I generally make 75 to 100 litres at a time using about 10-15kg of grain, i have a big 100l tub which i can drain my mash tun into. If you buy a 60 litre eski, with a tap on the bottom and fix a false bottom, or use a grain bag, it will save some manual handling. Let that run into a big tub and it saves a fair bit of work. You just need the cascade setup where you have your hot liquor tank (your hot water) highest, then into your mash tun(middle), then into your kettle (lowest), or even better have another level so you can syphon direct into your fermenters. Also grab a copper coil cooler, run cold water through it its much quicker than the bath, due to increased surface area. You dont need to circulate the water that quick, maybe a bit quicker for the first 5 mins, then drop it right back.

good old Youngs brewing supplies ^^

And you’ve even got labels for the beer!

Hahaha.. glad to see it went to a good cause :D

Proper English ale 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 God Save The Queen

3:44 anyone else listening on headphones jump at what sounds like an insect in your right ear!!!! I think its something electric????

Good luck with the brewing, prefer stella myself. But a good video well documented.

Crying out for a wood fueled rocket stove!

Are you going to coppice a Hop yard this year? Only one question..... Will it stay in the bottles long enough to mature😂😂😂 That young lady is going to be very smart, the next generation of ‘offgrid dwellers’? Do you keep that poor man in that cupboard all the time? Do you let him out for an exercise hour? 😳 Brilliant as ever!

А помогает Псой Короленко?

I enjoyed this and I don't even drink!

Snorting vitamin pills = instant healthy. ;o) French brewed Kronenbourg 1664 reeks of weed when you first crack the top off.

What do you do with the grains after making the mash? Can you compost them, or feed them to your chickens? Same question for the sludge at the bottom of the barrel you siphoned from. Do you have a use for it? I'm half expecting a video on DIY Marmite. You could call it Maximite Ironthumper! ;-)

make it snortable hahahahahahaha

Make a still and make some moon shine love to sea you do that andy

Stella - from the sublime to...

Can't go wrong with that, east Kent goldings marris Otter can't whack homebrew cheers

It's just like Tom & Barbaras kitchen from the Good Life. And that's an honest compliment. Although to be brutally honest neither of you are as good looking as Barbara ;-)

Sally the Brewmaster

Brilliant. Mark, get your arse back to the farm. lol.

What is it with Mark and cupboards? ;)

How long did it take to grow your awesome bread?