Shane Phelan – Tog Hackerspace

07/09/2017

TOG Open Brew Day (Saturday 16th September 10am)

TOG members and Capital Brewers return to TOG HQ on Saturday 16th September to host a brewday open to members of the public also. Hearty brews are on the menu, in both brewing with guidance and instructions from the experts, and tasting craft beer made at previous brew days! This is your chance to see all of the brewing equipment in TOG and get a tour of the space to see what else is happening in and around the space.

A very rough time-line of a brew day is as follows:

10:00am – 11pm: Heating water, water treatment and mashing grain
11pm – 1pm: Boiling & beer tasting from previous brews and visitors beers
1pm – 3pm: Cooling and clean up

Every brew day is slightly different with a mix of brewers, recipes and techniques. The long term goal would be to get a full set of brewing equipment that TOG members can use themselves in the space and make your own beer, cider or wine whenever you like! All you need are the ingredients. We are already well on our way to achieving that goal with several sets of equipment for members to choose from.

Its always a fun and engaging day, the cost is free (donations are welcome) so come along, ask questions and even help with the brewing!

28/01/2017

TOG Brewday (Saturday 4th February 10am)

TOG members and Capital Brewers return to TOG HQ this coming Saturday (4th February). Hearty brews are on the menu, in both brewing with guidance and instructions from the experts, and tasting craft beer made at previous brew days!

A very rough time-line of a brew day is as follows (a little earlier than usual to be finished before AGM):

9:00am – 11pm: Heating water, water treatment and mashing grain
11pm – 1pm: Boiling & beer tasting from previous brews and visitors beers
1pm – 3pm: Cooling and clean up

Every brew day is slightly different with a mix of brewers, recipes and techniques. The long term goal would be to get a full set of brewing equipment that TOG members can use themselves at the space and make your own beer, cider or wine whenever you like! All you need are the ingredients. We are already well on our way to achieving that goal with several sets of equipment for members to choose from.

Its always a fun and engaging day, the cost is free (donations are welcome) so come along, ask questions and even help with the brewing!

16/10/2016

TOG Brewday

Just completed our first triple brew day in TOG with 3 members making 75 liters of Stout, Brown Porter and American Pale ale. Colm Gorey from Silicon Republic also dropped in to ask us a few questions about how to get started with brewing as part of his Tech Tips series.

The beers were brewed on 3 very different types of equipment. the stout was brewed with the traditional mash tun and kettle combination. The mash tun is made from a large cooler box and the kettle is a very large boiler that is normally used for keeping water hot. The brown porter was brewed using a Braumeister, it is an automated brewing system that has the mashtun built into the kettle. The American pale ale was brewed on a semi automated brewing system called the Grainfather, it operates in a similar fashion to the Braumeister as it also integrates the mash tun and kettle together.

All of this equipment and ingredients is permanently located in the TOG space and is available for all full members to use anytime.

21/03/201627/03/2016

TOG Brewday (Saturday 26th March 10.00am)

TOG members and Capital Brewers will brew in the new TOG HQ this coming Saturday. Hearty brews are on the menu, in both brewing with guidance and instructions from the experts, and tasting craft beer made earlier!

A very rough time-line of a brew day is as follows:

10am – 12pm: Heating water, water treatment and mashing grain
12pm – 2pm: Boiling & beer tasting from previous brews and visitors beers
2pm – 4pm: Cooling and clean up

Every brew day is slightly different with a mix of brewers, recipes and techniques. This weekend Fergal will be brewing a session IPA, similar to the “Via Maris” beer from Galway bay brewery.

IMG_20160317_115042 — Brewing equipment in TOG

Over the past few months we have been building up the core set of brewing equipment in TOG to reach our goal of getting a full set of brewing equipment in TOG. This would allow TOG members to brew themselves at the space and make your own beer, cider or wine whenever you like! All you need are the ingredients. This event that usually happens every second month so if you can’t make this brew day there will always be another opportunity.

Its always a fun and engaging day, the cost is free (donations are welcome) so come along, ask questions and even help with the brewing!

Capital brewers discussion is here, and pictures of our previous brew days can be found here.

Video from one of the brewdays last year in the old TOG space:

Edit, here are a few photos from the day:

04/03/201612/03/2016

Brewers “Equipment Day” (Saturday March 12th, 2pm)

We are having an informal “brewing equipment day” on March 12th in the new TOG space at 2pm. The goal is to meet up for a few hours to clean up a corner to store the brewing equipment. This is an opportunity for people who had offered to donate brewing equipment to TOG to bring in their gear and give it a home. We will also be giving tours of the space to show anyone around who hasn’t seen the space yet. In short this is what we will be doing:

– Clean up the potential brewing corner
– Give tours of the space to those who haven’t seen it yet
– Make an inventory of all of the brewing equipment
– Label all of the equipment
– Make a plan/list of what else we need if anything
– Pick a date for the first brew-day of the new space

The goal of the brewers within TOG is to establish and maintain a high end brewing system to give brewers of all levels access to equipment that they might not have at home. This would enable all members to brew beer, wine, mead or cider in the space without needing to own any equipment, they merely need to purchase ingredients. As the spring/summer approaches we will start up the monthly brew days again with a bit more structure. We will brew a beer in advance for the open socials along with members brewing their own beer too.

Edit, thanks to everyone that came out this afternoon to help clean the space. Here is the area before it was cleaned:

IMG-20160304-WA0007

And here is the area afterwards:

IMG-20160312-WA0020

There is now enough equipment for someone to brew a batch of beer in TOG. 🙂

19/04/201525/04/2015

TOG Brewday (Sunday 26th April 10.30am)

TOG members and Capital Brewers return to TOG HQ this coming Sunday. Hearty brews are on the menu, in both brewing with guidance and instructions from the experts, and tasting craft beer made earlier!

A very rough time-line of a brew day is as follows:

10:30am – 12pm: Heating water, water treatment and mashing grain
12pm – 2pm: Boiling & beer tasting from previous brews and visitors beers
2pm – 4pm: Cooling and clean up

Every brew day is slightly different with a mix of brewers, recipes and techniques. This weekend Michelle will be brewing a pale ale, similar to something you would get from Sierra Nevada. We will be bottling the mixed berry cider kit that was bottled last month so that should be ready when we meet again in September.

The long term goal would be to get a full set of brewing equipment that TOG members can use themselves at the space and make your own beer, cider or wine whenever you like! All you need are the ingredients. This is a monthly event that usually happens the first/second weekend in a month so if you can’t make this brew day there will always be another opportunity.

Its always a fun and engaging day, the cost is free (donations are welcome) so come along, ask questions and even help with the brewing!

Capital brewers discussion is here, and pictures of our previous brew days can be found here.

Video from one of the brewdays day: