Inside The Malt Miller: Homebrewing in the UK

In this episode, Martin sits down with James Stiff from The Malt Miller, which is the go to UK supplier for homebrewing gear, ingredients, and advice.

From his first brew in 2016 to becoming a central figure at The Malt Miller, James shares how his passion for brewing turned into a full-time role helping others discover the joy of brewing at home. We explore:

• Choosing the right brewing kit for your skill and budget
• What’s trending in hops, yeast, and brewing tech
• How The Malt Miller helps new brewers with video content, recipe kits, and  their Home Brewing 101 series
• Recipe design tips using SMASH techniques and pressure fermentation
• Sneak peeks into upcoming collaborations and new product launches

Links:

The Malt Miller site:
https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/

Stiffo's House Hazy Pale recipe:
https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/product/stiffos-house-hazy-pale-all-grain-recipe-kit/

Buy indie beer (UK delivery only):
https://thebeerrep.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to James and his journey
• 7:04 Getting started with homebrew equipment
• 11:08 Trends in homebrewing equipment
• 14:01 Recipe kits & brewing techniques
• 16:18 The rise of commercial beer clones
• 19:22 Popular hops, malt, and yeast
• 22:49 Community and resources for homebrewing
• 24:27 The rise of homebrewing in the UK
• 29:09 Favourite beer style to brew and common mistakes
• 31:25 Stiffo's House Hazy Pale
• 33:33 Get homebrewing in the kitchen
• 34:36 Future projects and innovations
• 37:02 Next guest and outro

Transcript

Martin (00:00)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Beer Rep Chats with. Today I'm joined by James Stiff from the Malt Miller. James, thanks for joining us.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (00:09)
No worries. Thanks for having me. Really pleased to be here and talk about all things homebrew.

Martin (00:14)
Yeah, I mean, great. I'm a definitely, I'm a home brewer myself. So it'd be interesting to get some inside information on certain recipes and everything. And yeah, so let's start from the beginning ⁓ with your background and you you know, how it's been since joining the Malt Miller.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (00:29)
Yeah. So, um, officially I've been at the malt miller full time for coming up three and a half years now, but before that I was doing, uh, freelance work for the malt miller for a few years. So kind of, if I dial back to when I started home brewing, which was in 2016, um, I was looking around for local suppliers. I live in Swindon and very quickly stumbled across this place called the malt miller, uh, put an order in for, I think it was for some

⁓ some sanitising chemicals, chemsan, something like that. Drove over here to collect it and was welcomed by this really lovely guy called Rob, who's the owner. He brought me inside, showed me around and I was like, wow, this place is a sweet shop for everybody that's into home brewing. And yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And it just...

Martin (01:20)
Yeah, haven.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (01:26)
It sort of evolved from there really. I was making some videos on my own YouTube channel at the time, which were horrendous quality, but it was a really big thing around that time, around sort of 2017, 2018, lots of people making video content for home brewing out there on YouTube, the whole brew tube kind of phenomenon that went on. And we were posting beers to each other, like trying each other's beers and, um,

Yeah, I kind of said to Rob, look, hey, can I come and do an interview with you for my YouTube channel? So I did, it's still on there now. We sat down around the table, I asked him a load of questions, edited it all together. And that was a learning curve in itself because I wasn't really kind of proficient in anything to do with video editing and photography. was literally just using my phone and, you you know, stitching it all together in, I think, iMovie at that time. And...

Martin (02:15)
Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (02:21)
Anyway, put that video out on my channel. But while I was here, filmed a couple of videos for their sort fledgling YouTube channel. I say their, our fledgling YouTube channel, which sort of focused on like our ingredients and how we look after ingredients, how we store ingredients. And then I kind of got a phone call a couple of weeks later from Rob after that all went out and he said, look, do you want to kind of do more of this for us on like a freelance basis? So I did, and that sort of grew and grew and grew.

Martin (02:31)
Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (02:51)
Then we got hit with lockdown and that kind of had to change the format. So they were filming stuff here, sending it to me. I was editing it. We were doing like a weekly update because, you you know, throughout that whole lockdown period, home brewing went nuts and we really wanted to keep our customers informed about what was going on. And then kind of fast forward a couple of years later after that, I dropped a day a week at my, my other, my other job at the time. So I went down to four days and then I was doing.

Martin (03:05)
Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (03:20)
Malt Miller stuff around about 16 to 20 hours a week freelance. And then very quickly after I was doing that for about six months, ⁓ they offered me a full-time position to come here. And yeah, I mean, the, the, reason behind that was that, you you know, the business had grown to a point where the team had grown and you you know, they want the premises have grown as well. We'd taken on two more warehouses and, my background was retail. I was a retail manager for.

Martin (03:31)
That's brilliant.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (03:50)
20 odd years nearly, I think, before that. And sort of in the last 10 years of my career, I was working in sort of big box retail with big teams. I was looking after a lot of HR stuff and they wanted somebody to come in and do sort some operational stuff, help them improve HR standards, help them improve operational standards. So actually a proportion of my job is focused on that.

Another proportion is obviously focused on the content we do here at the Malt Miller and then the other sort of section is all of our marketing. So all of our social media, all of our emails, but also some of our kind of e-commerce based marketing practices as well that I look after. So yeah, bit of a busy boy.

Martin (04:34)
Yeah, definitely. I'm guessing

obviously sales improved during lockdown where people couldn't go out. you so you know, let's, let's get, take my hand at home brewing and, and get a bit of kit.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (04:40)
Yeah.

Yeah, it was a big time for that. People were taking up new hobbies, the pubs were shut. you you know, it kind of, there was a little bit of a shortage for a period in beer as well in small pack because, you know, cans were in massive demand for breweries. yeah, loads of people took up home brewing during that time. It was crazy.

Martin (05:00)
Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. So what got you into home brewing to begin with, you know?

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (05:08)
I can trace my love for homebrewing back to one man and he's a really good friend of mine, a guy called James I used to work with in my other job and he has some friends that live out in the States. He would regularly go out there and he'd come back and he'd always take an empty suitcase and he'd bring that suitcase back full of beer. And I remember he came to my house for a barbecue. My wife and kids were away and he came over one day for a barbecue.

I picked him up from the train station in Swindon and he was walking down the platform of the train station with a suitcase that he was wheeling behind him. He had like a white sort of ⁓ almost kind of Del Monte style hat on and he was blowing a whistle as he was walking down the platform. Anyway, got back to my house. He opened the suitcase up and he was like, I brought some beer for us to try while we're, while we're barbecuing. And it was full of things like, ⁓

Martin (05:53)
Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (06:06)
you know, sculpin, Bell's Too Hearted. There was a load of other bits and pieces that I hadn't really heard of, but there was also some Russian River stuff in there. And I remember sitting there all day grilling, drinking some of these beers and being like, wow, this stuff is amazing. And that was in sort of spring 2016. And I've been sort of toying with the prospect of home brewing for a little bit before that. Anyway, after he left.

I literally spent the weekend, the rest of that weekend devouring YouTube content on how to home brew. Cause I was like, I can't buy these beers in the UK. So I need to learn how to make them myself. That's where it all started really.

Martin (06:40)
Yeah.

Yeah, same

moving on to, you you know, what, sort of kits you have, you got, you know, everything from like starter kits to, you know, more professional style gear, you know, how do you guide people through, the range and what's best for them?

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (06:55)
I think it's very much about first and foremost, what does that person want to achieve? Because that can help really shape where you want your brewing gear to kind of set up. And then obviously budget is a factor as well. One thing we advocate though is always, if you're gonna buy any equipment, whether you're looking at buying something more budget friendly or something a little bit more expensive, that you always focus.

with a little bit of longevity in mind and you don't buy things that you're gonna have to replace always buy things that are gonna be useful further down the line so you know if you're getting started and you just want to spend a little bit of money to get going with all grain brewing buying a set up like a brew in the bag set up that's got you know a heating element in a bucket or in a stainless steel kettle that can go on to help you if you then upgrade to an all-in-one system

become your hot liquor tank, you know, for doing sparging. But equally, the same could be said for things just as simple as a mash paddle. You know, you can buy plastic mash paddles, we sell them, we sell a lot of them, but investing in a stainless steel mash paddle, it's going to last you a lifetime. So I think the first thing we always try and focus on is what do you want to achieve? Secondly, then recommending equipment that is going to really be lasting for you that you're not going to have to replace.

Martin (08:16)
Yeah, obviously, how much you're going to brew as well, you know, if you're going to do it once a month or two times a month, then obviously investing in, like you said, a steel mash paddle, it's gonna be more beneficial than a plastic one, which probably might have a tendency to snap, especially if you've got a really fixed ⁓ mash with lots of oats.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (08:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I've been there in brew day, you

know going in and then snap it's like right. Okay. What am gonna do now quick raid the kitchen?

Martin (08:44)
Yeah. And dig out the broken part of the plastic mash paddle from inside the mash. So, um, what would you, you know, for someone who's just recently just getting started with homebrewing what's set up, you, would you recommend to them?

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (08:47)
Yeah.

Right, okay, so I'm gonna address this in two ways. First of if you're a bit more budget conscious, always think about brewing the bag as your first step. You know, we do a simple, one of our plastic fermenter buckets. It's food safe, fitted with a 2.4 kilowatt element, so it's...

more than powerful enough to heat up your strike water and then go onto the boil and a decent grain bag and just start doing brew in the bag because you can learn a load doing brew in the bag and actually we've tried and made some absolutely stunning beers using that method. I think there's sometimes a misconception that spending more money on equipment means you're going to make better beer. Spending more money on equipment will help you with certain processes.

absolutely without a doubt. But making really good beer really comes down to you and your skills and your practice and repeating the process, you know, learning in the hobby. I think though, if you've got a little bit more money to spend then and you want something that's going to work straight out of the box, you know, that you can go and buy in the morning, get home, get it out of the box and actually end up with some wort in a fermenter at the end of the day. You can't go wrong with some of the all in one brewing systems and actually for

Martin (09:56)
Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (10:16)
real simplicity, the Grainfather all-in-one brewing systems are absolutely fantastic for that because they guide you through everything. They've got a really good app integration. There's loads of recipes on the apps. In fact, we've got a lot of our recipes available on the app as well. So you could buy one of our recipe kits and very quickly be cracking on with brewing that kit ⁓ using a Grainfather. It's what I use at home. It's what we use here on our brew school because it allows you to do other things.

Martin (10:26)
Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (10:45)
whilst you're making beer as well.

Martin (10:47)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, you've seen any trends and what kinds of equipment people are buying at the moment?

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (10:53)
Yeah, there are some trends, you know, all-in-one systems are popular and there's obviously been a, I say obviously, you know, maybe not that obvious, but there's been a big expansion in the all-in-one brewing systems over the last few years. You know, we've got all-in-one brewing systems from Kegland, like the Brewzilla, which are fantastic and a great price point. Obviously the Grainfather systems that I just mentioned a minute ago.

within the grainfather range, there's now different size brewing systems as well. So you've got the classic G30, but then the 40 and the 70 as well. So you can do bigger batches. And then for those that want like the footprint of an all-in-one system, but loads and loads of customisation options, you've got the brew tools systems made by brew tools over in Norway. And those are like, I mean, they're

commercial grade almost in a very small footprint. And we know that not only home brewers are using them, but commercial breweries are using them for pilot kits. And even some smaller commercial breweries that are just getting going are using their bigger systems as their main brew kit. So, you know, that's probably the trend within the all in one space. I think more widely though, within home brewing over the last 18 months to two years, we're seeing a big uptake.

Martin (11:46)
Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (12:10)
with people wanting to get into pressure fermentation because of the benefits that you can gain from it.

I think that the thing that really excites people about pressure fermentation is, you know, the boom in brewing New England style, hazy pales and hazy IPAs. You can brew in a far lower oxygen content environment, ⁓ almost excluding all oxygen. But also, you know, lagers being able to turn lagers around really, really quickly because you can, you know, increase the temperature during your fermentation. So that's

Martin (12:26)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (12:44)
That's a big trend. The other trend that we're seeing is people wanting to get into home brewing, but on a smaller scale. know, kitchen sort of stove top size, five, 10 litre batches. know, there's been a, obviously Pinter are probably the most famous company out there at the moment that advocate, you know, small batch brewing with their Pinter brewing system, but also their fresh packs that they sell.

Martin (13:10)
Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (13:13)
And what we're seeing is people that wanna do all grain brewing on a small scale, but use a pinter vessel to ferment and serve that beer from. ⁓ And actually we've been surprised just at how many people are doing that. We put a video out last year on our YouTube channel about this topic. honestly, it's one of our best performing videos in the last 12 months. And it kind of took us by surprise a little bit as to how popular it's been.

Martin (13:23)
Mm-hmm.

so when it comes to, you you know, trying to design your own recipe styles, where would you suggest people begin? I mean, there is obviously we've got brew father, you've got the grain father app. Where would you suggest?

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (13:53)
Yeah.

Okay. So, you know, we're seeing a bit of a trend in, our customer shopping habits, you know, when, when the Malt Miller first started, we didn't really have recipe kits and, we did start rolling out recipe kits and that's grown and grown and grown, but it's always been kind of people buying their own ingredients and making their own recipes. What we're seeing now is much more people wanting to buy a recipe kit and brew that kit. it's

Martin (14:20)
Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (14:22)
It's a little bit kind of like the hello fresh mentality. You get a box with everything in, you follow the steps, you end up with great product at the end. So I think that, you know, if you're new to home brewing and you want to learn the processes, but not necessarily learn recipe design at this point, starting with recipe kits, you know, we do a couple of different sort of tiers within our recipe kits, starting with maybe one of our brew day in a box kits, which is literally a box that comes with all the ingredients, instructions, finings

Martin (14:28)
Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (14:52)
⁓ yeah, finings, yeast nutrient, like everything you need in one box. They're a great place to start. equally we've got more advanced recipe kits, like the ones that we have collaborated with commercial breweries on. ⁓ you know, maybe once you've got a couple of brews under your belt, look at some of those. I think if you're wanting to build your own recipes though, and you're new to home brewing, the best place to start is with SMASH

recipes, so single malt, single hop. You know, you're going to learn about ingredients because you can try some different ingredients isolated within that recipe. You're going to get to experience the flavours and the nuance of those ingredients in that particular recipe. And then you can start thinking about layering in bits and pieces as well that can complement it. And I think that any home brewer that's new to the hobby,

Doing a series of smash beers to try out different malts and different hops and different yeasts is a awesome learning experience, because it really does highlight those ingredients that you're changing each time.

Martin (15:57)
Do you find that people are leaning more towards that recreating commercial beers or are they getting more experimental? there's, mean, I think is it five points is quite a popular recipe on your site.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (16:09)
Yeah. So, ⁓ we've got a whole section now that's dedicated to commercial, commercial brewery recipes in part, because, you know, we get to work with people like Andy Parker over at elusive when his recent book was released by CAMRA and, that was co-authored by, Jamil Zainasheff. And we were really fortunate as part of our support for that. we got all of the recipes available as recipe kits on our website, but then we've also got the

commercial collaborations that we do for our YouTube channel, our brew with us series, where we go and visit a commercial brewery and we unpick a recipe, but also look at, you know, the processes and techniques that that brewery used to bring about the distinctive nature of whichever beer it is that we've got the recipe for. We are seeing, we are seeing as part of that kind of recipe kit growth that I was talking about a minute ago, more and more people wanting to brew things that are, you know, direct.

Martin (16:57)
Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (17:09)
clones of a commercial beer. And interestingly, because, let's take the project we did last year with St. Austell, you know, we Martin and I, my colleague Martin, yeah, we went down there and spent spent best part of a week with them, got under the skin of tribute, filmed a video series, it was a few parts long. And this is a really good example, because there's lots of clone recipes of tribute out there.

Martin (17:22)
The tribute.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (17:38)
You and you could read that recipe on a forum or on a homebrew suppliers ⁓ product page and you could go, yeah, I'm going to brew that recipe. You get it and it's got the ingredients and you crack on and you follow the steps. For us though, the distinction is because we went there and we learn about their processes, we then had to come up with ways to interpret those processes into a homebrew perspective.

You know, they do a like a two step whirlpool and actually Thornbridge as well, who we've recently done a collab with for Jaipur do a similar process. So they do a whirlpool with, you know, a certain amount of hops and then it gets moved into another vessel where it gets a big ⁓ hop aroma infusion. And, you know, you could read that on a recipe sheet, right? Well, I've got those, those hops are all whirlpool hops, so add them all in together. But because the brewery separates it and something different happens,

we then have to think about how we differentiate the two and you end up with distinctive notes in the finished glass. So some of the commercial brewery recipes out there that we've been fortunate enough to learn from, understanding the processes and translating them, we feel helps to progress the hobby and give home brewers more in their tool belt to play around with when it comes to brewing their own recipes.

Martin (18:35)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, you you're stocking a lot of ingredients from around the world, you know, hops, malts, yeasts. Which ones are the most popular, would you say, right now?

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (19:14)
Ah, it changes seasonally, right? So I'm going to take a little bit of a wide view on it. I'm going to start with hops. So New Zealand hops, certainly because of some of the work we've been doing with some of the commercial breweries we've spent time with, Verdant last year, you know, big advocates of New Zealand hops, Motueka, Nelson. We're seeing those increase in popularity and being used more in not only juicy, hazy,

beer styles, but also in like West Coast styles and New Zealand pilsners. So I think that category of New Zealand hops is probably a really popular area right now. You're never going to, you you're always going to find things like Citra and Mosaic. They're always going to be up there. But yeah, we're seeing, we're seeing some of those New Zealand varieties have a bit of a heyday right now. Malt wise, I think the, there's been a big

Martin (19:57)
Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (20:06)
⁓ uplift in people wanting to brew lagers over the last few years. And I think that some of the traditional floor malted Pilsner malts like the Weyermann, Bohemian Pilsner, those are really popular as well. We've seen them grow over the last little while. then I think Maris Otter, right, it's always been popular and it always will be.

Martin (20:28)
It's the base

malt for most beers, isn't it? Let's be honest.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (20:31)
Yeah. And, you know, you've got the low colour versions of it as well, which can be used

singularly or with other bits and pieces. you can use them in a, you know, traditional English beer style, or you can use them in a hazy beer style or a West coast, but they just bring that lovely sort of distinctive Maris Otter note to a beer. I think the one area that's been really exciting, ⁓ in the last few years though, with, is within yeast is the boom in dried yeast varieties.

Martin (20:49)
Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (21:01)
I don't you know if you remember, but Martin, probably only like four or five years ago, it was distinctly a smaller category of available yeast strains versus liquid yeasts, right?

Martin (21:13)
Yeah, you had like Safale, you know, the standard ones. And then I think the one I used, which was probably the best was the Verdant IPA dry yeast strain. But since then, obviously, it's boomed from there. A lot more dry yeast coming out.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (21:28)
Yeah, mean, that, you know,

that Verdant yeast strain is a really good example. It was the first kind of like, you know, hazy sort of London Ale 3 kind of yeast strain that dropped in a dry format. Whereas today, you know, we've probably got, I wouldn't, I've lost count basically of how many dried yeast strains there are that do that job. So it's really exciting and innovative.

Martin (21:35)
Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah,

It stores longer and it's just easier to use, isn't it? just literally just drop it in and, you know, there's no, with liquid yeast, it's a lot different, isn't it? It's a lot more process to using it.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (22:06)
Yeah, I think if you still want those really distinct yeast strains, liquid is the only way to go. But if you want a stock in your fridge of some backup yeasts, or if you want to have a relatively easy brew day, it's a great option. And so many commercial breweries are using it. Well, we just mentioned Verdant. It's their yeast strain. It's what they use.

Martin (22:27)
Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, you know, you've built up a massive reputation as a, as a really good retailer for home brewers. Talk a bit bit, a bit more about the tools and the content that you offer people to help them improve as a home brewer.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (22:43)
probably at the core of what we do and why we do what we do is that homebrewing is a community. You all you know that, right? You're a homebrewer. you know, there's an amazing homebrew community in and around London. But also, yeah, yeah, yeah. And beer boars, you know, all of these clubs. But more widely across the country is a community. We're homebrewers. That's what brought us into this. So we've

Martin (22:55)
London, Amateur brewers.

Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (23:07)
We feel like we have a distinct purpose, which is to advance the home brewing hobby and help people make better beer at home and be part of that community. Not just servicing that community, not just selling ingredients and equipment, but actually helping home brewers enjoy and get the most out of it.

You know, this year, actually, we were looking at some data at the beginning of the year and we were seeing that actually we were getting quite a lot of new customers shop with us, which indicates that maybe more people are coming into the hobby. So we actually took the decision to set up a series that's running pretty much all year long called Homebrewing 101, which dives into key topics that are either popular or helpful for new homebrewers. And that's been really popular.

Martin (23:54)
Yeah, you mentioned about, you know, home brewing is getting a bit more popular now, probably down to, you know, people can't really afford to go out and drink as much as they used to. So they're thinking, let's give it a go ourselves. What excites you most about, you know, where home brewing is heading at the moment in the UK is, I mean it sounds like it's expanding a lot more.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (24:04)
you

Yeah, I think it's interesting, right? Because you say that obviously people haven't got maybe as much money as they did have previously. So they're maybe not going to the pub as much, taking up hobbies. There's also a swathe of younger people that aren't drinking as much as well. ⁓ But I think in terms of where things are heading, there's advancements in the technology available to home brewers.

all the time at the moment. We've got two companies, I think, that really stand out, that are providing innovations within our sector. One is Kegland, the guys from Kegland. They're amazing. They're very quick at bringing things to market and always seem to have like actually fixing a problem in mind. their products are accessible for many people.

Martin (24:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (25:08)
I think the other companies, Brewtools over in Norway, like I said earlier, they make super premium stuff that is brewery quality equipment, sometimes like more so than kind of what you'd see in a commercial brewery. But they are again, really quick to kind of think about accessories that people are asking for and getting them to market. They've just launched this FCS kit, fluid control system that works with their uni tanks.

but also can be deployed on commercial uni tanks. it monitors and tracks fermentation, turns on heating elements, tracks density in the beer. It completely automates your fermentation. And for home brewers that are keen on it, that's an amazing thing to set up. But equally for commercial breweries, that could take a lot of the human interaction on your tanks and free up resource for other jobs. So yeah, I think

Martin (25:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (26:06)
Technology wise, those are probably the things that stand out for me. I think that within the home brewing community, the stuff that really is exciting that's happening in the UK is the growth in the competitions, right?

You enter into a competition, you get really good feedback now, structured feedback quite often in the BJCP kind of format so that it can give you really good things to take away and actually work on and improve. So yeah, there are competition and you might win some stuff, but more so

Martin (26:32)
Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (26:40)
you're gonna get loads of great feedback that'll help you grow in the hobby. I've probably got one last thing as well on the kind of the trajectory, the things that happening here in the UK. And it is a product line, you not to go sort of too salesy, but it's a product line that we're bringing in at the moment and it's fresh wort kits. So have you seen, have you heard of fresh wort kits before?

Martin (26:44)
Yeah.

No, may have seen extract kits. So I'm guessing it's something similar to that, is it?

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (27:08)
Yeah, so extract kits, right? So wort has been made for you then it's been concentrated down into either a powder or a liquid form, you dilute it down, right?

Martin (27:19)
so is this where

the wort is in liquid form and you kind of put it in a plastic bag, like a bag in box would be, and then having it delivered.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (27:26)
Yep.

Yeah. So it's exactly that. So you, you get 15 litres of ⁓ wort that's been made by a commercial brewery. It's had bittering additions. It's had Whirlpool additions. All you have to do is pour it into a fermenter, you know, dilute it. You might, cause they've generally they're brewed to a slightly higher gravity. So you just need to dilute it with a bit of decent tap water or, you know, some bottled water and then add the yeast.

Martin (27:29)
Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (27:53)
ferment it, add your dry hops and you've got all grain quality beer, but you've not had all grain time go into it. It's perfect for like this time of the year where it's really hot. But also for people that have maybe done a couple of extract kits that want to experience all grain, but don't necessarily want to invest straight away in all the equipment. It's a great way to experience the quality of all grain beer.

Martin (28:03)
Yeah.

Quick question on the, you know, adding, you know, water, ⁓ tap water, for instance, obviously a lot of people, lot of breweries change their water profile or build their water profile from scratch. If you're adding, say for instance, tap water from somewhere that's got hard water or soft water, wouldn't that change the flavour or the recipe a bit?

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (28:36)
Yeah, I mean, I'd always say that, you know, if you're not into water chemistry and not into making water adjustments buy bottled water, you know, it's got low mineral content. That's going to make a big difference to the finished beer.

Martin (28:43)
Yeah.

yeah. What's your favourite beer style to brew at home?

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (28:51)
that's dead easy. ⁓ Hazy pale ale. I love brewing them. don't get me wrong, I love all beer styles and I'll regularly brew different styles. I've got a West Coast pale in the fermenter at home. I'm just about to have a keg kick of a single decocted Czech lager. ⁓ But I always go back to brewing a hazy pale ale, partly because it's something that both I and my wife absolutely love to drink.

Martin (28:55)
Heizeis.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (29:17)
I love playing around with those. It's one of the reasons why I got into home brewing and really pushed myself forward with it. So it's got a special place in my heart.

Martin (29:24)
Yeah, definitely. I've definitely always brew hazy beers indoors. NEIPA was the last one I did.

⁓ so one mistake that you think every home brewer makes at least once, I mean,

I think it's something to do with cleanliness because I've definitely made a mistake once or twice with not cleaning something and then the whole beer just goes...

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (29:39)
Okay.

Yeah,

getting getting into the nooks and crannies of your fermenter, you know making sure that you take your tap apart that kind of thing But I think the one mistake that you know I talked to most people when they all say yeah I've done that is leaving the tap open on their fermenter when they're filling it from the from after the after you've made your wort and so You're transferring it over you're getting on with other things and you look round and there's just a puddle appearing, you know And it depending on how long you've been distracted for the

Martin (29:53)
Yeah.

Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (30:14)
denotes the size of that puddle and how much of your time you've wasted. Yeah, I think that's one thing that everybody makes. Then the next one, and I do want to get this one in because I've made this mistake a few times. When you start out home brewing, you might get a few brews under your belt. You might be feeling like you're building your confidence. And then you go, right, I'm going to go brewing a hazy pale or hazy IPA. And that beer style has the

Martin (30:18)
Yeah.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (30:41)
potential to put you right back in your place. You know, you get any kind of oxygen contact with that during like past fermentation when you're packaging or kegging or whatever it might be. And you just end up with this soul destroying grey soup. And it's happened to me on a number of times and every time, even now, you know, I've had it happen to me recently and it's like, ⁓ man, really? And it just has this way of, like I say,

Martin (30:44)
Yeah.

You

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (31:10)
putting you back in your place and saying, you know, you've still got stuff to learn.

Martin (31:14)
But if you had like to brew a beer, I you know you said you love your hazy beers. You only had three hops, which ones would you use? And what parts of the process would you add them?

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (31:27)
Okay, so you're being quite generous by saying three hops here, yeah. I tell you what, if I was picking three hops, it's dead easy. Citra, Mosaic, Motueka that combination, those three together works brilliantly. And I would, for this dream recipe, it's like off menu, right?

Martin (31:31)
I you know I was thinking about one hop, was like, that's more like a smash recipe then let's give you a bit more experimentation.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (31:52)
For this dream recipe, it's a hazy pale and I'm not adding any hops into the boil. I'm literally nothing in there at all. I'm adding equal amounts, probably 50 grams each into the Whirlpool for a 23 litre batch. And then on the dry hop, I'll add a hundred grams of each into dry hop post fermentation. Dead easy.

Martin (32:14)
Nothing in nothing in the bittering no bittering hops or whatsoever. So just in the whirlpool So you're going to get your bittering hops. You're IBUs more from the whirlpool , which is probably about 10 if that 10 IBUs Sounds sounds good. A lot of Citra Mosaic. You can't go wrong with Citra mosaic. Can you? It's just

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (32:18)
Nope. No, I'll pick up. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, you can't. No, but adding the Motueka in there just throws in this little

curve ball of lime, which is just delicious.

Martin (32:41)
And you would, so you would do equal amounts of each. That's interesting. Yeah. There we go. It's going to be up on, is it up on the, on the Malt Miller website? The kit is it going to be up there?

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (32:53)
My House Hazy Pale Ale is up there as a recipe kit that people can check out. It's not as simple as what we've just been through there, but it's very close to it.

Martin (33:01)
Check it out people. I'll get the link description afterwards and we'll put it up for everyone to have a look at. And this is the Dream Hazy Ale from James. So where can people get started with home brewing through the Malt Miller? You've got your website, you've got your YouTube channel.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (33:21)
Yeah. So obviously, you know, the easy answer is our YouTube channel on our website, but actually being a little bit more precise with that, if you're starting out homebrewing and you want to get into all grain homebrewing, check out our kitchen brewer range of recipe kits that are all like stove top five litre batches. Because you'll already have the majority of the equipment needed in your kitchen and won't need much else to get going with those.

⁓ we've also got a, ⁓ a video sort of companion that goes along with that. step by step that we filmed actually in my kitchen. So if you want to see them inside my house, you can, ⁓ you can watch that. and I think that if you, if you've got a passion for getting into all grain brewing, but you just want to your toe and have something drinkable at the end. Yeah. Checking out those kitchen brewer recipe kits is a great place to start.

Martin (33:58)
you

Yeah, great. ⁓ So we're wrapping up now. ⁓ Any future projects coming in that we don't, no one knows about yet? any, hear it here, you heard it here first, kind of hear it here first.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (34:21)
Yes, we've we've got here it here first. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓

we've, we've always got things in the pipeline happening. You know, we've just announced, that we're doing the love and beer festival again with Johnny and Brad from the craft beer channel. This time it's going to be, ⁓ beer merchants on Friday, the 17th of October. So that's out there. Grab your tickets, come along, have some beers, try some homebrew. It'd be great fun.

⁓ we've just done, ⁓ a project, ⁓ collab with Deya to bring one of their recipes to, ⁓ to the homebrew world. Video went out. No, it's not. Sorry. ⁓ but it is dust my broom, which is a massive focus on Simcoe. And I absolutely love that beer. That video went out last week. Part two is coming in a couple of weeks time. ⁓ we've got some more of those, like

Martin (35:01)
Steady rolling man, is it?

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (35:17)
collab brew with us projects lined up for later down the line in the year. We're talking to Sureshot at the moment to do one with them. We're looking at going back to Siren who were the first brewery we did a collab with and do something to kind of celebrate that, you know, it'd be around about three years since we started that project with them.

Martin (35:26)
Nice.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (35:37)
In terms of like products, you know, there's some stuff that's on its way to us at the moment from Kegland because we order our stuff from Kegland from China. We've got ⁓ their new range of stainless steel Kegarators coming in and they're absolutely fantastic. And there's one of them that I really love. It's called the undercover Kegarator and it's designed to be an under counter. ⁓

fridge, so not a fridge, you know, like some of the kegerators where you've got the beer font coming out of the top, it slides under your, ⁓ under existing worktop. it's designed so the taps go through your worktop. So you have like a permanent fixture. So really, really cool for like small tap room setups. But also if you want a really nice integrated homebrew setup within your kitchen, not a

Martin (36:02)
Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. it's on the door.

Okay.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (36:25)
kegerator in your garage or in a utility room, you want to integrate it in your kitchen. It's a really smart option. So yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing what those are like.

Martin (36:30)
Yeah.

an excuse to get a new kitchen because you want an under counter kegerator There you go. on that note, James, it's been absolutely amazing talking to you and learning about the Malt Miller and everything.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (36:38)
Yeah, exactly.

And you.

Martin (36:47)
And yeah, so until the next couple of weeks, we'll be chatting to ⁓ Sean from Brid's Cross Brewery is our next episode. ⁓ Again, thanks, James for coming on the show. And we'll catch you again in a couple of weeks. Cheers. You're welcome. Cheers. Bye bye.

James Stiff -The Malt Miller (37:02)
Nice me. Cheers.