TIPS & TRICKS

Storage

Your Pinter Pack is designed to be left at ambient room temperature; there is no need to keep it in the fridge.

Pouring your Fresh Press 

When your Pinter Pack is almost empty, be sure to roll it up to squeeze out the remaining drops. To make sure your Fresh Press is fully mixed, we recommend the following: 

1. Shaking your Pinter vigorously for 60 seconds. Feel free to do this in different intervals if you cannot manage it all in one go! 
2. Use water which hasn’t been chilled. Consider using a mix of warm and cold tap water in the colder months.
3. Fresh Presses should not be stored in the fridge as this will only make them more difficult to mix - room temperature storage is best.

There’s no need to rinse your package out afterward. We’ve done extensive testing in the Brewing Development team and have found that the new formulations consistently hit targets without rinsing the last few drops out.

Undocking

When undocking after brewing, if you find a small amount of Fresh Press mix in the Brewing Dock, please do not be alarmed. You will likely still have success - we recommend carrying on with the process and conditioning.

Shelf Life

The shelf-life of a Pinter Pack is 9 months. You can check the Best Before date on the reverse of the Fresh Press.

Yeast

Good quality yeast is essential for a healthy fermentation and high quality Fresh Beer. We have four different yeasts which will come with your Fresh Press. These four are:

Loyalty - a mild english ale strain designed to accentuate malt or hop forward beers.

Balance - a delicate lager/ale hybrid strain that brews refreshing light beers.

Rise - a super flavorful and high ester strain designed for wheat and belgian beers.

Vigour - a fast fermenting cider strain.

Below is a list of which yeast pairs with each Fresh Press:

Ancestor's - Loyalty

Bigmouth Remixed - Loyalty

Dark Matter - Loyalty

Space Hopper - Loyalty

Space Hopper West Coast Edition - Loyalty

Sunlit - Balance

Weiss Nights - Rise

Whole Nine Yards - Vigour

Keeping your area clean

Achieving a sterile environment is essential to a healthy fermentation. Typical household cleaning gets the Pinter very close, but using the purifier guarantees a sterile environment for a healthy fermentation and successful Fresh Beer.

Cleaning the slightly tougher bits

Any tougher areas may need scrubbing with a soft cloth or sponge and hot water. If you use soap, be careful to rinse it all out well.

If you are finding any parts especially stiff to put together and/or take apart, running them under water can act as a nice natural lubricant to help you.

Happy feet

If you have any excess water inside the casing you can take off one of the rubber feet to drain this out - please see the diagram below. To avoid this, you should try and avoid submerging the Pinter fully in water.

Pouring your Fresh Press

When your Pinter Pack is almost empty, be sure to roll it up to squeeze out the remaining drops. To make sure your Fresh Press is fully mixed, we recommend the following:

1. Shaking your Pinter vigorously for 60 seconds. Feel free to do this in different intervals if you cannot manage it all in one go!
2. Use water which hasn’t been chilled. Consider using a mix of warm and cold tap water in the colder months.
3. Fresh Presses should not be stored in the fridge as this will only make them more difficult to mix - room temperature storage is best.

There’s no need to rinse your package out afterward. We’ve done extensive testing in the Brewing Development team and have found that the new formulations consistently hit targets without rinsing the last few drops out.

Docking

If you are experiencing any resistance when docking your Pinter, we recommend applying a splash of clean water to resolve any resistance and, if necessary, place your Pinter on the floor facing up to get more leverage and Dock that way. Please do not use any oils or other lubricants as this can damage your Pinter.

Undocking

When undocking after brewing, if you find a small amount of Fresh Press mix in the Brewing Dock, please do not be alarmed. You will likely still have success - we recommend carrying on with the process and conditioning.

Temperatures

We use very versatile yeasts, so generally brewing in a range of temperatures from 61-77F will lead to successful results. Most normal rooms in a home should do the job to fall within that range. Boiler rooms, airing cupboards etc could be too warm, and places close to a window may be too cold.

For some beers, higher or lower temperatures within this brewing range can be more or less suitable to help certain flavors develop.

For example, with Fresh Presses using Rise yeast, temperatures at the higher end can help more fruity flavors to develop. For Fresh Presses using Balance, temperatures closer to the lower end of this range can help to produce cleaner, crisper flavors.

Standard vs Developed Brewing Times

Developed times allow for a more complete maturation of the beer in terms of flavor, aroma, and appearance, and guarantees a more stable equilibrium between carbonation and head space.

Brewing Activity - Noise

During the brewing stage, your Pinter may hiss/vent pressure out from the Carbonation Dial. This is a sign of fermentation taking place. If it is still hissing after the allotted time for brewing, or if there’s other obvious activity, your Fresh Press may still be undergoing fermentation and it would be wise to wait until this stops before moving onto the next steps.

Brewing Activity - Foaming

If it starts foaming through your Carbonation Dial during brewing, this is a sign of a healthy and vigorous fermentation, and is nothing to worry about in terms of your brew, but could be a sign that you have overfilled your Pinter. When this happens, make sure you clean your Carbonation Dial from both sides when you next clean your Pinter.

What is Cold Crashing?

This is where you condition your Pinter with the Brewing Dock still attached. It is not an essential step in brewing, however it will improve the quality of your Fresh Beer further.

How do I do it?

If your preference is clarity (and your fridge allows), you can condition your Pinter in the standing position with the Brewing Dock attached for the first day of conditioning at 35-40F. Below 33F could be harmful for your Pinter!

After the first 24 hours, you can then detach the Brewing Dock and continue conditioning as normal in the horizontal position.

Hopper

If you have a Hopper, add this just before you detach the Brewing Dock. It is far easier to add a Hopper when the Brewing Dock is connected, and any earlier and you will lose more of the hoppy goodness! If you find that the hop flavor can be a bit much for your tastes, we'd recommend extra conditioning as opposed to putting the Hopper in earlier; this way you get more control over your Fresh Beer.

Why would I Cold Crash?

This can help to improve clarity and flavor as the cold temperature encourages more trub, (spent yeast and other waste), to drop out of the Pinter and into the Brewing Dock before it is detached.

Undocking

When undocking after brewing, if you find a small amount of Fresh Press mix in the Brewing Dock, please do not be alarmed. You will likely still have a success - we recommend carrying on with the process and conditioning.

Why do I need to condition?

Prior to tapping, conditioning is an important step not only for the maturation of your Fresh Beer and certain flavor development, but also to achieve the appropriate pressure and carbonation levels in the Pinter. 

Carbon Dioxide can dissolve into beer more easily at cooler temperatures, so without conditioning you may not reach the ideal level of carbonation.

The perfect temperature

Normal fridge temperature is what you need for conditioning. An optimal temperature range is 35-40F, however, be careful when turning your fridge temperature down - if it gets below freezing you could damage your Pinter!

Getting a smooth pour

If your Fresh Beer fobs (foams excessively) when you first tap it, then it may be worth extending your conditioning time and/or checking that the temperature in your fridge is cool enough before adjusting your pouring technique.

What to do if the Pinter stops pouring early

If your Pinter seems to have stopped pouring, it may need to warm up slightly to increase the head pressure inside to push it out, or will need fully venting by switching the Carbonation Dial to OFF. After every pour, change the Carbonation Dial setting back to the setting for the particular Fresh Press.

The right temperature

Serving temperature is very important. Fridge temperature is recommended for best pouring results.

Using the Active Pour Tap

The Active Pour Tap allows you to take complete control of your tapping experience. The Active Pour Tap is very sensitive and can deal with all the pressure gradients as you go from a high pressure, incrementally down to zero pressure. The higher the flow rate you'd like, the more you need to open the tap.

The below video shows you how to insert the Active Pour Tap into your Pinter, as well as clipping the handle onto the tap.

Maximizing the flavors

All of our Fresh Presses are designed especially to work with the varied levels of water hardness from tap water. However, to maximize the subtly balanced flavors of cleaner beers such as lagers, try using filtered spring water rather than tap water.

Don't chuck the trub

Instead of washing away the trub (the remains of your Brewing Dock after the Brewing stage), here are a couple of things you can do to make the most out of a Fresh Press.

1. Try spreading it across your garden or adding to your compost heap for a nutritional boost. 
2. Use your trub as an ingredient in baking bread. All you need as well as your trub is flour and salt. This is because the trub contains inactive yeast, a key ingredient in bread.

For the full scoop, check out our blog here 

Replacement parts

If you ever find that you have misplaced a part, a part has become damaged, or you have any questions about your Pinter and its parts, you can reach our Customer Service team via email - hello@pinter.com . Their working hours are Monday-Friday 9am-5pm UK time. You can find their details along with all of our helpful FAQs here.

All of our replacement parts are listed on our website and available to purchase. Replacement parts available range from seals to Brewing Docks. Please get in touch with our Customer Support team for any questions.