Recent content by jof

There are quite a few elderflower wine recipies around. Last year I brewed one with lemons & grapefruit to about 6% strength and bottle carbonated like beer. This year I will use more lemons & no grapefruit. I may even do several different versions to taste test later. In the UK elderflowers...

A re they sorted by height so they can put them through a bench capper in same height batches?

Commercial brewers don't want to tie up their equipment any longer than necessary, so they can get the next batch on. So things like optimum temperature control (fermentation and cold crash), fermenting under pressure, finings, filtration, forced carbonation at bottling/canning are done. And...

I can see where you're coming from. That's not a high start number & I would be scared to bottle that at 1.017 due to bottle bomb risk. I've also been playing with higher masking in temperatures & am finding FG is significantly higher than when I to a stepped mash starting at 65 & using my...

At the risk of sounding flippant, shouldn't you post this on the USA version of the forum as it's completely irrelevant to the rest of the world😁

I'm not saying this is the right way, it's time consuming, but works for me & I'm happy to mess about doing this for an hour. (If you don't have the spare time do what @Caramel Ox suggests) I generally do a jug sparge BIAB with similar equipment to you. I have a perforated false bottom in my...

Not everyone wants or needs an AIO device. If you have a process that works for you & your happy with them I can't see the point in shelling out £400 for more stainless steel rather than just a new fermenting bucket. (Obviously that's not the case if you can find a bargain 2nd hand one)

Lol. Just do a bit of experimenting & see what you get. I've reasonable success using combinations of crystal, brown & chocolate malt. You don't need much chocolate malt to get a dark beer. Noticeably darker beer using just 50g in a 20l batch. Using more than 200g starts to take you from porter...

I vary my sparge depending on time & how I feel. I'm effectively using my BIAB like a malt pipe and run the wort out to a bucket. It's either jug sparge or batch sparge. I'm not entirely sure which gives best results & it seems to vary quite a bit. But after sparge, I put BIAB malt in a...

What happens if you are producing say your own gin but you have already paid the duty by buying the base spirit as duty paid? I know there is no issues with adding your own botanicals to bottles of gin/vodka bought from a supermarket, eg slow gin/lemoncello etc. So is there a line drawn over...

Was it one of these? A bit taller & thinner than the modern buckets. I'd let you come & get it but it sounds like your over 100 miles north of me & it won't be worth the trip

I wonder if the problem wasn't the tree but the birds in it as would have been over the driveway Edit: I do similar to a tree that backs on to my back garden, as the branches ripped through my shed roof due to winds a couple of years ago.

I would think most of them would work in an 'American Lite Lager' (see what I did there) I was originally thinking how could I use them in a porter or bitter. We all have our own preferences, so just have a go & see how it turns out.

It works for mars rovers. But then they don't need to go very fast (or very far under their own power) Tested for dust & grit, but not water & salt

In that case you have enough to make 'almost smashes' using something like magnum for bittering & your selected hop for flavour & aroma. Then you can see what each one is like. (Or if you have a particular hatred of certain styles & have ended up with those hops, just use them for bittering -...