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Hello folks, just wondering... I'll be brewing a porter on Friday, and thinking of putting a bit of cardamom in it. I have some white cardamom pods in the kitchen cupboard. I'm hoping to seek out some advice on how to fit this into the recipe, from somebody who has brewed with cardamom before...

Thanks for all of your comments. It sounds like the general consensus is that I should go out and pick it myself; which I guess leads into a new question, being does anyone know where I can find heather and bog myrtle growing in Central London!? I don't really have the capacity to grow it at...

I was in Glasgow the other week with work, and was really pleased to find that two of my favourite brewers have both opened pubs there, Brewdog and Williams Bros. But I'm straying from the point here before I've even started... Williams Bros. do a really interesting heather ale (Fraoch) which...

Ah, thanks for your kind remarks narmour and joey1002. I'm indeed anticipating this to be an even more emotional day than the one when I cracked open my first ever home brewed beer, and that's saying something!

Thanks for all of your comments; in a funny sort of way, I feel a bit better for having read them. On the one hand there's almost a funny kind of reassurance to read that it's not just me, and this kind of thing happens to other people as well; but on the other, it's horrifying to hear of...

Apologies for the rant, but I feel so angry about this that I need to share it with somebody... This week, a very good online seller of homebrew stocks and equipment lost a customer. It's a real shame, because it's through no fault of their own whatsoever (I genuinely think their service is...

Regarding wrapping it up against the cold, I do my fermenting under the stairs where temperatures aren't so high. I place an old mat underneath (to protect against cold coming up through the floor), wrap a duvet around, and then on a daily basis I put two hot water bottles under the duvet every...

Ah, thanks for the comments. Very useful remarks, and I'll try a pre/post priming set of measurements next time around to directly measure what happens, thanks!

Here’s a question. Feel free to argue. Having seen varying different interpretations of this, my question is about whether the ABV increases at all during the secondary fermentation? I always make bottle-fermented beer. I started off using kits and dextrose, adding half a teaspoon or so of...

Just finished bottle fermentation and served up my latest "Who's In Control?", which was my first experimental beer (extract/partial mash basically chucking in pretty much whatever I had lying around at the time), which came out tasting peculiarly similar to Krombacher Dark. Anyway, I digress...

Thanks for the suggestions, very much appreciated. I'll start with the boiling water, then if necessary progress onto something a bit stronger after next week's Tesco trip. Funnily enough, I'm sure I used to have some Hob Brite under the sink many years back; I think it was one of the many...

At the weekend I boiled up my second extract brew. All seems to have gone fine, apart from a brief boil over (which I quickly attended to at the time). However, it did seem to leave a residue of some horrible black stuff all over the cooker, which I'm finding it murder to try to get off. It...

Quite pleased with the results of my recent attempt at a Paulaner (weiss) copy. Five gallons now out for drinking; correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that now makes the total 5,659.5 gallons?

Ah, thanks for that pittsy. I took the yeast pack out of the fridge this morning; the plan is to, er, smack my yeast up (or whatever it is you have to do to get the packet going) right at the beginning whilst I'm heating up the initial water for steeping. I'll most likely start the yeast pack...

Thanks a lot for that fbsf. This is really helpful, as it sounds then like it's something that I can reasonably expect to do on Friday evening if I start as soon as I get home from work, rather than ending up finding myself staying up until about 5am or something waiting for it to cool down...

I have a question which would really help a lot with my preparations for brewing very shortly if anybody can answer. After several kits (and a bit of minor experimentation along the way), this weekend I will be attempting my first extract brew. I’ve got all of the component parts and...

I use these, which I ordered at the end of last year: http://home-brew-online.myshopify.com/c ... le-storage I can't remember how the prices all broke down in terns of delivery cost, VAT,etc. (I've got my receipts filed away at home) but I can tell you from my bank statement that in total it...

Wow, there are some very useful replies to my question here, I really appreciate that. I didn't even realise that the genre of extract brewing existed until reading these comments! That actually sounds like a really sensible middle step between using the kits and moving on to all grain brewing...

Time to add my contribution I guess. So far this year (well, I only started this year!) five gallons lager, five gallons wheat beer, five gallons porter and five gallons IPA. New total of 4575 I make that.

I've always received really helpful responses when I've posted questions here before, so I think this one might be worth a try... I've been happy with my recent experiences of moving from starter kits to two-can kits, and I'm now just about ready to take the next step and have a go at all grain...