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I primed with ordinary sugar, I was quite conservative with the amount as in the past I have tended to produce bottle bombs. not brewed anything since. I think the recipe may have been wrong in terms of the amount of water to use, the grain bill was perhaps for a smaller volume of beer?

BTW: had no trouble taking the beer off with a tap, in the past my kit brews ended up with a lot of yeast sediment in the bottles, this was a much clearer brew.

Just sampling this beer as I write; it is a dissapointment. too thin, watery, not fruity enough, not 'beery' enough, too sweet. It had ages to ferment, I can't believe that it was under-fermented when put into the bottles; it hasn't carbonated in the bottles at all, which seems odd since it is...

I found the corks from young's to be rubbish, most homebrewer's corks are not proper corks, they are reformed using silicon and they slip out in hot weather as the bottle contents expand. they break up quite badly when you use a corkscrew too. The plastic stoppers are much better value, seal...

I am now drinking my cider, are you supposed to let cider mature? I didn't think so, it is quite acidic but some good flavour in there, very good for cooking sausages.

You're not going to get much beyond that strength, the yeast can't take it. i gather that some of the high alcohol yeasts are quite fussy- steady temp, higher than room temperature, etc.

bottled my cider yesterday, only 10 litres.

I have seen a website where they have built a waste disposal unit into a table especially for this purpose-again it's the expense that puts me off. I managed with a piece of wood and a washing up bowl.

I am now in a position to comment on the effectiveness of the pulpmaster having just tried it this morning. It doesn't cut the apples, but it did destroy my cider press, shattering the bucket I used and tipping apples all over the ground. If this incident was any closer I would now be sending my...

I haven't added the fruit yet, just thinking, am I going to need pectolase and all that business? smush up the berries? I haven't really given this enough thought.

cheers, I added half a small jar of malt extract, no spraymalt, it made bugger-all difference to the gravity. I think I have some leeway as there will be a secondary fermentation, so I can make slight adjustments there perhaps. Pitched the yeast last night and came home to an airlock furiously...

balls! missed my OG by a country mile. should be 1070, actually got 1055. add malt extract?

I mashed and boiled my first AG beer yesterday; a leffe brune clone to which I intend to add blackberries in the secondary. I used the homemade mash tun and boiler following the instructions of 'Chard' on instructables.com. worked well I think. I will be pitching the yeast in a few minutes...

thanks for the warning and I will definitley look into it more, I notice though that among the list of 'toxic' woods at the link given are included: ash, oak, alder, spruce, birch, beech, willow, rosewood, mahogany, teak, walnut, basically; wood.

I used the pp bucket shown, with a bit more scaffolding under it to spread the load. Rather time-consuming as some have said, I assumed that the small cider presses that you see for sale would be an appropriate benchmark for size, actually I would build something on a larger scale even for my...

one alternative is a piece of 2X2 and a washing up bowl. I ordered the pulpmaster, still waiting for the bucket itself to turn up after a month, looks awful, the 'blade' is not a blade, just a piece of unsharpened metal. I wonder how much a paint stirrer costs?

tried out my press yesterday, after this silliness: I opted for a quick rebuild: I got 6 pints of juice out of some crabapples (didn't weigh them first),

I wonder if a bit of el cheapo kit bashing would be in order? how close a match do you want? Belgian beers are high in alcohol owing to added sugar, I'm thinking of a pale beer kit, easy on the hops, added sugar and, of course, belgian abbey yeast.

hi all, anyone know about using hops 'green' i.e. fresh and not dried at all? I have read that it can give a floral, citrussy taste, but that there is a risk of tasting like grass. any advice much appreciated.

I have a hop plant, not properly supported, so it is messy. they can be a bit pricey, even though they grow like weeds, take a cutting from someone if you can.