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I use VWP on my bottles (Cooper PET bottles). 10 mins soak, good rinse and then bottle. The bottles also get a water rinse after drinking. I know some people don't clean, only use starsan but I can't bring myself to do that. And if I am going to the effort if cleaning them VWP does a good job...

I would just drink up the beer you've made and chalk it up to experience. I've made tons of gaffs along the way but it is rare that the beer can't be drunk and our beer making skills get better the more we brew. I've heard of people half filling bottles and the beer being fine. I wouldn't advise...

Yes, worth checking how accurate it is. That said, I've had mine a good number of years and never knowingly had any problems with it (when I had a stick on thermometer on my fermenter it always seemed to be on the money, although you might question the accuracy of these).

Using it to heat and cool, but where I live cooling isn't needed all that much. I tend to set it towards the bottom of the recommended range. If it is 18 according to the manufacturers I might set it to 18.5, which means the measured temp might fluctuate between 18 and 19 (although the centre...

I think it matters what temp you are adding the yeast too, or at least I've come to the conclusion that I get better results when I start off a bit on the cooler side and let the temp rise. This is what breweries do. With kits I think it is better to undershoot with the amount of boiling water...

Ok, but this perception of dryness is only going to happen if you tell tell the person drinking it it is now higher alcohol. Relative to what the beer tasted like before it will be more or less the same in taste.

Why would adding sugar dry it out? It will ferment the additional sugar out, but isn't going to ferment out the base malt etc further. Is it?

In the US I think for a long time, for a lot of people, homebrewing was the only way to get hold of beer that was not crap American lager. Nowadays this is not true, and I've seen people in the US lamenting the decline of homebrewing there as a result.

Yes, beer seems to last much longer bottled than in a pressure barrel, and it allows you to build up a variety of beers

I'm not even sure young people know about home-brewing as a hobby these days. In the past you could not avoid it. Closure of Wilkinson isn't going to help as it was probably an entry into the hobby.

I started brewing in the mid-2000s and it seemed like a pretty marginal hobby back then - nobody I knew did it, I went to a homebrew club a couple of times and and there were a few of us there. Boots had stopped their homebrew stuff by then I think. I stopped brewing for a decade when I had...

With beer kits I would always add more DME rather than sugar. It will give it more body. If you shop around you can find a kilo of DME for as little as £6. Medium works well in a bitter. If you are paying £5 for 500gms of DME you are paying too much.

You could try making a milk stout by adding 500gms of lactose, which does not ferment out and leaves some more body. It would still taste thin though (although it would taste thin if you added a kilo of sugar). If you were prepared to go a bit higher with abv add 500gms of DME would prob make a...

... And their 'pubs' are crap too! Completely without any charm

I agree with your sentiment entirely about their beer. I went on a Brewdog beer tasting many years ago (a friend was given tickets) and the guy leading it implied there was no good beer before they came along, which I found a bit rich because (a) Punk IPA is, at best, seriously overrated (and on...

I used to boil the sugar in a small amount of water and add this. But to be honest you can just add it dry (that's what I do when I bottle nowadays). The point about sediment was that it may naturally fall the bottom of the barrel, below the tap. If you are racking from a fermenter using a tap...

"Mr Watt will be replaced by James Arrow, who was hired as chief operating officer last September as forward planning for Mr Watt's replacement. He was previously managing director of Boots Opticians. Before this, he spent a decade at Dixons Carphone, where he held senior roles across...

Erm, if I understand correctly, you were shaking the barrel? If so, as clint said, the sediment probably went into solution. You don't need to shake the barrel. When I used to use barrels I would often add priming sugar at the end and never had a problem.

I think the law changed a few years back. No more pretending you are making perfume!

To be honest, the sorts of beers you like are never going to be carbonated to right levels in a pressure barrel. They are not designed to take that much pressure. If you like real ales and drink quickly pressure barrels are great (assuming you can get them to hold pressure, but there is a knack...