Search results

(actually, I might miss out the Columbus and keep that for a single hop brew, since I've got 75g of that left. I'll up the others to compensate).

Right, I've got my grains for this (2.5kg pale, 150g aromatic malt and 400g sugar, for hopefully 12 litres at the end), and ended up getting a pack of WLP500 Monastery yeast for it. The guy in my local homebrew shop suggested I might try putting no hops in at 60mins, instead putting everything...

The thing is that everyone's star rating benchmarks are different (plus star ratings are unable to express much nuance). Especially when things like tripadvisor ratings expect you to give 5* when a place simply does everything it was expected to do. On untappd I try to use 2* as an enjoyable...

I can't reach my note book from here, but I think it's been about a month in each. Mostly due to being busy more than anything. I'm aiming for Christmas, yeah. Once I label it I'll put it away for a few months. I'll try one at the start of November maybe.

I've just yesterday bottled this exact beer (well, with a few modifications). I used dried cranberries because they were easier to get, and I used Mangrove Jacks Workhorse yeast and tettnang hops because my local shop was out of northern brewer. Not going to lie, it doesn't taste great yet...

Thanks for the advice. I'm tempted to have a go with liquid yeast, but maybe I'll save that for another one. Especially because I've not got a whole day to brew when I plan to do it, so I'd rather keep things simple at the moment. I'm tempted to use 5% aromatic malt in it, with the remaining...

Thanks for the advice. I'm tempted to have a go with liquid yeast, but maybe I'll save that for another one. Especially because I've not got a whole day to brew when I plan to do it, so I'd rather keep things simple at the moment. I'm tempted to use 5% aromatic malt in it, with the remaining...

My freezer compartment is full of hops (50g centennial, 70g columbus, 50g cascade, 50g simcoe, and I brew about 12l at a time) from a previous IPA brew and I need to use them up. I don't fancy making another straightforward IPA so I was thinking what else I could do with those hops that's a...

Wrapping in wet towels works, because the evaporation draws heat out of the FV. Make sure you keep them damp though.

It's down to 1020 now so nearly there. I had a little taste and it's quite boozy! Quite harsh, but I'm sure that'll mellow in time. No obvious taste of cranberry or maple, but I'm giving it enough time for the flavours to sort themselves out. I'll save it until Saturday to rack to secondary...

Also I'm trying something different this time. I'm going to pour the post boil wort straight into my FV for cooling, so I can get everything tidied up before waiting for it to cool (and also it should make things easier sanitation wise I think). It does mean I'll have to aerate more, because it...

Boil just started (damn electric hob!). I did a full recirculation of wort through the grains to try and get every ounce of sugar from it. I've added the malt extract and I'm waiting until 20 minutes before the end before adding the maple syrup and the wort that's soaking the cranberries. (The...

Today's mission is to make this thing http://byo.com/hops/item/2277-bad-santa I'm using dried cranberries rather than cherries, and Tettnang hops because my local shop was out of Northern Brewer. My water for mashing is heating up now, then I'll be mashing soon enough. I've been sensible and...

It's interesting you mentioned the bottling not sugar mix because that's the one thing I forgot while bottling, oops! I realised as it was half siphoned into the bottling bucket, so had to leave it until it was done and then stir it in gently. I hope I stirred enough (but not too vigorously)...

I dry hopped the other day and it's smelling wonderful. I decided to dry hop in a bag in the primary. I probably made a bit of a mistake by putting all the hops in one bag, rather than splitting them over two. To compensate I'll probably give it all a gentle stir today and leave them in for an...

I use a 100ml syringe that works well for me. The rubber seal (I'm sure it has a technical name) has started sticking recently so I just rub some Vaseline around it and it's fine. I have a jug of starsan that I pull through it and push out to make sure it's sanitised. I also use it to pull the...

Thanks for the warnings! Could I perhaps reduce the effects by cooling the wort to, say, 15°C before pitching or would that cause other problems?

I'll scale it all down for my equipment, this was just cut and pasted from the original. Thanks for checking though. It's the sort of obvious mistake I'd make!

Thanks for the warning about headspace. My FV is 15l. I was considering trying for 13l, but I'll stick to the usual 11! And thanks for the help with the different malts. As for the base malt, I don't have a stock of anything so I'll stick to the lager malt that the recipe suggests.

I've got a bit obsessed with this recipe, and thought it might be a good one for my first stout. I've seen a few old threads on other forums that suggest that it benefits from a long time bottle conditioning (a few people saying that the strong flavours overpower everything and that it's not as...