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I know, it's making me feel like a bit of a pillock when this is meant to make things easier for me! All part of learning which accessories you actually need and which you don't I guess!

Nice and simple, just how it should be! I love EKG in a saison too.

Carafa 3 is pretty dark. I used 100g of Carafa 1 with 6kg of pale malt and it's a very deep brown. Way darker than beersmith said it should be (in case that's what you're using) That's only just over 1%. I don't think you'd need anywhere near 10%. Brewers Caramel is another way of darkening a...

You might be best off finding a fellow forum member or someone from a local brewing club who can invite you round on brew day or join you at your home to help on your equipment. It might seem daunting but with a few goes, even if they're a bit stressful and full of mistakes, you'll be well on...

Ageing dark or amber bottle conditioned beers is a great thing to do. Blonds or hoppy beers aren't much good for this as hops flavour fades and oxidation will get in the way of the subtle flavours of a blond beer. I was lucky enough to get given a 1998 fullers vintage ale and it was the best...

If you're brewing to save money then fair enough but if you're serious about improving the quality then you'll get better faster by comparing your own to the pros. It's also good to keep trying new things to give you ideas of what to brew.

The Southwold Blonde is good and they sell a rebadged Oakham citra too.

Self building is good and cheap if you have the tools. I made quite a good one from a stock pot and two tesco value kettle elements. Later added thermometer and sight glass to it. Works really well. There are loads of guides to help. Many others use commercial urns with hidden elements. Those...

Yeah was decent on the efficiency front and the beer will still be good. It's in range for the style. I'm leaning towards getting a hop spider as I think it'll save me some messing around. I seem to only be able to get the hops I want in leaf form most of the time so I can see this happening...

I'd go with a sulphate heavy profile as hops should stick out more than malt in this style. For the yeast start low 20s and ramp up to finish. I've not heard of Belle Saison stalling. A few of the liquid saison yeasts are notorious for that but not this one as far as I know. It should go pretty...

Well this was interesting but not for the right reasons. It was all going great until I had to drain the thing and managed to block both taps with hops, then ended up taking the wort out with a jug and pouring through a sterilised sieve to get all the crap out. I ended up with 21 Litres which...

I had a sample of this and it's down to 1.016 after a week. It tastes pretty boozy now so interested to see what it's like once it's aged and that calms down.

Well I'm not 100% sure I will either. Last time I was out by a fair bit but ended up with more beer. I'm trying setting the boil to 103C so it stays as vigorous as possible. With 2L less water it should hopefully get there. My pre boil is a fair way out so far. 1.054 against 1.060 but I used...

My other half has taken my daughter to visit relatives for the weekend so it's brew time again! This is my second with the Braumeister plus and I'm going for a similar brew but with a different mash schedule and different amounts of water to see how it goes. I used 26L of water last time...

Astringency is very dry and husky. A nutty flavour could be just malt flavour. Try a different base malt maybe?

Beersmith for me. Never used anything else but I like it. Also use the phone app.

From what I've read they get the fermentation over with quicker and then move to secondary tanks that are covered.

This sort of thing comes with time. The more I drink the more I notice but then once you've had a few different things tend to come through as well. It's pretty important as a brewer because you need to be able to compare what you make with the sorts of beer you're trying to make and know what...

I had astringency but eliminated it with water treatment. I fly sparged though and I'm not sure the type of sparge you do will really cause the issues I had but it still potentially sounds like a water issue. If your darker beers taste better this would be because the darker grains are more...

When it starts being light and warm enough that I can have my dinner outside in the evening. When my 3 year old daughter learns something new.