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Really, I've not come across that one. In the Yeast book by Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff, they argued quite strongly that lack of oxygen at pitching was a major cause for under attenuation.

I'm surprised about both of these results. My understanding as far as rehydration goes is that when dry yeast is added to the fluid, be it water or wort, it takes a few minutes for the cell walls to rehydrate and establish themselves as an effective barrier to whatever is in the fluid. If you...

Did you use liquid or dry malt extract for the beer? Old liquid malt extract can impart a caramel sweetness that is very obvious.

For an IPA where the hop character is the key feature I think you want to drink it as soon as possible. I would keep the bottles at room temperature for 1-2 weeks and then start drinking. As soon as you are happy that it is fully carbonated then keep it somewhere cold. Heat speeds up the...

I design my recipes to use full 100g amounts. In general this works OK as I like hoppy beers. If I were making a lot of milds or lagers I'd probably need to think of a better way of storing things long term. For bittering hops I just use one or two varieties rather than using whatever a...

You can use the different crystal malts to get the same colour but you won't get the same flavour. They did an experiment on Brulosophy about this a while ago. If you are only using a small percentage of crystal malt it might be very hard to pick up but if it is a beer that users a lot and it...

I've heard of oats making up a reasonable % of the grain bill in saisons. Nothing like 50% but maybe 20% in some cases.

If you go down the extract plus steeping grains route I think Brewer's Friend suggests 35% efficiency for the steeping grains alone. As Myqal says, pilsner wouldn't really have any speciality grains in usually. Most of them are just 100% pilsner malt. Your best bet if you can't get pilsner...

I'm not sure any of the main yeast manufacturers give specific cell count numbers for dry yeast, they generally specify something like 5x10^9 cells per gram, which works out at 55bn cells for an 11g packet, if you accept the low end. I'm sure others have suggested that in reality it is far more...

To sweeten without lactose you could use potassium sorbate to knock out the yeast and then back sweeten with a simple sugar. You would need less of it than lactose because sucrose/dextrose is a lot sweeter but it wouldn't really add much to the body in the same way lactose does.

Now I know why I've never fly sparged. A 10 minute dunk in a bucket can get me 80% efficiency on smaller grain bills, so I don't know that I would want to spend an hour staring at soggy grain. :D

If your grain crush is ok then the next place I would look would be loses to dead space along the way. Anything that doesn't end up in your fermentor will hit your efficiency. I've never fly sparged but I know it can give great efficiency if done right but can also muck up if you get...

40% brewhouse efficiency is the bit that alarms me. I know everyone's system is variable but that just seems crazy. Do you know why it was so low? How are you mashing your grain? On the IBUs, it looks like your brewing calculator is adding IBUs even when the whirlpool additions are at...

For brewing science, I really enjoy reading the Brulosophy blog. They've tested out lots of the strongly held brewing conventions and found that for may of them people can't tell the difference between beers brewed correctly and those which 'cut corners'.

Thanks Beercat, I have a PT100 and I'm going to give the bag a go. I've never had an issue with the bag contacting the element until I used the pump. Hopefully the pizza tray will solve that. I do have a hook above the kettle for draining but due to the low height of the shed roof the bag...

Do you mean wild yeast (like brettanomyces) or lactic acid bacteria?

In theory yes, but you want to be very careful about introducing oxygen after fermentation has completed. Use cooled boiled water and maybe aim to add it at the tail end of fermentation, when there are still active yeast but when the threat of a huge blow off has subsided.

@JonBrew Glad to hear the pizza tray will work. Good luck with your own build. I've heard several people raise concerns about wort clarity and vorlaufing with BIAB. Personally wort clarity has never been a big concern of mine. I lift the bag and squeeze the hell out of it to get as much...

Thanks @Bigcol49, I was going to put 3-4 bolts as legs around the outside. Do you think I'll need the middle bolt if I'm leaving the bazooka filter in place underneath?

I would really prefer not to have to use a basket. For one thing I don't think there is enough space above my kettle as I'm brewing in a pretty compact shed. This may be my naivety but I don't really understand why you can't achieve the same thing with a bag. The bag drains very freely and I...