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Ha Ha There is that! I needed something quick and cheap until i can fire up the old Grainfather again. I remembered I'd done this kit ages ago, when it was about the £8 mark and it was OK-ish, but at £15 I went for my old standby of Cooper's Original.

I see that the price of Wilko's Velvet Stout on their website has just gone up to £15, which is quite a hike.

I think that I read somewhere that once yeast adapts to sugar it can be reluctant to switch back to maltose. I don't know how true that is, though. The last time I propagated some yeast (from SN 1698) I did a mini-mash in a teapot and used that. It worked fine.

A wee while ago, I tried an experimental mash using a large teapot, using about 600g of malt and whatever the volume of the pot is. I did this twice and ended up with some wort for yeast propagation and about 4.5 litres that I boiled up with some of last year's First Gold hops, fermented it in...

Wilko's Velvet Stout made up half a kilo of DME and the same of sugar (or BKE) is pretty cheap, drinkable and you may not have to pay P&P for it.

I was meaning to say that if you do this recipe again, it might be a good idea to increase the amount of yeast you pitch. If I remember correctly this kit comes with 6g of yeast which is something of an under-pitch for a wort with the OG that you have. Pitching a bit warm may have helped, though.

As your OG was in the 70s, this clearly isn't a standard Wilko stout! You may get more useful replies if you let us know how you've made this up and what yeast you're using.

I too was a callow youth of 19 working in a few pubs in the early 80s. One was a GK house, when they were still a reasonably-respected regional brewer. The draught ales were Mild, IPA and Abbot on handpump, King Keg and Guinness. On the advice of my future father-in-law, I developed a strong...

If you like a Bloody Mary, then you should give a Red Snapper a try. Same recipe but substitute gin for the vodka.

We had a theory that you were more likely to get served underage if you asked for halves rather than pints, so my in 1981 my first half of Red Stripe lager was 36 pence. By 1985 I was working in the Public Bar of a Greene King pub: mild was 64p, IPA 68p, Abbott 72p and Guinness 90p.

Yes, just that. I stand the jerry can on a box so the end of the tube is closer to the bottom of the can, but it probably doesn't make any difference. As DuxUK points out, this method can change the hop profile, if there are a lot of late additions. I mainly brew milds and stouts so I don't...

With the jerry can you stand it on its sides to ensure that the heat sanitises all of the inside. You couldn't do that with a fermenter. More importantly, it contracts as it cools. The jerry sucks in its sides but the fermenter would suck air in through the airlock.

I transfer it from a height into a FV to aerate and ferment it in there. You could probably ferment it in the jerry can if you really wanted to, but they would be awkward to clean afterwards.

Sadfield, we don't know what the issue is, but this definitely does have the potential to make a difference. For the kits that he is brewing, fermenting for three weeks isn't needed and increases the risk of contamination. All beer contains low levels of spoilage pathogens. Packaging...

What brew-length are you doing? I have a Grainfather, but I often don't bother with the CFC, as it adds to the clean-up time. Have a look at Aussie-style no-chill using 25l plastic gerry cans. I pump the boiling wort in and use its heat to sanitise the container. Let it cool naturally and...

The OP mentioned that he leaves it fermenting for three weeks at 21C. I suspect that I have finished drinking most of my brews before his are out of the bucket! If I were him, I'd drop the temperature a little and measure the gravity after a week or 10 days. Even the best sanitation doesn't...

That's gone up a fair bit in recent years. I think that I got mine for about £25 quid. I use it as a sparge water heater. The body, on mine at least, is made of enamelled steel so I'm not sure I'd want anything acidic in it for long periods. Why would you want to use it as a fermenter, as...

'...not sure I will drink 40 pints in 2 weeks' You may surprise yourself!

I have the opposite problem, but then I was rather flattered when the doctor said I was a high-functioning alcoholic. If you tend to only drink with meals, make sure that you've included breakfast and lunch in your planning.

I would say that the BJCP guidelines are a poor place to start, unless you are planning to enter competitions. I think that Michael Jackson used the concept of beer 'styles' to enable him to talk about the beers he found in the real world. Nowadays, people seem to be trying to fit the real...