Jim's Beer Kit

What are people’s opinions on doing a decoction mash and leaving the last infusion overnight? I’ve done single infusion mashes overnight with a lot of success - always ends up fermenting a bit drier, so mashing pretty high usually works. Basically I’m brewing a prototype for a lager type thing that ...

Made a ridiculous mistake yesterday - Brewed up a breakfast stout but forgot to add salts to the boil. I usually pre mix my mash salts with the grain and top up in the boiler. This time I did the mash, which was spot on with the PH, but totally forgot the boil addition. With it being a stout it's pr...

legion wrote:Where did you get them from?

I got them from Morley Homebrew in Leeds. The ones at the bottom of this page to be precise:

http://bulldogbrews.co.uk/products/hops ... -hops.html

rpt wrote:It looks like the answer's no!

Ha! Yep.

Bump

So I picked up 200g of these new South African hops. Says XJA/436 on the pack, and I can barely find anything about them on the Internet. The little I can find is for XJA2/436, which I'm guessing is the same hop. Anyway, they are apparently a new dual variety, mine are 14.4%aa and smell incredible d...

Update for anyone who's interested. So, a couple of batches down the line since ditching starsan and going with steam, and cutting out the extra bottling bucket. Don't want to jinx it, but I just might have beaten it. I'll emphasise the might part. I haven't noticed it, but I'm reluctant to get too ...

Cheers for the replies. I was hoping I'd missed something that was clearly obvious to someone in the know, haha. Looking at the difference in the min/max samples I'm not sure I trust the numbers anyway.

Wondering if any of you clued up on water chemistry could help me out. I'm biting the bullet and trying to get my head around water treatment, so I've got a water report for my area, and as far as I can see there is no way of determining the bicarbonate level. It does include a total hardness, but a...

Bottled on Thursday. No bottle bucket this time. Primed straight into the bucket, steam sterilised paddle to give it a whirl round. I've bought a massive 60L bucket to use as a sort of steaming vessel. Seemed to work. Placed all bottles in upside down and blasted with steam for at least half an hour...

I've had many brews look like this and its never been a problem. Taste and smell will be your first tell tails I think. I may be wrong though. Yeah, I'm pretty sure a lot (maybe most) of mine have looked like this pre infection nightmare. Been so long now since I've brewed a non infected beer that ...

Went to take a gravity reading this evening, and I'm not sure whether I'm massively paranoid or whether the steam and new tap hasn't worked. Brewed about two and a half weeks ago, and I've taken one gravity reading in that time (using a boiled turkey baster), so the bucket has literally only been op...

Brewed up. Tap replaced, steamed bucket. Cat food been moved for several weeks. See what happens.

Putting my plan into action. Bought a wallpaper steamer (already had one but it was a bit manky), sussed out attachments to tubes etc. bought a new tap for my boiler. Fired up the steamer this afternoon, piped it into one of my buckets through the grommet hole. Feck me it got hot, I'm pretty sure it...

So. Update for anyone who is interested. I've come pretty close to giving up, biting reckon I can beat this little bastard of a bug. Going to completely replace my tap, boil the absolute shit out of my fermentor (it should fit in my boiler), and go pretty basic. I'm even considering devising some ki...