Jim's Beer Kit

Belay this request for info - I've decided against it after reading reports of extraction problems owing to the sparge reaching sugar saturation point resulting in a limit on what can be extracted from the mash, resulting in a top end of about OG1050 on beers made by this method. Well that's no bloo...

I''m upping my capacity from 30L or so up to 50L and retiring a lot of old plastic brew gear in favour of His Shinyness the Stainless of Steel. I trawled my shed for saved unused new steel brewing kit I've hoarded and carted around with me for nearly 5 years now. I have a 100L stockpot, 33L stockpot...

Cheers for the info guys. Big help

Thanks Steve. Great instructions. I take it that after you have drained out the boiling water (and closed the tap!), this is when you tip in the full amount of dry grain? Yeah, sorry, my omission. I use 2 kettlefuls of boiling water. Boil the kettle pour into mashtun - making sure the tap is shut ;...

Thanks mate, very helpful info. I'm going to go along the lines of a Brutus 20 two-pot set up which is a bit of both fly and batch sparge. Yeah, capacity is vital with batch sparging which is what I've been doing out of choice for years and latterly out of necessity since my spinny sparger seized up...

I'm retiring my aged and trusty 30something litre coolbox mash tun and finally converting the insulated 50L stainless Thermo-pot I bought about 7 years ago - Nordic Optical on eBay I think it was. It was going to be used in the brewhouse I was building at the time....in my house at the time - but th...

Caustic soda crystals made up strong with cold water will shift the muck - and kill everything within 100 miles

Good call. I have been using 5L bottles of Tesco Ashbeck spring which looks like it's the same source as Asda's Eden Falls. But, like you there's an Asda but no Tesco nearby. If they've got 5L bottles, perfect. Just wob 8ml of starsan in and the job's done. Starsan in Ashbeck never went even remotel...

First saw underletting on Phil Robins's (Longdog Brewery) homebrew rig. So easy that I started underletting on mine next brew, and never went back. Pre heat mash tun with boiling water then drain. Don't run the liquor in too fast Don't do anything until it's all in and by then you should see liquor ...

I used 3 KIng Keg top taps with S30 valves for 20+years - no problems provided some simple steps were taken - every so often renew the rubbers on the valve, and use a bit of vaseline on the cap seal. I'd also put a light smear on the threads, not to seal, but to make cap tightening and especially re...

That's the kiddy, busts a lot of myths on the way so well worth getting. As for rimski's comment about "better liquid yeast usage", if looked after properly dry yeast can produce very good results. It is still the case that there isn't the variety available but that is beginning to change. The prob...

Cheers I really must invest in the yeast book as so far I usually just use dry yeast with some cracking results but feel the next step is better liquid yeast usage Do you rehydrate the yeast first? If you don't it is something you will learn a lot about in "Yeast". Is it this 'Yeast' book by the Wh...

Bloody hell that boiler's full!

Is that the same stuff as washing soda? Thanks for input guys Washing soda is mainly sodium carbonate (Na2CO3)- A good medium strength cleaner / water softener http://images.mysupermarket.co.uk/ProductsDetailed/80/031880.jpg?v=1 Caustic soda is a much more aggressive chemical. Its sodium hydroxide ...

The only thing you need to worry about when using starsan is that once it is made up the pH is less than 3, it is the acidity of the solution that is important, not whether it is cloudy or not. Oh ok, I read somewhere that if it goes cloudy it's knackered. It used to with my hard tap water, and doe...