Jim's Beer Kit

Do you think you can run anything worthwhile on a smaller (smallest) scale, one where you don't quit your day job and don't give up your entire life? Or is the Admin overhead and HMRC tax too much to be worth it? Depends how you define "worthwhile"!! Is it fun? Yes. Is it hard work? Yes, a lot of w...

I think the most important thing here (and I've worried about this topic in the past) is that you choose one method and stick to it - that way your measurements over time will be consistent - precision being more important than accuracy.

Definitely give it time before deciding it's a dud. But it does sound like you pitched too warm and got hot alcohols as a result, in my experience this NEVER ages out and you end up with beer that's only good for cooking with!

I typically brew 100L batches in a 238L fermenter (sometimes I do double batches, which is why I bought the big FVs). Never had any problems with infection or oxidation - there's plenty of CO2 in there it seems.

I use water. I tried glycol and it didn't do any harm but I couldn't actually get the chiller to go any lower in temperature so it was kind of pointless. If you're using it for dispense, water is fine (I use mine to cool a fermenter)

The only time I ever had a popper was due to an infection where the beer super attenuated and blew the shive. But within sane limits, a cask (with the right shive and keystone) will take a lot of pressure. Careful in hot weather though - that would worry me a bit...

Hi guys - thought I'd share this recipe from my commercial nanobrewery. It's a modern "juicy" (haha) pale ale, and it took first prize at Grimsby CAMRA festival last year. I'm packing in the commercial brewing because it's too much like hard work... OG: 1.042 FG: 1.011 Grist: 95% low colour pale ale...

Happy to answer questions on this - I've been running a 240L nano brewery commercially for a couple of years. I've had a lot of fun doing it, won some local awards etc, run bars at community events and sold casks to local pubs, but I'm packing it in because the admin is too much for me and it doesn'...