Jim's Beer Kit

Stomach wrote: Sending off? Like to boarding school?

Maybe more like off to a posh Swiss finishing school. Its a bit uncontrolled and rude at the moment -needs to learn a bit of refinement

4 years on from the original post and I'm glad to see its still proving useful to folks. I must admit that I have since converted to a bottle washer too. I also only bottle where it is generally appropriate like for a wheat beer and the big barley wine I'm sending off to mature this weekend. I'd sug...

Westerham Brewery do a couple of brews for the National Trust using Target from their Scotney Castle hop farm. Had them both in the past and seem to remember them being quite decent!

Little Scotney Pale Ale / Little Scotney Best Bitter : http://www.westerhambrewery.co.uk/BottledBeers.htm

Use crown caps for anything at high pressure or to be kept for a long time. As you say, it likely that the plastic caps stretch a bit after first use and so may not seal as well. Also, being polyethylene (i'm guessing they are) they will allow slow gas exchange through them that will slowly loose th...

Could always try some extract brews. I do these when time is tight or I just need to quickly get stocks back up! Probably doesn't take a huge amount longer than some of the more involved kits like brupaks with the extra grain and hop tea bags.

A mate of mine has done Nelson's Revenge and it was up there with the very best kit beers I've tasted. In fact, I had some of the real thing at the GBBF this year and I've got to say I thought the kit was better in that instance

Done a few all goldings brews and its definitely a delicate floral character you get (particularly from the late hops). Pure nectar of the gods, a fantastic hop that seems rather overlooked around these parts with all the new world hops floating around. Subtlety has a lot to be said for it.

gnorwebthgimi wrote:...Quite a lot of bitterness for a lager too, is that right?...

Lager! Jaipur IPA is definitely not a lager, but is a damn fine tipple well worth trying to emulate.

Alternatively... I always rack to secondary for a week with gelatine then transfer my crystal clear beer to a bottling bucket, add priming sugar and bottle form there. Never ever any carbonation issues. A few of my brewer mates do this too with perfect results. If you can't be bothered with a bottl...

I do them one box/crate at a time (12 bottles) as its convenient, but I wouldn't worry too much if you cap them all at the end.

Hop and Grape certainly do the standard stick without the tap attached (and the tree)... http://www.hopandgrape.co.uk/catalog/catalog.asp?catid=GEN2147353 How to connect the stick to your tap... http://18000feet.mesb.co.uk/how/bottle.htm A friend of mine has a bottling stick with the tap attached an...

Bottle it up, hide it away for a few months and call it an IPA

Split some 005 five ways back in March. Used 3 back then and built a starter from the last 2 for my latest IPA a couple of weeks ago. Five months in the fridge and it still worked a treat and is a very nice ale yeast. 002 to be my next trial.

Cheers Flatters, I may do something similar but with sodastream/widget world gas when I get my ass in gear!

less ££ on kit = more ££ on beer

Wise words indeed

That looks a good 'budget' conversion there Flatters (meant in a nice way!). What is the gas the setup you've rigged?