Jim's Beer Kit

Might just be the munich malt. See what happens as the yeast drops out.

So as I understand it what you want to do is to use your HLT to host the HERMS heat exchanger, but eliminate the time it takes for the HLT to heat up so you can reduce the time it takes to do a mash step? If I've got that right, then I see the biggest potential issue you have is the size of your res...

You need to have the mash or wort sour before boiling. The boil kills off the lactobacillus that sours the wort otherwise. A sour mash technique is ok, but a bit hit and miss. Plus you have the stink (as shown in that video) as non-lacto bugs do stuff in the presence of oxygen, and you need to keep ...

Use half a tablet.

One Campden tablet can usually remove chlorine in up to 100l water. Any excess metabisulphite will work as an antioxidant, so a little too much isn't a big problem.

Chlorine is a gas and will flash off if left overnight so that’s correct, the main downside being you can’t use your water directly if you need to top up or whatever. Also nice around the home, cleaner drinking water, bath doesn’t stink of chlorine etc. but they’re more expensive than just standing...

Sounds good to me. Sorachi Ace isn't a big fruity hop like Citra - it's slightly lemony instead - but I think you want only a little something so it doesn't clash/mask the yeast character.

A refreshingly hoppy wheat beer? Proportions of grist to hit about 1.048: 50% Pilsner malt 40% Wheat malt 10% Munich Mash at 66c for 1 hour. 20 IBU of Magnum in the boil for 60 minutes 2 grams per litre Sorachi Ace at flameout 2 grams per litre Sorachi Ace dry hop Ferment with the kristal weizen yea...

Micros tend to either brew regularly enough to crop yeast from one fermenting batch to the next, or just use bricks of dried yeast. I don't think that stirring a 20 litre starter is a particularly practical idea to achieve and I don't actually think the stirring will achieve much. Just make a home b...

Can you quantify the speed difference you are hoping to make?

I don't understand why you've rejected the idea of a smaller but dedicated 'HERMS pot' as the heat source.

It’s not ideal but I can’t see any harm in it - just make sure it’s fully fermented out of your bottle will explode. Ideally use plastic bottles. If it was going to just be a week I’d have said bung the starter in the fridge and then take it out on the morning of the brew day to let it warm up. 15 m...

Norgren and Micromatic are my personal favourites, but as Jocky indicates really any that are popularly used in licenced/professional beer cellars should be pretty decent - ODL, IMI Cornelius etc. … Sold on eBay or Aliexpress is always taking a risk. But "made in China" or some other far east count...

Or even one of the old Coca Cola/Britvic gas management boards that pops up periodically on eBay

What brand is it? If it’s one of the ones from China/HK sold on eBay or Aliexpress then the only good things I’ve heard about any of that stuff is that it is cheap. While the more known brands are expensive (more so for single reg with multiple secondaries), they are usually made for heavy duty pub/...

The Thermapen is awesome. Fast, accurate. But I will say that I don't think that basic version is well designed for brewing. If you dip any part of the pivoting hinge in liquid, the contacts inside will corrode and you'll find it won't turn on when opened. The pro version is much better in this rega...

Exactly. It's an excellent last step sanitiser, where most of what it's going to combat in significant population is lactobacillus from grain dust in the air of the brewery. Anything that is going to ruin your beer (mold/wild yeast) will have needed much longer than a brew day to grow a significant ...