Jim's Beer Kit

A great advantage of bottle conditioning is the avoidance of oxidation as yeast consumes all oxygen before changing sugars to alcohol and CO2. Perhaps in theory, but in practice I've had plenty of beers that were both bottle conditioned but also oxidised. I'm sure quite a few were exposed before bo...

Thanks. This was, I think, my second ever brew so there were (and still are!) doubtless faults in my process. What's actually happening in the bottle that smooths out those faults though? Primarily I believe it's oxidation. Oxidation can be a bad thing or a good thing, depending upon what flavours ...

You’ve got enough calcium for the mash and have adjusted alkalinity.

The only other bit you want to adjust would be sulphate and chloride (optionally magnesium and sodium too, but less important), and personally I put those straight in the boiler.

I was speaking to BrewUK today. I was told there is no shortage of malt. In fact, as the big breweries cut back on production because pubs are selling less they expect there to be a glut of malt and prices will drop. This seems to be confirmed by the Malt Miller. It sounds like they ran out of Mari...

Like Kev has said, get the beer carbonated first, then you can unhook it from gas for storage. Personally I can’t leave my gas connected the whole time (yet) so I initially give the beer 35 psi (at 5c), top up again a day later, then just top it up if it drops below the final serving pressure until ...

Once it’s carbonated then you can just remove the gas and store it. It’s sealed so the gas is going nowhere. In fact I’d recommend taking it off the gas when not carbonating or serving as a slow leak can empty your CO2 bottle. Before you serve you’ll need to get the keg back down to your carbonation...

Isn’t Dettol mould remover just bleach in a spray bottle?

This stuff you don’t need to worry about with stainless steel, and is intended as a CIP cleaner: https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/product ... eaner-1kg/

I’ve got a beer fermenting in one I’ve had since 2010 right now. At various times it’s held grain, sanitiser and I’ve had to bail my mash out into it at least once. Before use it got soaked in iodophor. After it will get washed with PBW and a sponge. If you don’t skimp on cleaning and sanitisers and...

Just looking at the thread title, I was reminded of the old adage that when selecting a product you can only optimise two of: 1. Fast. 2. Good. 3. Cheap In this case I would perhaps change that to: 1. Quick/low effort to use 2. Effective at sanitising 3. Cheap. Bleach has the disadvantage that it's ...

Once a batch of sterilising water has been made up am I right in thinking that you can refuse the sterilising water a number of times or do you make fresh each time you have a brewing session? Just wondering as it's this to save water and steriliser if possible. You're not talking about massive amo...

I’ve seen this share around a LOT so I suspect they have a lot of offers.

Like mine, your water is pretty typical for SE England. It’s hard, but fairly low in everything else that you might want to change for brewing. A brita filter might remove chlorine/chloramine and make it more pleasant to drink, but it won’t reduce the level of hardness in your water that causes scal...

Sounds like an overdose. The fining in Isinglass is collagen (same as gelatin), which can be used as a thickener at a moderate dose or make jelly at a higher dose.

I think its fining properties will have been reduced, but probably not entirely removed.

You can’t be certain of anything, so without knowing what was brewed and how I wouldn’t want to say there’s no chance of anything going wrong... ... but being alcoholic they’re probably fine. Age may have taken its toll on the quality, but given the chance I’d probably take them to my homebrew club ...