Jim's Beer Kit

Just ordered in some supplies from here:

http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/

It is worth having a look around for the best offers, I usually get my sacks of pale from Worcester hop shop since that's the cheapest I can find anywhere.

Jambo wrote:Stupid question time... people say you shouldn't suck on a syphon to get it going... How else can you do it!?

Cheers

Auto syphon or you could use a turkey baster. I use taps on the bottom of my FV's make life a lot easier.

The Dribbler wrote:The lids use a odd thread and are unobtainable.

I have some of these Boot's barrels (later model) but I can use my kingkeg lid on them with no problems. Try using Vaseline around the threads to see if that helps.

That was my point. The stuff in the tap isn't getting boiled. Your opening the tap after the boil. Even with no chill its still gone off the boil. You could open it up when it's on the boil and pass some through before returning it back to the boiler, but I must say that I've never had a problem wi...

Dave S wrote:I used the original tap that came with my boiler, then switched to a ball valve. I take no special precautions and have had no issues with sanitation.

Same here, if you are boiling something for a prolonged period it's going to kill anything that may be lurking in the tap anyway.

Pushing up mash temp works for me. I usually do mine at around 68oC and make them around 6 - 6.5%, even using SO5 I still get a nice balance between maltyness and hoppiness. I'm not the biggest fan of putting darker malts in IPA's I think they should stand alone with pale.

by sight, I know roughly where I want the final volume to be in the boiler and aim for that.

You'll get the same amount of wort but will lose some efficiency.

Cheers, and no I left some space, and why closer to wine then cider I don't understand, this was a TC recipe I just added that fruit syrup, oh we'll see how it goes over the next day or so thanks Just the amount of sugar you added taken with the sugar from the syrup and the apple juice will leave y...

You'll probably have something closer to wine strengh than cider, it'll probably take off in the next 24 hours, if you filled this up to the top of the Demijohn then split it into two fairly soonish otherwise you are likely to get the stuff spewing out of the top fairly soon.

critch wrote:

TC2642 wrote:Challenger is the best all round flavour for both bittering and aroma IMO

ive only ever used it for bittering, ill give that a go!

I think you'll like it, I mainly use new world hops but if there's enough quantity you can get some really nice flavours.

White sugar all bulk primed in my bottling bucket.

Fair enough, I wouldn't want to chance it.

I usually go by when the airlock stops bubbling

Challenger is the best all round flavour for both bittering and aroma IMO

once the beer has alcohol I have never been able to use the refractometer successfully even with fancy algorithms, for refactometer is only used before yeast pitching and fermenter, they are handy but a hydrometer is just as handy and pre-fermenter the wort gets chucked back in as the later boil so...