Jim's Beer Kit

In fairness, I guess if a very large proportion of the bill is rauch, then it would mean the 50 EBC would be reached without as much dark crystal or special B as I suggested above. The proportion of Rauch is about the only other known quantity! Paul of A&H confirmed that is 30%. However, the Weyerm...

I am dipping my toe in the realms of recipe construction from scratch for the first time and would like to try to make something similar to Anspach and Hobday "The smoked brown". I have never used Special B and suspect it can be overpowering but also is critical to the balance of this beer commercia...

Hi There, Has anybody made a suitable stand for their counter flow chiller, I know that it is designed to sit on the top of the glass lid but I like to have the lid removed when transferring the wort into the fermenting vessel. Hi, Although there would be many relatively easy ways of standing the c...

Thanks for all the replies. My plan is to use Sainsbury's sparkling water bottles and I think they're green so should be okay as I'm not planning to store them for too long. I'm syphoning most of my ginger beer into a pressure barrel but want to also fill a few bottles so give away to family over C...

No problem extending the brewday at all for increased quality but some of the variations I have tried so far haven’t noticeably improved the final beer despite prolonged brew days. My 2 brews so far with pellets have both been less satisfactory in different ways than whole hops, the latter seem to m...

First time I have used all pellets for a brew in my Grainfather. 250g of low AA Saaz pellets. The wort was incredibly cloudy, I have never seen anything when using an immersion chiller, as I guess that the pellet sediment drops out as part of the cold break, which doesn't happen with a counterflow ...

The MM sets the gold standard and their standard crush is apparently optimal for the grainfather, when I discussed it with them.

So sorry it’s not sorted yet. My Grainfather brews have been fine, was no stuck mash yet. Crushed Molt from The Malt Miller, The home brew shop.co.uk and Worcester Hop Shop have all been fine, if you have any more of the old malt, perhaps give it to the birds and get some from one of the reliable su...

The commercial potential is interesting, but my motivation is that I have yet to find a palatable low ABV commercial beer and whilst loving my new hobby, with retirement quite imminent, Adrian Chiles' recent "drinkers like me" documentary focused my mind on exploring the possibility of brewing great...

Many thanks Eric, Food for thought indeed. If I pick my favourite / available hops what sort of IBU should I aim for, the lower gravity beers / milds often seem to be relatively lightly hopped too? Also, I've never used lactose at all and not come across it being used at the stage of serving the pin...

.........Recently I brewed a low alcohol beer which on its 6th day was directly casked into a plastic pin. Eight days later it was tapped and the first pint drawn. Each night after the last was poured a hard spile was hammered home. Seven days later the beer was better so on the tenth was offered t...

You probably know this, but as no one's mentioned it yet; if you inject a long burst of gas in one go into those valves you can get ice crystals forming inside which can cause leakage. Just a thought. I certainly hadn’t come across that tip Jim, very useful and logical, I will try my King keg again...

This might help, copied from my previous reply in sparge water volume thread: I Initially found that the suggested mash and sparge volumes from the Grainfather app made a very thick consistency grain bed that was difficult to stir and tip the malt additions out single-handedly. I had read elsewhere ...

Rehydrate the Windsor as soon as you've mashed in. Take a small amount of early runnings and dilute down to about 1020 with sparge liquor with a little nutrient if you have some. Boil vigorously in a pan on the hob for 20 minutes, then chill and add to the yeast. By the time you want to pitch, the ...

I found the online GF recipe creator, came up with the amounts, I'll post what I came up with might be useful for other grain father users in the future Can’t quite remember where I picked up the tip, didn’t invent it but it has helped enormously. I add 2 L to the mash water and subtract it from th...