Jim's Beer Kit

Yes it will work fine. I do exactly this albeit with a smaller freezer. The only thing is that you're likely to get condensation forming in the freezer and you should have some mechanism to deal with it, even if that's just a couple of towels changed regularly.

When I had an immersion chiller I used to put the hops in immediately after switching the boiler off and starting the chiller. It used to take 40 minutes to chill to pitching temperature so that's how long the hops were in contact with the beer. Since I got a Grainfather I haven't made any beers tha...

Ah that's interesting. Perhaps the S-04 is closer to what you used in the 60's than I thought. I must admit that it's my normal yeast of choice for most ales that I brew unless I'm trying to replicate a commercial beer closely. Also interesting that the lager yeast came from Denmark. I wonder if it ...

Safale S-04 is said to be a Whitbread strain. Although Fermentis make no such claim it may be very close to the stuff you used in the 60's.

Was the yeast you got from Whitbread in liquid or dry form?

I've had exactly the same issues as you with hop pellets and the Grainfather. I ended up with a blocked pump at one point despite whirlpooling. I've started using a hop spider and that's cured the problem but it ends up full of sludge that's a pita to clean off the fine mesh. I know that my utilisat...

I use the Grainfather cleaner.

To dry the equipment I pour out the last of the water, put it upside down on the draining board for 10 minutes and then go over it with a tea towel

It depends. I think most of us would probably leave it to ferment out. However, if you really want to stop the fermentation you could cold crash and use gelatine or some other fining agent to get as much yeast out of the beer as possible. But you would have unfermented sugars and some residual yeast...

It's in plenty of recipes. Take a look at Graham Wheeler's books for some examples. I'll use it in a recipe if specified but haven't done any comparisons with and without to see what the differences might be.

It's not a particularly small batch. There's around 3.4kg of grain and 12 litres of mash water in there. It's supposed to be a 20 litre homage to Boddington's bitter at around 1037 og. In retrospect I probably should have used the smaller pipework as there was no circulation via the overflow pipe an...

It appeared very quickly after starting the recirculation.

The last few brews I've done with my Grainfather have produced a load of foam above the top plate. Usually this subsides during the mash but yesterday there was a huge amount that didn't go away. The beer itself appears unaffected. Does anyone else get this? What causes it? The only change I've made...

Yes, in beerxml format. Import is at the top on the front page, export in the menu at recipe level

Don't know about Perle but I had Goldings and Challenger on my allotment that grew way off the top of a 4m high frame. I'd say you might need 5 to 6m vertically. A friend of mine in the US tried training hops along horizontal twines but it didn't work. I built a frame out of wood supported by two A ...

I've got one too. I really like it. It's so much less faff than messing about with a wine thief and since I moved all my fermentation out to a chest freezer in a shed I'd be worried about something nasty getting in the FV whilst the lid is off out there. It is expensive but it just works and it take...

It may be that I'm insensitive to diacetyl but I've never noticed it in my beers, double dropped or not. I've drunk plenty of Brakspear's over the years too and never noticed it in their beers despite them using the technique. Others may have a different experience. Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using ...