Jim's Beer Kit

Dishwashers aren’t hot enough or powerful enough to get water past the neck to the inverted base and give cruddy bottles a real clean. I don’t understand why homebrewers still think they do an effective job at cleaning and sanitation. I think a big rinse and stored upside down after the bottle is po...

If you have wort flowing though the overflow its not flowing down through the grain. I do two things with my finer crush, adjust the flow with the valve on the side so that it’s just below the overflow, you still get a good flow through this. I chuck in washed rice hulls which create spaces for the ...

Chuck some washed rice hulls or oat husks to make sure it’s not your crush which is too fine. They are cheap and washed will have no impact on your beer. Those thermopots are great with deck drains in the middle, fiddly to install, I’ve done 3, but as others have said have a large space above the dr...

Water cannot fully get into base to remove real crud so soak and sanitise

I feel your pain but really think by the time your flush in and drain out with some kind of pump it would be be same hassle as just lifting them out. At least out you know you’ll be able to give them a thorough scutching.

In general terms you need your wort plus or minus 3 degrees to avoid thermal shock, you can get significant kill rates from stress and can throw off undesirable flavour profiles created in those first critical 48 hours. I have read about cold into warm wort being ok. I’m not convinced. You’ve spent ...

Best Beer in US apparently, I had it years ago and this is version 2 I'm having a go at for a US visitor. Cheers, I do lagers on 3 month profiles and typically have 2 permanently on the go, 1 is a beer & C keg conditioning fridge if I'm honest. But other 4 are controlled by brewpi, mybrewbotx2 and a...

I had that attitude in my early home brewing days filtering before FV, old hands on here taught me over the years that you don’t need a full protofloc or siphon from the top of the boiler or that an element of trub actually helps with fermentation. As you do more and more brews you’ll see what I mea...

As homebrewers we become obsessed with complete elimination of trub and requirement for crystal clear wort into our fermenters, time Temp and yeast will sort all that out.

Just use pellet hops far superior product, I remember the first and only time I tried to use leaf and a chugger it was like Augustus Gloop

Here’s another old pic I found for pellet, this was 750g in 75l batch using 80l thermopot Notice whirlpool arm too of pic blowing across the top of the deck drain. The drain was modded wth one inch of copper pipe rammed into it, saves using Hop dams etc. It’s amazing how much will settle after time,...

Loading in this one was150 I think. Big stir at flameout and let sit for 15. Notice the height above the filter and then it’s still draining but height falls below the filter. Never had a blocked pump. One other thing I do is orient the rubber cup inside the filter so that it’s collecting wort facin...

I can get a good rolling boil in an insulated pot using 2 x 2.7s

I gave up on leaf years ago for reasons of freshness and practicality in handling. I’ve done 400g NEIPA beers with pellets no problem, the pump keeps pumping. What I would suggest is that you do a big swirl, I use a drill and an old plastic stirrer at boil switch off and wait 10-15 mins for the real...

Time is best healer in the meantime
Run CO2 down beer out tube of the keg which will bubble from bottom.
And just keep burping it.