Jim's Beer Kit

I'd leave it, but ensure the pot is uniformly supported from beneath to avoid any additional stress around the defect when load bearing that might start a crack.
Being an HLT only needs to be clean.

If it is warm and just a weep it will likely take up with just a few degrees drop in temperature, so don't let it get too cold.

No, I think it might be quite difficult to find bad water for brewing in this country, just really curious with your's likely being surface water from the moors that I'd guess to be soft but just don't know. Seeing your recipe to be the same as Dave Line's, but with Kgs in place of lbs just made me ...

That looks lovely, must brew one similar. I've been brewing lighter beers for too long of late to satisfy tastes of other family members, reading this has made me realise I must put that right.
Did you ever find what your water contains and have you treated it yet?

You can ease the pressure by gently displacing that band around the outside of the valve below the thread, you may need to only release a small quantity of gas. Moving the keg to somewhere slightly cooler will result in the beer absorbing more of the CO2 although the pressure might rise again as CO2...

Solubility of minerals is an interesting subject. I note that many UK brewers tend to use very high ion levels in their brewing liquor. I find that in many cases, high ionic levels have negative impacts on the finished beer. So keeping those levels at more modest levels should strongly be considere...

greenxpaddy wrote:
So I revert to my earlier response.

Agree, my experience too.

No refactometer and any good hydrometer has always got broken, so now my best is kept well out of reach for run of the mill brewing and I use a small cheap one that, as far as I'm concerned, is good enough. Initial mash runnings are measured for record purposes and doing this also serves a purpose o...

While not knowing how accurate various alkalinity test kits are, those I've used are good enough for my purposes and many times better than using figures supplied by the water company or even most historical test data. Last year, alkalinity here was frequently more than 300, but almost halved by thi...

I'll suggest it is due to your new system. Previously your mash would cool, leading to better conditions for the beta amylase. That converts complex sugar produced by the alpha amylase into fermentable sugar. Now you have a system that allows you some contol over the process, but used in a way that ...

Can't argue with 17.7 litre total liquor but I'd perhaps use just 6.5 litres to mash 2.65kg of malt. I'd anticipate 2.5 litres of liquor to be lost in the mash tun and to get 11 litres out of your stockpot you'd need to start with about 15. So, 6.5l water at 82C+ into mash tun, stirred until it drop...

Glad to read all went well. So many questions, ah yes, great isn't it? 1. My salts get mixed into the grist and stirred well in the mash and often some gypsum is added to the boil. 2. A water report is often the only source of information. You decide how deeply you get involved once you've made a pi...

It looks cold. Brrrr.

The difference between theory and practice, you need only enough calcium, nothing else.
Your question puts this brewing lark into perspective.
Err on the safe side with CRS and do a test after treatment, allowing time for the reaction. Again you don't have to get it spot on.

I'd say it is likely the yeast, did you measure the FG? By comparison, Nottingham would during primary ferment much more of the sugars. As a result, you will get more CO2 produced during secondary. I only occasionally bottle and then only after a couple of weeks in secondary and I can vent my kegs a...