Jim's Beer Kit

I've been making kombucha for a while now and try to get it like Asd. Base liquid mixed well with fruit juice or hibiscus/ginger. Wilkinson's do a 6 litre beverage dispenser with a wide opening that make a good (easily cleanable) vessel. The tap is rubbish so bought a stainless steel alternative. Gr...

Left to bottle condition for a couple of weeks and its not too bad. Quite a basic bitter with a decent head (that disappears fast). I think I could have increased the hop addition by 25% and added some wheat for head retention but the batch will be finished off in short order. Might bring out the le...

The good fortune continued with the gravity down to 1.012 so a comfortable 5% ready to be conditioned. I should have been more confident with the hops and thrown more in at boil or a decent dry hop. Still it tastes surprisingly very good. Decided to bottle up the whole 20l batch so I can give a dece...

A friend mentioned they had a lot of hops on their doorstep so I popped round Saturday morning and got to foraging. There's no idea what type of hops they are but had some nice visible resin. Took home and put them in the greenhouse to dry out. The next day the top shelf of hops were pretty dry. Mad...

I use wild hops regularly, so I just guesstimate that they're going to be about 4% AA. It's not going to be far off. The hop tea will give you an idea. You won't ruin your beer, but if you like hoppy beers, then it could be less hoppy than you'd like. I don't like over-hopped beer, so it works fine...

That is a thing of beauty. Massive step up from a carbonation bottling cap and a leaky hoses.

Please say you have the door bells wired up to give a fanfare at every filled bottle.

I've done the Candy Kaiser (twice) and the honey and lemon blitz. Plus Brewdog released a book with Cloudwater's bergamot hopfen weisse. All were very good. Was tempted to try the raspberry blitz as January is coming and its 0.5%. However got a can of it in their advent calendar last week and its no...

Congratulations on making your wallet lighter, they really are things of beauty. Loving the decent sized locking wheels.

Lovely bit of walnut shelving and neon sign behind them and you'll have yourself an art installation.

Thankfully not. I was standing next to it and worked out it was leaking when my socks got damp. Think I lost about 2-3 litres in the end.

Cheers for that. I hadnt thought about back sweetening it. I'll try some decanting to see if its salvageable. I'll remember to use some fermentation stopper next time around before it gets too astringent.

Last year I attempted to make a batch of metheglin (with cinnamon and oranges). The ferment went well and transferred to a demi john. Racked later to another demi john and left well alone for a year. Opened it at the weekend to put into litre bottles and in tasting it I may have spent/wasted a year ...

New top tip for the conical as I put a batch on Saturday night. Do not (nail the process and have a very smooth brew session creating wonderfully clear wort) and then leave the tap on the conical open when transferring. It was filling nicely at 18c so I went for a beer, came back to a wet floor.

(As is always the way with brewing) I am still trying to refine my process. So far I haven't been able to cold crash below 10c possibly due to the house temperature being above 25c. The pump however seems to be pretty solid considering its size. I have a batch currently on the go and its holding nic...

I only bought my conical a few months ago so with the UK heat wave its mainly been cooling. You can set it to both operate the heater and cooling pump automatically to maintain the temperature. As the glycol price is pretty steep I've been sticking with ice bottles which i can rotate as necessary. I...

I have the grainfather conical. The main complaints from my other half has been over the airlock noise bubbling away at the start of the ferment. As the lid seals pretty securely all the gas is through the airlock. It does give off the usual yeastie smell but nothing too pungent. Surprisingly it is ...