Jim's Beer Kit

10% chocolate malt seems quite a lot, 5% would be more usual for a stout (I've never had the beer though).

Some people don't like the additional flavour torrefied wheat brings and it's often in there for head retention. I never have a problem with head retention on my beers so I don't bother with it, but I sometimes throw a few oats into the mash tun if I I want a particularly good head. Tbh, I've never ...

I'm about to decant a beer into a Polypin and a mini cask for the first time. I usually follow the standard conditioning process of waiting until fermentation has completely finished, mixing the conditioning sugar in a bottling bucket, bottling and then leaving it to condition for another week or tw...

I'm not too optimistic, but asking never hurts: One of my absolute favourites is O'Hara's Irish Red. Have any of you a good idea about the recipe? O'Hara's pretty tight-lipped, and I've never come any closer than what they let out about it on their site. Only thing I've heard outside of that is tha...

I'd do it with no water in as there's no chance for the gas to be absorbed into anything and you won't really be using any more of your CO2.

There's no leak elsewhere on the barrel is there? One your other one is empty you could swap caps and make sure it is an issue with something in the first cap.

I didn't think of looking on eBay. Was just searching on the usual home-brewing webshops.

Do they deflate properly or do you need to be careful not to pull air back through the tap? I've only ever used the thin plastic bag ones before.

6g in 2 galons of beer should be plenty, even if it is 4 years out of date. Did you hydrate the yeast first?

Ah, brilliant Tom. No I haven't heard back from the kit makers yet but that confirms my suspicion that the bag is a sweetening agent. . Thanks for that, it's cleared things up and I think I won't add it at all. Cheers Steve Or, given it is made from grape juice and us therefore fermentable you coul...

How big is the bag? If it's added post fermentation it must contain the potassium sorbate to kill the yeast wouldn't it?

I'm looking for a good quality polypin, and I'm finding it hard to tell which ones are decent as most of the pictures are of them in boxes. Has anyone bought one recently that they can recommend? From what I've read in the various threads on this forum the good quality ones are like in the photo bel...

I assume the tinfoil was on the top of the starter, therefore meaning the substance can't be heavy.

I'd guess some dirt / dust either in the dme or blown into the wort at some point. Either that or you put your fag out in it and forgot.

Never seen it. Was it darker than the dme?

If we post enough guesses I'm sure we'll get there eventually.

Maybe this?

I used S04 quite a lot at one point, it was my default yeast. I found it to be pretty middle of the road at everything and quite forgiving unless you ran it really hot. I pretty much always fermented between 17-20 and it always turned out well. I suspect some recipes plumb for S04 because you don't ...