Recent content by jpoc

The barrel only has a facility for a single airlock. I have been using four of these for two years now, pretty well all busy all the time and this is the first time that I have had this problem. I bottled the beer today and the beer itself looked OK, I will know more in a few weeks.

I started a brew a few weeks ago. I used a commercial extract in a tin (Coopers Aussie Lager) and a #62 Czech Pilsner enhancer and some 1118 yeast and low carb enzyme. I have made this recipe many many times with no problems. This time, when the fermentation started, the brew foamed up and...

I use glabels. It is not fancy but I can set it up to print 30 labels on an a4 sheet. I only use the labels to id the bottles and not to impress and it is good enough for that.

I buy a purple powder cleaning compound from my local hbs. I clean my buckets and barrels by putting a couple of teaspoons of the powder in, filling with hot water and leaving overnight. That seems to clean everything away.

There are a few things that I do not like about my local shops so I will offer those to you as things to avoid: 1) Scuffed, dusty wine kits. If it looks as though it has been lost in the store room for two years, I do not want it. Rotate the stock, keep it fresh, keep it looking fresh and be...

What vessel were you using for the primary? I use 30 litre vessels for my 23 litre (6 US gal) primaries and however strong the fermentation, there never seems to be any risk of the airlocks not coping.

I have been making wine from kits for a little over a year. I have tried almost a dozen commercial grape juice concentrate kits. The best so far, without a doubt, was a Heron Bay Chilean CabSav/Merlot kit. I have made up two of these, one is almost gone and I still have a dozen bottles left...

But how would you push out of a fermentation bucket or barrel?

The level of suction in the carboy is equivalent to the force on it created by filling it with liquid - in the other direction. If a carboy was liable to fracture under those circumstances then it would also be likely to shatter when you filled it up. Besides, others have used a similar...

Yeah, but the tube that I suck on is only ever carrying water from the carboy that is generating the suction, it is never in contact with the brew.

I spent some time over Christmas looking at my leg, the stitches came out a few weeks back. I really did not want to have to lift another full carboy off the floor. You can picture the scene, slip, drop, smash, glass flies everywhere, look down at leg - Oooh, I can see the bone at the bottom of...

Thanks guys, I just needed patience. Even a couple of days made a big difference.

My first batch was from a kit that came as part of a home brew starter pack. The kit was Mangrove Jacks Munich Lager and I made it with the enhancer pack that also came in the starter kit. I now sit at my desk with a bottle and a glass so here goes! The bottle opens with a small fizz...

Thanks for the encouragement, the bits settled out by themselves the same day though I could see enough through the bottle to tell that it was a little cloudy. By this morning, it had spent 2 weeks in the bottles so I put some in the fridge and went shopping. Now, I am home and the...

Hi, my first two batches of beer are now in their bottles. Batch one was bottled 11 days ago, the second batch was bottled 7 days ago. Yesterday, both were looking good. They are in brown plastic bottles that I got from my local shop and I could look through the bottles and both were crystal...