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I have a water report for my local water source. But I'm aware there are seasonal variations around the median values that I use for brewing. It got me to thinking, does anyone test their actual brew water with something like I have linked. It would result in precise water corrections for every...

I also brew my Barleywine and Imperial Stout to target 12% abv. I constantly ran into carbonation inconsistencies and tried several different things including re-introducing CBC-1 yeast. Ultimately, forced carbonation and then bottling has provided me the best, consistent results. It’s lead to...

I bought a cheap pen type pH meter when I started brewing and am convinced it caused me to brew worse beers than if I didn’t own that piece of crap. It was so inaccurate. I now have a beautiful Milwaukee pH meter and it’s never more than 0.02 out when I recalibrate it. It is one of my most...

I want to get experience using whole fruit, so I’ll start with that. But thanks for the suggestion.

I recently spent a week in Belgium and ‘discovered’ fruit beers. So, inspired to have a go myself, here’s what I’m planning. I have several batches of Imperial Stout and Barley Wine aging away in keg. I’m going to grab a keg of each and split each beer into two batches of 9 litres. For the...

I’ve experimented with Melanoidin and Abbey in my Weissbier, and it definitely doesn’t work. I’ve had success at national level with the standard wheat/pilsner/munich recipe. I feel my secret ingredient is 5% Carahell that Weihenstephaner also uses.

My malt loads in my 65L BrewZilla vary from 5kg to 8kg depending on the beer I’m making. I ended up developing a sliding scale for my mill gaps from 1.0mm to 1.2mm as the malt load increases. Now I get identical recirculation and lautering and sparging performance from batch to batch independent...

Too much cloying/sweetness in the finish of big beers affects the drinkability of the beer as well as competition success, if you’re into that. I target a BU/GU of 0.65 for my Imperial Stouts. It took me a few years to dial in the balance, but recipe and water and FG play an equally significant...

Thanks guys for the input. I won a beer comp and subsequently got to brew 1200 litres of one of my beers at a brewery. One of the things I learned about on the day was glucoamylase that the pro used. So I’ve used it several times now in the mash. It’s pretty easy to use and control after a bit...

Using your example, if I make a wort with more complex sugar, I agree it will be less fermentable and the FG will finish higher, so the beer will taste different. What I’m saying is I can make 3 different worts that finish at identical FG. I can use a higher mash temp for more complex sugar...

When I make beer, I always target an FG for the style. The tools I use are mash temperature, sugars and enzymes/glucoamylase to achieve the desired FG. Let’s pick an FG of 1.015 for example. I can mash at a higher temperature and include some sugar in the recipe. Or, I can mash at a higher...

That is very cool.

Poor Galaxy is copping a flogging. I might leave it out this time around and try a Citra/Mosaic/Eclipse blend.

Amarillo and Cascade I’ve used in a IIPA before. This Red IPA has won a few comps with Simcoe, Citra, Chinook and Columbus used at various stages through the brew. It’s a nice beer with that combination. Just looking to change things around for a bit of variety. Not sure if I’ll throw any Galaxy...

No, I’ve long since moved on from bottle priming with these beers because of very poor results. It would be impossible in my opinion to carbonate a 17% beer that way. I force carbonate every beer I make these days for a much more consistent result. I built a bottling station with a vacuum pump...

Yes I started the Barley Wine with my usual Wyeast 1028/1098 blend. Five days into fermentation, at around 1.040 I pitched the active starter of WLP099 into the fermenter and it took over from there.

I’ve got a Red IPA that I’m looking at changing the hops in the recipe. My choices are - Galaxy, Eclipse, Citra and Mosaic. I’ve won all these in comps and have so much I need to start getting rid of them. So I’m not worried about how much we use. I usually whirlpool and dry hop at the end of...

It turned out so well. The Barley Wine finished at 17.0% abv, and the Imperial Stout I brewed subsequently finished at 17.5% abv. Both spent just over one year in used whiskey barrels. They are both very complex beers with so much going on. I’ve opened several bottles with experienced beer...

I started out with dry yeast because it was simple and available. I make a lot of yeast driven Belgians and wheat beers, and I could see the improvement when I went to liquid yeast with those. I’ve been blending liquid yeast strains for a while now and really like the results. My old dry yeast...

I completely forgot about that idea. Thanks, I’ll give that a try and have another go at commando dry hopping.