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A few weeks ago it tasted very good but very sweet, just as i'd expect for a half-attenuated beer. A couple of nights ago it tasted a little sour, but that could have been a mouthful of yeast or steriliser (only sampled half a mouthful!) so I'll take a proper sample this weekend and report...

Hm I'm pretty confident in my thermometer and hydrometer, I've brewed since and everything worked perfectly. If the hydro reads 1.000 in water I find it hard to believe it is incorrect reading 1.040 in the beer (especially when it tastes sweet). I stirred the mash thoroughly three times through...

How can my brew be stuck at 1.040?! I did the popular Rochforte 8 clone I found on this site. I overshot on the OG, it came in at 86. The WLP540 took off like a rocket (decanted 3.5 litre starter into 5.4 gallons of wort) and brought it down to 1.040 in less than a week. Since then it...

I use one of these with the filter removed: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fish-Tank-Aquarium-Mini-Submerse-Water-Pump-Filter-New-/380367226363?pt=UK_HomeGarden_Garden_PondsWaterFeatures_UK&hash=item588fa745fb#ht_3149wt_1061 Works a treat up to 70C Take the water up to 100C and you're into...

'Homebrew taste' usually comes from unhealthy fermentation, so you should check you are using the proper amount of healthy yeast (look into starters) and ferment at the correct temperature. These will be much more effective ways of improving your brew than the storage method

95% of the time only beer...but reading this thread on Monday inspired me so I ordered some new bugs and made my first brie wheels last night, fingers crossed they come out edible!

The simple answer is that both of your options would probably work. The Coopers Ale Yeast might be a more appropriate strain for the barley wine than Nottingham - taste the porter when you bottle it, if you like it then go with the yeast cake!

Just brewing up a hefe with WLP380. I've crash chilled the starter overnight and there's a nice band of yeast at the bottom. However, the liquid on top is still cloudy...like a hefe. I would normally decant this, however, given that the final product of this style of beer is supposed to...

This is probably the best beer!! I finished it a couple of months ago and I miss it, until now I've never made the same beer twice, but this is going to be the first recipe that I repeat, line for line as soon as I get those ingredients again. Well done and thank you Damdaman!

I don't have much experience with sour beers, but I tried this for the first time a couple of weeks ago and it blew me away! Can't help with availability across the pond though...

The gas-in posts on my cornies have roughly 5cm dip tubes into the keg. I fill my kegs up to just below the bottom of these so I don't get beer sucked back into the lines. Is there any reason why I can't saw these dip tubes off flush with the post so I can fit an extra litre or two of beer in...

I'm a bit unsure about the hop schedule for this one because I haven't done hop burst before. I want the beer around 35 IBUs, and I've calculated it as follows (see picture). I use an immersion chiller which takes 15 minutes to get from boiling to pitch temperature, so do those 10 IBUs from...

Haha yes I do exactly that, I love it when laziness makes perfect logic sense!

"Kit & kilo" brewing. Yeah it's extract brewing, but 'extract' tends to cover a whole range of techniques of which this is the simplest!

Sure, though you have to take all the rules with a pinch of salt - if I'm running a big grain bill and fly sparging, I'm sure I gain efficiency by shorting the mash ratio so I'm not left with only half a gallon to sparge with!

Thanks for the correction, my brain struggles to think outside of metric! Are we talking about fly sparging here? I find i get slightly better efficiency if I calculate how much sparge water to use, run it all through and get the correct volume. However, sometimes when I use too much I have to...

If you don't want to drop any efficiency points, then yes you're limited. If you don't mind dropping 5% on the efficiency, just squeeze down to 1.2 quarts/kg and unequal volumes. That's what I do (sounds like I have similar kit to you) and then I'm limited by the mash tun around 14lb. Beyond...

Ah thanks jgourd, that's exactly what I wanted to hear!

Hm I thought that malt extract was prone to foaming but hop oils reduce the foam stability so it doesn't foam up as much. That seems to agree with my experience (I now hop my starters so save cleaning the stove!) Unfortunately my boiler only does on/off so it's vigorous or nothing! The spray...

Hey guys, I’m planning a brew for the weekend that needs a massive hop aroma but not many IBUs (probably 30-35ish). I’ve decided this seems like a good chance to try out hop bursting, so I’ll get all IBUs from additions from 20-0 minutes. Question is, I know from experience of making DME...