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Ah well I take it all back then :P knowing me I'd be adding an extra percent to the oatmeal and flaked barley as I do love a creamy texture ;)

Calcium 67 (good) Magnesium 15 (good) Sodium 14 (low) pH 7.33 (standard) It gives two different values of calcium (67.1, 93.7) which I'm not familiar with, it'll be handy to check because if its 93.7 then it means you can focus your salts on upping the sodium content using sodium chloride. The...

The main challenge is usually maintaining a consistent temperature throughout the mash but with a single infusion that shouldn't be a problem. You could also drill similar holes along the outside of the pie dish for drainage. Back to the water chemistry, a level of 93 ppm of calcium indicates...

Wow thats a lot of malt, my initial reaction would be to exchange the black malt for more roasted barley as black malt is known to have a harsher taste, it might better to file it down to 0.5lb as well as roasted malts have such a pronounced flavour that 3.8% should be more than enough. You...

Altogether theres... Calcium (50-250 ppm) Bicaronates Sulphate Chloride (max 100 ppm) Sodium (70 - 150 ppm) Calcium and bicardonate are most important, calcium simply because its the backbone of the beer so to speak, 93 mg is a great amount, not too much, not too little. As you add certain...

Theres quite to bit to read on multi-rests just because of what different temperatures promotes in terms of various enzymes but most importantly theres 5 rests. 40c - Liquefying (?) rest (beta-glucanase and limit-dextrinase enzymes) 58c - Protein rest (peptidase and proteinase) 60c - Beta rest...

With a 65% base the only thing you'll have to keep in mind is that it will probably take a while longer to convert all the starch. One might argue to use either Caramunich or biscuit malt as with too many flavours they become muddled but I could be completely wrong there. Perhaps change...

If you ever feel your fermenting beer taste too bitter then thing one you can do is add chloride and sodium using sea salt as this will accentuate the sweetness of the beer along with the body and maltiness. Of course this will depend on your water chemistry as it is usually advocated that...

What you would do is pitch the smack pack into the starter wort, wait about 24 hours (maybe more, maybe less), cold crash, decant, cook up another starter and then simply add that on top of the yeast at room temperature. To be honest when doing a step up you probably don't need to cold crash...

As the enzymes and sugars have more water/space to operate in once they leave the grain. Research (thats findable on wiki) has shown that a thinner mash (of say 5 litres per kilogram) improves efficiency, although you'll have to balance that out with the fly sparge water in order to find that...

Oh cool you're based in the UK as well then, if you live in London then you can find everything you need to know about your water chemistry on the Thames Water website. You can expect it to be medium-hard with 200-300 bicarbonates means its better suited for darker beers, you can use the Total...

I agree with RM in that we've just gone the expensive route by implementing a mash kettle but that was always my incentive, to think in the long term and get all the best equipment even though it means spending quite a bit more. Which is why I have a single vessel HERMs systems to perform...

Well I suppose the idea of a step up is that you can't fit the advocated volume of water+DME into the designated vessel and therefore have to do it in steps, so it would be the same approach of cold crashing, decanting, warming and then adding the next starter wort. If you do have extra space...

Well this is an example of a not-so-good one made at home, I don't actually know what homebrew websites do custom false bottoms although I'm sure there are many you could order from with a bit of online searching. Depending on the diameter of your mash kettle a custom cut one - although...

The thing about honey is thats its hard to predict how much of it will ferment and how much won't which means you'll get varied results from batch to batch. I personally haven't used it but that's something I read from John Palmer. As far as I know, honey flavours can only be replicated in...

24 hours is whats advocated by those who work at Wyeast, you should be able to find an instructional video on youtube, that's where I found out. After that its best to place the container in the fridge (or in my case, a cool box filled with ice packs) to settle the yeast over night before...

If you're using a kettle for a mash tun then a false bottom is essential and ideal for fly sparging, with this set-up you'll be hitting 80% efficiency although you might need to get a boiler jacket for insulation and wrap it to the outside using some bungees. Depending on the diameter of the...

Not for a decent price, there are those half-sized cornelius kegs but they cost pretty much the same as a 5 gallon one. You could search for an Easy Keg, they hold 5 litres and should cost about $10 from a homebrew store or $13 on eBay, they're highly rated.

I had the same in my last brew where my efficiency translated as 85% seeing I hadn't converted all my starch to sugar. As it is insoluble I imagine thats were the extra 5% came from, that and the hop resin I transported into the fermenter by squeezing all the wort out of the hops. After you...

I didn't convert all the starch to sugar, I did an iodine test and it came out blue (still does) so amylase seemed like the best/only option. I'm just trying to think of ways to counter the dryness, like adding caramelised sugars by steeping a darker malt and then adding that to the...