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Working out extract/efficiency is quite easy. Everybody seems to love software and calculators, but if you know the litre degrees (all malt has a spec sheet) just do it the pen and paper way because it is really quick and easy and the more you do it the faster you can visually gauge and assess a...

That is all that matters man. Don't put your stuff into competition if you don't like the system. Objective judging is very hard without objective measures against which to judge beers against. If I'm asked to assess something using my palette I'm supposed to use it as a professional sensory...

I don't use the word craft. People are either unhappy they are called it or unhappy they aren't called it. Now the marketing departments have hold it has ceased to hold any meaning. What did it ever mean and what defined it anyway? People doing things the hard way with less money and equipment...

I too would ditch the carapils. It has a minor purpose to bring up the FG and promote head retention (debatable), but the method by which is brings up FG doesn't exactly taste of anything and extract usually finishes high anyway. You might want to play with it though for the sake of a steeping...

I would love to push the beer out of the fermenter in a closed system, but it'd mean changes for what I perceive to be negligible benefit. I usually put a few pints of sanitiser into the keg after cleaning and push it out with co2. I open the keg to siphon beer in, but generally hope that the...

Hard one. I am for 150-200 chloride and 50 sulphate. The rest of the treatment depends on your RA and grist. Ours is around 160ppm out of the tap and we come in slightly high still with up to about 30% darker malts. We have used 200 CaCl and 100 CaSO in the hope that extra calcium brings us down...

I know you have a list of things you want to do, but food for thought/for me. Fill your HLT with hot water so the heat up time is very low or put your HLT on a timer, or better a PID controller so you can set and forget it until ready to mash. Why do you want to do stepped mashes? They...

I've a chest freezer and managed to get the power for the heater and thermocouple through a drain plug in the bottom. It isn't like the constant drain in a fridge, more like a rubber plug to a pipe routed through for draining it if you defrosted it. If I couldn't I'd have drilled it, turning it...

Fair point. For accuracy when I say head space I should actually say surface area for beer/gas interface. Quarter and half barrel kegs have a slightly convex top like corny kegs. When they are almost completely full the interface area is tiny compared to when they have lost 500ml and if we have...

We've quite a lot of different hydrometers which have quite narrow range (0-5, 0-10, 10-20. 20-30 and so on) the lower range occasionally proved useful when trying to make better guesses at/and or verify concentration of various known substances which have different densities. Have used that to...

Oh my bad. I thought that it measured density relative to distilled water as in 1.1 was 1.1x the density of distilled water and so on. I now know to not try and use it to try and be smart to work out how much of something else like caustic is in solution or assume things about molar weight!

It isn't the same as leaving the pressure on at the correct level until the beer is both conditioned and carbonated, but honestly if you can rack a beer into a corny (beer cold crashed to 1C so pretty frosty) and put head pressure onto it, gently put it onto its side so the head space becomes...

Yeah this is prime blending territory. Assertive, bold, bright and forward sour character doesn't really develop from long term ageing with brett unless it was already present. Long term ageing with the wrong beer in less than optimal conditions highlight flabby, oxidised malt forward flavour...

While there are loads of other aspects to look at here first off either vent and reseal (if possible), dump or if you've been opening them warm and it isn't *THAT* bad chill those bottles to both slow further fermentation and help with the pours. Specific gravity is a measure of relative...

The pressures discussed here seem really weird. I'm not saying they are wrong, if they work then great, but maybe regulator accuracy isn't great or sample method/dispense is still being fine tuned? In a pinch we'll force carb kegs with top pressure in 40 hours at 22psi at cellar temperature...

Also wanted to say as if I've not vomited enough words that while I believe more can be extracted from a dry hop after 3 days it isn't much and not all of it is very nice, especially if you dry hop warm. I've done A - B test batches with 1, 2, 3 and 5 days on dry hop and while there is a...

It'd be cool to hear what it is like. Windsor doesn't ferment maltotriose, nottingham does. You should have gotten some of the character of the windsor, but not the high final gravity, body and subsequent poor attenuation due to the presence of maltotriose.

Our system takes at least 8 hours to bring a vessel down to 4C from 18-23C. We go straight to 4C unless there are extenuating circumstances such as trying to slow a fermentation, extend a fermentation/keep product in a tank because something is delaying the normal pipeline or complex dry...

Yes. Experience and enough prior data makes it unnecessary perhaps, but we force ferment all beer as routine anyway. It is important for showing due diligence for abv and associated duty/tax as well as certain other quality standard accreditation. For existing product this is usually a sample...

What is the question again? Ok. We chill as cold as the system allows =<2 points off of FG to drop the yeast and dry hop and slow/halt fermentation. Next day we transfer to conditioning tank which is held at 4C. Next day we rack into cask. 2 points is more than enough to condition a cask beer...