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Hi all, I'm planning on making the 'jump' from stove to a propane burner. My issue is that in the UK we don't seem to have a "go to" burner that you can just order off Amazon so I was hoping for some advice. Basically I only do 5 gallon batches in a steel pot, but I honestly have no idea...

Hi all. :) Trying to come up with a drink that I can give to my non-beer-drinking friends (sadly, most of them) and was wondering if someone can give this a once-over since I'm still quite new to forming my own recipes? I'm going for something that's fairly sweet and fruity that hopefully will...

Hi all :) I'm a beginner with mostly JAOMs under my belt, and am trying to make a 1 gallon vanilla-based mead on a budget: That is to say I'm interested to see if I can start with a cheap, no-thrills but drinkable recipe which I can refine in the future. I'm not experienced at mead so I'm not...

At the risk of being that overly worried beginner... Does anyone think this looks like a normal amount of lees for a JAOM that's less than a month old? I guess the curved-style base exaggerates it a bit, but still seems like quite a lot. I guess adding some extra nutrient, aerating well and...

Hi, I've just back-sweetened one of my first batches of mead with a fair amount of honey (about 300g in a 1 gal batch) and topped up with some orange-juice (it's a JAOM wine-yeast variant). Not surprisingly, my previously crystal-clear mead is now pretty much opaque again from all that...

I'm guessing this is a stupid question, but I've heard about egg whites being used to clear wines (albumen is positively charged or something like that) does anyone still do this and does it apply to meads? Just asking for no better reason than I have eggs hanging around, whereas I'd need to...

Just racked my first ever mead to secondary. I guess it's recommended to do a show mead first but I thought: Strawberries are in season and if I'm ageing it for up to a year I might as well go the whole hog and try a melomel! The general recommendation seemed to be 1.5 kilograms of strawberries...

Hey, Sorry if this doesn't technically belong in the beer part of the forum. I've read you shouldn't make a beer starter from refined sugar, and assume this is to do with not wanting yeast to skip more complex sugars like maltose during fermentation. Would a starter made up of sugar and nutrient...

Hey all, I'm planning on trying out experimental 1 gal batches (from extract if it makes a difference). Should I do a 3 litre boil and top up in the same proportions as a 5gal batch? Presumably boiling the full gallon messes up the amount of bittering/taste you get from the hops in a recipe...

Hi, I'm sorry; I know that you will have been asked this a thousand times before but most of the posts I came across involved no-rinse sanitisers (starsan, iodophor and the like) so just wanted some advice before I revert to a RDWHAHB state. Being the foolish noob that I am, I accidentally...

Hey, I'll just emphasise this isn't me worrying and needing to RDWHAHB: Most of my beer is in glass. I'm just curious is all! I've just noticed that after placing carbonated plastic bottles (which go rock solid from the pressure) in the fridge they seem to become a bit less turgid. Has...

Hey all, I've just done my first 'just add 1kg/2lb sugar and boiled water' beginner kit and for my next batch I'd like to have a go at actually brewing a recipe using malt extract. Lacking experience I thought I'd do it by the book, Palmer's book to be exact, and do the American Pale Ale he...

Hi, The title says most of it. I was basically thinking of doing a gallon of mead and thought it might be an idea to get the bulk of primary fermentation done in my 5 gallon bucket (therefore not having to worry about a blow-off tube etc.) before racking to secondary in a more appropriately...

Hey guys, I've heard various reports about people happily drinking beers decades after bottling and the general advice on this forum seems to be to let beers age for months before even drinking, yet the advice with my beginners 'British pub-style bitter' kit is that shelf life is 2-3 months. I...

Hello all! Firstly I would like to say what a brilliant forum seems to be. I'm an absolute novice halfway through his first ever primary fermentation, but have already learnt a great deal from reading posts on this site among a few others. :) I've tried to research this but I've struggled to...