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I will definitely make some time to read up on this more carefully!

Noticed as well today that carbonation across the bottles is inconsistent. The one I just sunk had basically zero head and very little fizz. I wonder if this one was close to being spoilt but just about survived. I racked my beer onto the sugar solution in my bottling bucket so I believe...

One more question that sprung to mind... as I understand it, you create the starter at normal fermentation temperatures e.g. around 20c. Do you pitch the starter when its at high krausen, or after? If it's after, doesn't the yeast settle to the bottom and therefore need 'swirling up' before you...

One of the bails is very slightly less tense than the others, but still quite tight. I'm going to swap a few seals around, and give everything a good scrub in oxy before the star san next time.

Where could this come from? The hops? I am very very careful on sanitation throughout so I doubt it could come from equipment or mishandling. This was my first thought, but the gaskets are quite new and compress nicely. In fact, some of those bottles have only been used once. I've stupidly...

Thanks everyone for the advice, appreciate it. I'll order some DME and a couple of flasks and see how I get on.

A first for me, I've had a couple of oxidised bottles in a batch. They don't seem to be related in terms of first/last bottles in the batch. I use swing-top bottles and the seals are pretty new. Can't quite work out how this has happened. I syphoned the batch onto sugar solution already in...

I've just knocked up a tincture with half a grapefruit and a shot of vodka. Next weekend I'm going to add some to a bottle of my current brew and see how it alters the taste and aroma.

Does it matter which malt extract I use for the starter, or should I roughly match it to the final beer?

I'm just doing my ingredients shop for my next 2-3 brews, 1 of which will be a NEIPA. I normally use M44 or S05 dry yeast and have tended to brew mainly west coast IPAs. It seems that a lot of people recommend Wyeast 1318 liquid yeast for NEIPA, which I can easily get hold of. I've heard a lot...

I used M44 for my last brew, and will use it again for the next one. Mine also went very hard and very fast. I checked the beer 12 hours after I brewed it, and it had already blown out. Luckily I pre-empted this and used a tube rather than an airlock. I reckon I reached FG in 4-5 days. Left it...

Decided to do without the crystal for a first try, and drop the IBU slightly to 65. I'll probably brew a few variations over the next couple of months and see what works. Might also do a similar hop profile with a NEIPA grain bill.

Dry hops? Those are the 20g of Mandarina Bavaria for the last 5 days of fermenting. I tend to put them in the primary after 2-3 weeks rather than rack to secondary.

OK so here's the first stab at a trial recipe, comments welcome! Batch size: 1 Gallon OG: 1.062 FG: 1.011 ABV: 6.7% SRM: 5.2 IBU: 72 Grains: 1.2kg Maris Otter (2.5 °L) 0.1kg Carapils (2 °L) Mash: 60 mins @ 66°c Hops: 6g Chinook @ 60m 6g Mandarina Bavaria @ 15m 3g Citra @ 15m 10g Citra @...

I've just had my first bottle of my latest brew and, whilst I'm actually pretty pleased with it, I think the aroma lets it down. It was a 1 gallon brew with almost all Maris Otter (a little carapils). I mashed at around 64c for 1hr. I bittered with Chinook and added 5g Amarillo/2g Chinook on...

Think I'll buy a couple of bottles of bog-standard lager and add tea to one and tincture to the other and see how I get on with it. Experimentation is a good excuse to drink some more beer!

That does sound good. A saison is definitely something I'd like to have a go at. I'm going to do some hop shopping this week, I'll keep an eye out!

I assume that hot water extracts less flavour than alcohol? How much zest do you tend to use per gallon?

I'm thinking of doing a test 1 gallon batch of this asap. Was considering going for the zest of 1 whole grapefruit soaked in the least amount of highest-proof spirit I can lay my hands on. Haven't seen too much online about the ballpark quantities of zest, so this might be wild!

Interesting... does that just involve soaking the peel in vodka for a day and putting the whole lot into the bottling bucket?