Recent content by IronBlue

I moved from A4, scissors, and milk to laser-printed labels and found it a lot quicker and easier.... I don't use online tools or templates, but use a drawing package, or you could use PowerPoint. Create the outline for one label in the right place on the page, complete the label, and...

This is my UK Cascade plant today, I bought it from http://www.essentiallyhops.co.uk in February 2014, it was just a 2" rhizome root. I had about 1.5kg of green hops in year one, 2.5kg last year which took me 6 hours to pick :-( . I think it is about twice the size this year, I can't get in the...

The smack pack is not really anything to do with it, you make a starter to increase the number of cells. With liquid yeast the number of cells decreases quite quickly from the date of manufacture (or harvesting). The number of cells you need depends on your volume and your OG. In your case you...

I stopped using the dishwasher for cleaning bottles, as they are very good at baking on tiny particles of food inside the bottles....

My favourite is pushing the beer line into a pressurised corny before pushing it into the tap fitting - hits the ceiling no trouble... I've done it twice. A friend (wasn't me honest) used one of those big flat sieves in the bottom of his kettle. A cheap 'stainless' one from Wilkos. When he...

RO water is perfect for brewing with when 'built' back to a target water profile. The other good thing is any profile can be recreated. RO is also a very cheap and easy solution, if you are not on a water meter.... In simple terms (as I understand it!), the profiles are decided mainly by two...

I also use a 1m stainless ruler, but I have drilled holes in the centre - a big hole to mark each 10 litres, and smaller holes in between for each 2 litres This is a major sanitary upgrade from my plastic spoon with notches melted into it :doh:

There is one big difference between hopping at flame out and hopping at <80C. Bitterness. If you have a 'modern' recipe with a lot of hops going in the last 10, 5, 0 minutes you will extract a lot more IBUs if you leave it to stand at flame out, as the wort will stay around 98C for ages.... I...

1038 and 1050 is a bit of a mystery, way too far out to be anything process driven. I used to calibrate my refractometer with pure RO water, but have since found tap water to be just the same for that purpose, so it's not that. Can only suggest you try another hydrometer and another refrac, as...

OK rodabod, good plan. Here is the recipe normalised to 23 litres and 75% efficiency, I have also updated the Alpha Acids to more realistic 2015 crop values: Hobgoblin Gold (23L) Style: Special/Best/Premium Bitter -------------------------- Batch Size (fermenter): 23.00 l Estimated OG...

I can post a standard 23L version later if you wish, this is just the dump from BeerSmith for my setup.

Recipe below, note my batch size is 59 litres and efficiency is set to 81%. I use Propino rather than Maris Otter as I get it from a local brewery for £12 a sack! (I have also shared this on BeerSmith and attached the file) Recipe: AG#67 Hobgoblin Gold Brewer: BeerFish...

OK, there is a small amount of backtracking in this post :lol: :oops: I've just been chewing on 2 bottles of Hob Gold, and looking at the colour and FG again. As you can see this bottle is bang on 1.008. I'm finding it a bit more bitter than I realised, and a little bit more dry. I think...

Yeah, completely agree with this after thinking more, I've used Vienna and Munich a lot and Munich does add a lot sweetness. However it does take the colour away from 'yellow' towards orange even if it's still light. Thinking about this and Clibit's post, I was wondering about Caramalt (28EBC)...

I haven't used Burton yeast so don't have any data of my own, it looks like the attenuation is OK. Anyone with experience on this yeast? I'd probably use WLP007 as it's basically my house yeast most of the time as I harvest it from the conical a few times. Changing yeast for one-offs is a pain...