Recent content by Cwrw666

Wouldn't boiling the water drive off enough oxygen? Just asking because a big brewery might well use specialist equipment instead as boiling huge quantities of water would be very expensive.

Due to Lockdown and the amount of beer I've been getting through, my last brew (a Victorian pale ale) was 5 days in the FV and 3 in the bottle before I started drinking it. Have to say it was excellent. Basically beer with a simple malt regime and very hoppy are good from as soon as you've got...

I think some breweries ferment a really strong brew then dilute to different strengths to produce different beers. Which would account for why some breweries beers all taste the same just with different labels on the bottle and different ABVs. I've been thinking of doing a really strong pale ale...

Yes please.

Used to be 6' 2.5" but sadly I'm at that age when you start shrinking so more like 6'1.5" now.

Middlesbrough. 'Twas in North Yorkshire when I were a nipper.

Health is a devolved issue. End of story. Good thing too. England is coming out of lockdown because cases in London have dropped significantly. To Hell with the NE, the NW etc.

No, a pint glass isn't tall enough for a hydrometer, I just checked with mine. Personally I always sanitise my hydrometer and drop it in the fermenting bin. Has worked without problems for 40+ years. No good I suppose if you're not fermenting in a bin. I always have trouble with wine in demijohns.

Depends on your yeast but I think most ale yeasts are ok up to mid 20s. Temperature is more important in the first few days when your krausen is there. After this much less so.

Last weeks efforts.

Just a label stuck to the crate. If I want a couple of posh bottles to give away I print a label on a laser printer and stick it on with milk.

I'm not an electrician either but I'm pretty sure it's the sockets themselves that are rated at 3Kw while the wiring can take up to 6 Kw. Otherwise if you plugged a domestic kettle in a socket you'd have to run round the house turning everything else off or you'd blow the circuit.

If you have a power socket then the wiring should handle up to about 6Kw. Brewing boilers are way less than this. Mine is 2.5Kw.

I would guess that the risk of spoilage when brewing in UK summertime has more to do with pests such as fruit flies, and flies in general. Get one of those in your brew and it'll ruin it. Temperatures in the UK rarely get so high as to affect fermentation.

Don't know about malted barley but straight barley for animal feed is often sprayed with such products as `propcorn' which kind of smells like vinegar. It allows barley to be stored at a higher moisture content than would otherwise be possible thus saving the cost of drying the grain down to the...