Recent content by Sandimas

Could I change mine to Sandimas please, if that's available?

My office is a few doors down from a 'spoons so we go there occasionally for breakfast (and sometimes an after-work pint). It's quite eye-opening watching the regulars getting twitchy at 0845 ready for alcholol to start being served at 9am. There's one guy who regularly sinks 4 pints by about...

Do you boil at full volume? I use a similar method to you but boil a smaller volume then top up in the FV, after a few years I had a light-bulb moment that reduced-volume boil extracts less IBUs from the hops, so you need more at the start of the boil to compensate (calculators are available)...

You almost certainly can, I'm not that far from you over the border near Malvern. Prime hop growing country just to the west of me.

Styrian Goldings is my go-to late hop. Bramling Cross is another favourite for a blackberry-like flavour. Target for a harsher bitterness. If I was restricted to 3 it would be Fuggles, Challenger and Styrian Goldings.....in fact, those are the 3 that I grow.

I just bottled a beer today with Wilko Gervin, got the usual 75% attentuation, occasionally get a bit higher than that (77/78%) but this was a dark beer and they do tend to finish with a higher FG.

Mash it a bit cooler 62/63C and it may get down a bit more. I managed to get 83% out of MJ M15 Empire Ale yeast recently, which was a bit of a surprise given previous experiences with it. It did take 25 days though.

When I used to make this kit I'd top it up to 21L rather than 23L to give it a bit more ABV.

Yes, my bad I'm dyslexic so numbered yeasts aren't my forte :cool:

M25 is definitely the exception. I'm an MJ convert and mostly use their yeasts these days, most finish quite quick but M25 is a long slow burner, my latest one didn't finish until day25, at day21 it still had a significant Krausen,

Because we're trying to work out what you are trying to achieve. Why are you adding extra spraymalt, to up the OG/ABV? Yes you can add spraymalt after the sparge and for the full duration of the boil, or add it at the very end of the boil, it doesn't need boiling. But as other have said, it's...

Yes US05 is quick finishing compared to some yeasts but I wouldn't expect it to have finished in 2 days. How warm is it? Houses are getting cold this time of year, might have slowed down or even stalled if too cold.

Here you go. I used Magnum for bittering as I wanted a clean bitterness to help the late hops shine, but use what you have, Target works well in this too and gives it more of an edge. I used extra-pale MO as that was what I had at the time. Fermented with MJ Liberty Bell to bring out the hop...

I often half-bottle and half-keg batches, although some beers I bottle the lot, usually hoppy IPAs so I can store them in the fridge (I have no temp control with the kegs). So until now I haven't had a hoppy beer in the keg, I usually put my ales in there. I recently half-bottled half-kegged a...

My brew has finally finished, on Day25! FG is 1007, that's the lowest I've had any ale go in 10 years of brewing and over 200 brews. Yeast attenuation is 83%. That's a bit of a surprise, especially with this yeast. The beer tastes fine. I can see why people get gushers and bottle bombs with...