Recent content by RichHall

Thanks Steve, that's really useful. I've ran that through some old recipes, and it seems I get above the suggestion of 0.3ml/l in your beginners guide, but still within the suggested 400ppm limit - so lactic might not cover all recipes for me - which then makes me wonder about using phosphoric...

Hey folks Just wondered how I should go about calculating ppm for acid additions? I've been using CRS/AMS to reduce alkalinity, but Brewfather doesn't include this - and I'm preferring recipe results from Brewfather over Brewers Friend lately. So, I'm thinking of switching to lactic acid to...

Thanks for the replies. It was more of the grassy flavour and aroma I was hoping to get coming through. I have Northdown, Challenger, Cascade and Boadicea knocking around - any ideas what they might give off as a dry hop? Cheers

Hey guys A week ago, I brewed a single hopped beer using fuggles. Was trying to emulate something along the lines of Butcombe Gold which, according to the label, has lashings of fuggles! As activity in the FV had dropped off, I took a sample to test the SG, then had a quick taste to see what...

Cheers guys Went with a (modest?) 1.5g/l EKG dry hop. Will leave for a week and then get it bottled and conditioned :thumba:

Thanks fellas On reflection, thinking about my process on this batch, there was an extended period of about an hour between boil finishing and me fully cooling the wort. My wife had come home early with the kids, so I helped out with bath and bedtime at the end of the boil, and then finished...

Thanks guys. So I have given the teabag test a go this evening, and appreciate I have the two mixed up. It’s not astringency in my beer, it is bitterness. A really unpleasant bitterness. Are there any common causes I could look to resolve? Not convinced it’s too much bittering hops, as...

@the baron - thanks. How did you decide how much bottled water to dilute with? Trial and error, or alkalinity test??

Cheers Steve - been reading through that one over my lunch! When I look at the local water report - it shows Hardness (Total) as CaCO3 mg/l - 297 & Alkalinity as CaCO3 mg/l - 225 Presume it's the alkalinity figure I'm after here? Also checked tap water at my office, only a few miles away from...

No - it was a pale batch that was good. My note taking wasn't good enough, but I think the good batch may have had crushed, rather than fine crushed grain, hence me thinking that might be contributing to the problem... The bad batches have been attempts at a best bitter - including some crystal...

Hey folks I've brewed just a handful of AG batches now, and noticed that on all but one batch, I'm getting a very harsh bitterness coming through. I'm only hopping to around 30 IBUs, so suspect it's nothing to do with that? My set up is BIAB, and I've been opting for fine crush - I'm starting...

No spare FV, but could get half back on the boil and ferment out in the kettle, leaving the other half to do it's thing in the FV...might make a good experiment! Just so I know for future reference - is it a terrible idea to cool and then not immediately pitch? I kinda figured that if it were...

Hmmm...so I was assuming the batch would be a gonner, and I'd headed off to work by the time I saw your reply - how quickly would I have needed to get it back on the boil to salvage the batch?!

Surely not - I'm guessing I'd up with some weird tasting beer?!

Hey folks I boiled up a best bitter recipe on Wednesday and, after cooling, transferred to my FV. As the weather’s so hot, it’s sat in my garage and I wasn’t going to pitch until things cool down a few degrees. However, I noticed a bit of airlock activity this morning, so cracked the lid...