Recent content by rpt

My understanding is that a campden tablet works pretty much instantly to remove chlorine and chloramines.

You only need to use 1.020 wort if the yeast is stressed e.g. from a bottle conditioned beer or an old slant. If it's freshly from Brewlabs then 1.040 is best.

It might be a date code.

If you'd already cooled it then it will be fine. If the wort was hot then there might be some oxidation but there seems to be debate as to whether hot side aeration is actually an issue. So I think it will be ok.

Champagne is just sparkling wine so I think the two yeasts are much the same.

If you are doing full volume BIAB then there should be no reason to do a separate sparge, as all the water has 'seen' the grain. I think this has been discussed a lot at biabrewer.info. I don't sparge and get good efficiency.

Lager fermentation and lagering are two separate things. Both are done cool, around 12C and 2C respectively, although it depends on the yeast. If the garage is cool and has a concrete floor (which will suck the heat out) that could be reasonable for the lagering phase. But if you can only...

The amount of sugar you prime with affects how fizzy the beer is. You don't need more sugar unless you want extra fizzy beer.

Just pick the right style of beer for the conditions. American pale ales are hoppy and don't rely on fermentation esters. Nottingham yeast is supposed to work well at cooler temperatures.

The full recipes say to steep the grains in 27L so it would seem logical that you should steep them in 10L.

As long as you properly sanitise your vessels and use a sanitised syphon to transfer then you should have no problem. Do not pour as you will disturb the trub and risk oxidising your beer.

You should use a hydrometer to tell when fermentation has finished. To batch prime you need a second bucket. If you add priming sugar to the primary FV you will mix up the trub when you stir. If you don't stir the sugar won't be mixed in properly.

That's not an issue if fermenting but could be for lagering. My Whirlpool has got down to -1C this winter. In a cold winter it might struggle. In summer, any fridge should get to lagering temperature with no trouble.

I use the BIABacus spreadsheet and it tells me the amount of water I need. Doesn't Beersmith do this? BIABacus was free.

SWMBO complains about the bags of hops in the freezer so I think larger bags of malt might be pushing my luck. I always make sure the bags are properly sealed with a clip. As I said, I think they store well. I notice that the uncrushed Crisp Maris Otter has a best before date of 2 years and then...