Recent content by StFlipper

Nigel Farage has been on Question Time 33 times, more that any other panellist. Here's an example article from a Scot Nationalist news site which complains about exactly the opposite bias in a recent Question Time episode, a "Brexiteer-heavy lineup" as they put it, and a "serious breach of...

That's strange. As @nottsbl commented almost all political comments I see from forum members have a right wing slant, and moreover seem to assume general agreement from other members. Any mention of brexit, climate change, immigration, feminism, and many other topics seem guaranteed to bring out...

I agree, under 5% makes for a much better BBQ/session beer. Some of the 6+% IPAs seem more like a sipping beer, or even a barley wine, but the temptation is to down them as pints, and regret it later. For a lighter hoppy ale, have you tried the Festival "Golden Stag" ? It's got that American...

Is your aim to get a lower ABV than the standard kit, or just to avoid using brewing sugar? If it's the latter then why not replace the 1kg of sugar in the Young's kit with the 1.2kg of Mangrove Jack's LME that you have? FYI I have made the Mangrove Jack's Simcoe IPA twice, the first time using...

It's hard to understand the point Michael James is really trying to make in that long slightly garbled youtube comment. If he's saying that it's not possible to make lager or ale unless you employ decoction mashing then what to make of the many commercial breweries that don't, but nevertheless...

Which seems to fit in with the article saying that the original S. cerevisiae tends to die off after a while once the culture becomes acidic. My sourdough culture is now 8 years old, and most weeks I make 2 loaves of bread with it, refreshing the culture at the same time. I think that a fruity...

Just reading the Wikipedia articles on beer vs bread yeasts. Apparently "baker's yeast" is S. cerevisiae (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), the same basic type as a top-fermenting ale yeast, and historically bakers got their yeast from brewers. However that yeast type isn't generally present in a...

There's also the complication that a sourdough starter/levain isn't only a yeast. It's a symbiotic culture of a bacterium (lactobacillus) and a yeast, where the lactobacillus breaks down starches which the yeast wouldn't otherwise be able to ferment, end produces lactic acid in the process. The...

I bought them from Home Brew Hop Shop but I'm sure a few places online have them.

As @stephen1546 said, Pinot Grigio is "crisp and fresh", which in practice means rather watery in terms of colour and flavour, and on the light end of the ABV range too. Pinot Grigio is usually bottled in clear glass and looks pretty much like water: Did you measure the specific gravity of...

Drank the last bottle of this last night, which had been sitting on its own for a couple of months. Quite an impressive head from this last bottle, certainly more than they were back in September. The Ritchies description of this Founding Fathers Pale Ale is "fruity hops flavours, orchard and...

Interesting. This looks and sounds very similar to what just happened to my most recent brew, a Munton Smugglers kit, which I've made before and liked. This time something went very wrong and after 48 hours there was absolutely no fermentation and the SG hadn't moved, so it seems that the kit...

When I made the Suffolk Ale with the kit yeast it stopped at 1.014 (down from OG 1.055), around 5.3% ABV rather than the 6% that the box says. I contacted Ritchies about it (they're very helpful and responsive) and they said they planned to raise the amount of dextrose in the kit to 1.2kg to get...

I'm surprised as I use plastic FVs and have left them full of SVP for 2 or 3 days many times with no problems. For rinsing I hold the FV upside down in the garden and spray the inside with cold water from a hosepipe for a few minutes, going round and round the sides and base, and I've never...

I just emailed Five Star Chemicals, who make Star San, and they said "Starsan does break down into a yeast nutrient if you let the equipment dry for an hour you should be fine to use it.". So there you go, it's true.