Recent content by TitanicStruggle

It was a very unusual taste, basically, the brew tasted like someone had taken a half pint of IPA, a half pint of lager and mixed them together, it left a not very nice aftertaste. I did drink a good bit of the batch mind. I just chilled it as much as possible but I won't be doing it again...

As a lazy brewer I only brew kits (haven't gotten around to all-grain, yet at least) but I am interested in doing more experimenting, particularly with dry hopping. I've tried twice. I did a Coopers Australia Pale Ale dry hopped with Saaz hops and it really did turn out stunning. So much so...

cheers, I intend to be pretty conservative with the amount of hops I add this time around. I'm chalking this one down as an experiment, if it works out then great but won't be heartbroken if it ends up undrinkable. Only way to learn is to do

It doesn't help for newbies that some instructions on kits suggest they're drinkable after a week of bottling (Coopers :whistle:), maybe sometimes they are but not always

Going to do the similar probably next weekend now but with a Coopers APA kit as the base. Looking forward, picked up some Galaxy and Saaz hops and packaging suggests they work well together so not sure now how to approach it. I had considered taking Clibits suggested approach of splitting the...

Absolutely, it's obviously wildly popular so I'm in the minority :) - There were three of us there and we all thought it was far too much on the hop front but it was on tap, maybe I should give a bottle a try. I quiet like a hoppy ale/lager usually. Just remembered I did try This.Is.Lager in...

Only been to a brewdog once, had the punk ipa which I thought was ****. So over hopped that you couldn't really enjoy it

My last two brews (brewferm tarwebier and Coopers stout) went down to 1.004 and 1.006 respectively, no idea how or why, however drinking both and they taste great. No infection. The tarwebier is a little dry but not the stout.

The experienced brewers of the forum will be horrified but I simply use a cheap 50w fish tank heater right in the fermenting bin, just attached to the side. Obviously sanitize it first. I haven't had an issue yet, bar cleaning the krausen off the top of it. However my intention is to stop doing...

That's great, thanks for the link, I think I will pick one of them up with some starsan. I do clean the bottles out as and when they get drank but then batch sanitize them and rinse out again before bottling. Possibly overkill but covers me when I haven't washed the bottle out as thoroughly as I...

Tried a tester bottle last night, says wait 6 weeks but this is the 3 and a half week mark. lovely carbonation and a really smooth lovely taste already. Incredibly easy to drink. One thing I will say, and I don't know if it's specific to my brew or just that the brew isn't mature enough yet...

Does anyone use or would they recommend something like this for Rinsing bottles. My current approach is to soak in Milton sterilizing solution for a while and rinse each bottle under the tap but it's painfully slow, could do with streamlining the process :-P

Hi Robbie, I think a lot of peoples start with the Coopers kits. I know I did. Try to keep the temperature constant which was a mistake I made with my first kit and I got a slight cidery flavour (Coopers Lager, my own fault, let the temperature go down to 14 degrees and then heated it back up...

Good point, thanks, Just had a read about Magnum and internet search on Dry hopping with it and it doesn't look like anyone has had good results. I can delay the brew, maybe I will buy some Saaz hops for comparison then

The thought had crossed my mind (spotted that Saaz is used for Pilsner Urquell) but I'm not turning down free Magnum hops and the Galaxy is on its way :)