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Boil on... I really ought to consider making cider... Chillin... Collecting... Clag... And we're done. It started pissing down with rain so the cleaning etc got done in a rush, but you know the drill - OG, pitch, thrash, FV, airlock, brewbelt etc. I shall modify the label I...

Collecting the wort (and another finger)... First wort Bobek... Gratuitous advertising... Looking good... Bacon, tomato and African birds-eye chillies - the breakfast of brewers...

A rather uneventful brewday - done and dusted in not much more than 5 hours. The grain... The mash... The yeasties... Getting stabby with the sparge sheet... First runnings (and first finger too - new phone

I doubt I'll ever win any competitions - unless there was one for 'freestyle brewing'. Saying that, friends who taste my beers usually say 'WTF?' at first taste - but they always come back for more (must be the drugs I add). In another lifetime I would have been born in Antwerp and dedicated my...

It's been a brewless few weeks. Remember a while ago my boiler decided to throw in the towel and I ended up salvaging 10 litres of rocket fuel? Well, the very nice people who manufacture the Electrim boiler replaced it completely free of charge. Huge thanks to them and equally huge thanks to Sam...

The Edme kits are pretty good. A tenner from Wilkos.

Yeah, re-pitch. I'd be inclined to go with a sachet of Nottingham yeast. Just hydrate,whack it in and give it a stir. I've no idea whether you will need to aerate - there may be others on here who could give you the pros and cons of doing that. The number of people who have problems with Wherry...

35's fine - perfect in my mind for a nice sipping bitter. I know some people swear by the ultra-high-hopped APAs and on a scorching summer's day something reeking of Citra and making your cheeks touch each other just can't be beaten in my opinion, but as far as bittering is concerned, higher...

What do you mean by ''a bit of a taste'? It's amazing just how many different styles of beer there are, and how fermentation temperature can affect them. I brew almost exclusively using Belgian yeasts (most of my beers are completely unsuitable for any sort of competition) - and am definitely...

From a start point of 1090, it's now 1004 - Chimay yeasties are just animals - and still fermenting, although now very slowly - a bubble every 10 minutes or so. I'll give it another 2 days then consider bottling. I've had a taste - not what I originally envisaged, of course, but definitely beer...

Sorry, I missed this - been on holiday. You would only be using phosphoric acid and neutralising with NaOH if you were making Candi Sugar on a commercial scale. Just squeeze a quarter of a lemon or use a quarter of a level teaspoonful of citric acid or cream of tartar to a kilo of sugar. The...

I used Wyeast and White Labs once each, and I wasn't impressed with either Belgian yeast. I now only use bottle-culture from Chimay, Westmalle, Orval, Duvel etc. I can get the starters on the go in a leisurely manner - and after the first brew I harvest the yeast and get enough for another 3 or...

Nowt wrong with kits. My boiler's out of commission (on its way back to the manufacturers) so I'm going to do a quick Brewferm Tripel kit on Friday. I'll add a kilo of Candi, use my own Westmalle yeast and probably dry-hop with a handful of Saaz just to freshen it up, but it'll mean that I'll...

Snappy (or Sethlad, if you ask my sister - she's a big Seth Johnson fan) is due round about Christmas day. I doubt he'll hang around that long though (no-one in our family has ever gone full-term and my daughter Becca has already had one spell in hospital after a 'show'). The bottle...

Good luck - and there's nowt wrong with kits. I nearly bought one myself today for old time's sake. I was in my LHBS earlier today and I must confess I was tempted to pick up a Brewferm kit to tide me over while my boiler's being fixed, but in the end I passed (I've still got 2 brews in FVs at...

I haven't used a bought yeast for any of my last dozen or so brews. OK, I specialise in Belgian style beers, but I've even used Belgian bottle-culture yeasts in beers as diverse as brown ale, porter and APA. Chimay (Blue, White or Red all employ the same yeast), Orval and Duvel are all readily...

You can always dry-hop as well as adding hop 'tea'. Sometimes a nice hoppy 'nose' covers a multitude of sins. Nothing overpowering - Saaz or Hallertau Hersbrucker is perfect for that.

Congratulations - and welcome to the rest of your life. Nothing that happened before counts - the clock is now running. AG in a year, I reckon.

OK, it's bottling time for this tonight. The secondary fermentation has had 6 weeks with another kilo of dark, heavily caramelised candi sugar and Westmalle yeast. The final gravity is an utterly amazing 1002 - these Belgian bottle-culture yeasts would eat your fingers if you got them a little...

Well done - and I'm delighted the 'how to' has come in handy. It will last for ages, but if it does, you're not brewing (and by definition drinking) your beer fast enough. I've got it down to a fine art now - if I'm doing a Belgian beer, I start the candi inversion process as soon as the mash...