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Check the recycling centres, most I've been to (in Ireland) usually have several and even if they're knackered they're still an insulated box, add ust a few watts of heat (even just a cfl light bulb) and they'll hold temprature ok.

See what it's going to cost for everything you need for pulping and pressing, I'd tried it with poor equipment and it took almost an entire day for just 2 gallons! It shouldn't take a whole lot, a while back there was a thread with decent size fruit presses for under 100 quid and something to go...

Check how the fridge and freezer sections are cooled. It might involve pulling off loads of panels and fans and stuff but you need to know how they operate to know what's possible. Refrigeration is only done on the freezer section on mine, the fridge section is cooled by circulating air from the...

At least 7% anyway, just one 33cl bottle had one hell of a kick! Natural yeasts will go quite high, I've done quite a few batches of elderflower and rhubarb wine with natural yeasts from the elderflower and they came out a fairly consistent 10-12% (I'd keep adding sugar until the yeast gave up)...

I think it came out at around 8-9% but I can't say for sure, it was my first attempt at any kind of brewing and I don't think I even had a hydrometer at the time. It wasn't great but it was plenty drinkable, surprising considering it was mostly cooking apples. The taste was mostly sourness from...

True that you get what you pay for with tools but for a one off job like this I wouldn't hesitate to recommend aldi/lidls power tools. I've used their grinders and drills for engineering and fabrication work for years and there's nothing cheap and nasty about them, they wont last as long as top...

In the method does it say "wash the apples" anywhere? The natural yeast on the apples can give good results, I did my first and only batch that way and it had incredibly complex flavours.

A quick and dirty way of making siphoning easier, fill the tube with water first. With a bit of practice you can avoid getting any water in the beer when you put the tube in and then siphon the first bit into a glass until the beer comes through. I always decant wine from demiohns to bottles...

Sparge water too hot also caused some astringency here, I was sparging at a little over 80 deg and it was gone at under 70 deg.

Air tight 60 litre barrels here but I need to get some smaller airtight containers for speciality malts as they're hard to search through. I'd stored malts in a none airtight container before and after a break of 18 months or so they weren't in great shape, everything I brewed with them had a...

16l light blond ale 16l heavy blond ale (same thing only different) 5l mead 15,963 + 37 = 16,000l

Look up the kw figures for your hob, the large ring on mine (regular ring, not wok) is 2.7kw iirc and I turn it down a little for the boil (14l in a 15l pot). I've no accurate figure for the kw used during the boil, at a guess 2.2-2.4kw would be adequate.

Can you get the tube off so you can get at both ends? Might be possible to push it through with a straightened out coat hanger, hammer an end flat and maybe put a twist on it and it should work as a primitive drill bit. If none of that works maybe heat it up with a gas flame and burn the bugger...

I get loads of variation in colour, usually I'll chop up about 4 kg and split it between 2 buckets and even then the colours are always completely different. I don't use campden at all btw, everything goes together cold and I've never had any issues. Some folks boil to sterilise instead, tried...

If you've got loads of rhubarb maybe pick up some 5l bottles of water and keep banging them out. It's a very cheap wine to make and the longer it stands the better it gets. I usually do primary fermentation in 10l buckets for about 3 days (when the foaming is dying down) before transferring to...

Mine tastes **** for 6 months at the very least, it starts to get drinkable after that and after a year it's getting pretty good. That's for a really basic recipe, 2kg chopped rhubarb, 1.5kg table sugar, white wine yeast. More complex and developed recipes might well be drinkable sooner, your...

Do you mean like a split vertical fridge freezer or a single tall larder fridge? I've no idea for the larder fridge but a split fridge freezer works surprisingly well here, the fridge section can be in the mid 20s and the freezer close to zero without seeming to effect each other. I'm guessing I...

I'm getting similar with a stout here, second time it's happened. Not sure why, also a high percentage of raw grain and dark crystals, dark malts might be pushing acidity too high, could be low aeration (first time I thought it was well shaken up, 3 minutes with a paddle in a cordless drill), idk.

Lol, serious innovation going on here! ;) Should be easy enough to double them up (or triple seeing as they're mostly 3 packs). Might be worth checking if any water or central heating accumulators have bladders, I'm pretty sure most are just a bottle but there must be some that have them and...

Never thought of it either, nice idea. Not sure how the extra bits would take it, cooling components, electrics, etc. but I don't think there'd be any issues with the structural bits, I've scoured them out with boiling water before and they've been fine. I'd guess they have to take high ambient...