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Cornish Lifesavers IPA for me ;)

Only thought I had was that when a carboy is full there's virtually no head-space, but CO2 coming out of the wine should prevent problems there anyway.

I've only ever used 30L plastic FVs for my brewing - mostly beer. But noticed my current wine kit asks for a 23L carboy as well as the FV. What's the particular benefit/requirement of a carboy compared to an FV with airlock? Is this a wine thing specifically and does it really matter?

You can bottle carbonated beer but you lose a fair bit of the fizz so the same would apply. Prosecco is also far more highly carbonated than beer so I'm not sure if a standard plastic keg would manage. You might get more of a frizzante (light sparkling wine), I would suggest chilling the keg to...

Ah good to know. I just bought one of their estate series to try something more high end, do that'll be interesting.

Seems like the brands keep changing or rebranding... Lots of good things about kenridge but I don't see them in my normal stores. Confusing too, one site says Beaverdale is replaced but others are still selling it. I saw great reviews on Winexpert but comments the range has changed, however...

After several hundred points of beer I recently started brewing wine. Started off with a cheap Cantina Cabernet Sauvignon Wine Kit for just £26, actually quite drinkable plonk in a stupidly short amount of time. Next the Beaverdale 5 Gallon Cabernet Shiraz Wine Kit for £42. Really quite...

How often did you open it to check? If you sanitise the tap shouldn't be an issue - I never get too stressed scrubbing. But it's easy to breath into your beer :) Sorry to hear you lost your batch.

So nobody has tried it then in a coffee machine (not sure how we got onto espresso)? My main concern is it would taint the machine for future coffee use or I'd try it next time.

Hop teas have become pretty common in the last few years, several kits even come with hops in a teabag these days. I recently tried using a caffetiere after reading about it on these forums and it sort of worked. But it got me thinking, if we want to push hot water through the hops then isn't...

In a restaurant we were once recommended such a prosecco but warned there could be some cloudiness. It was great.

I've seen a few variants on these from "BrewBuddy" in the US to Muntons "BrewBags". Seems like a regular beer kit but the bag doubles up as an FV/polypin. As in it ferments then your pour it and drink it. I am pretty dubious - how do you rack, how do you achieve any carbonation - but then beer...

Sorry what I meant was, you could let it finish fermenting and stabilise, then choose a different yeast which is well-suited to priming. I gather they do this in commercial brewing, the bottle fermentation uses a yeast specifally chosen for flocculation (if that's the right work) properties so...

Cheers. Yeah I've done high carbonation levels before on a saison and on a hydromel (light mead). I bought a stock of decent beer bottles but I also save champage/prosecco/fancy soft-drink bottles and use plastic corks+cages. I tried the champagne method on my saison - store upside down, freeze...

I can't be doing with forced carbonation... I wonder how prosecco and champagne control dryness? I know different yeasts have slightly different profiles but in my experience of there is sugar, it gets generated. If I don't mind dry, and I don't mind sediment, do I just leave the stabiliser out...

Anyone?

A mate is really into his Trappist beers, often in the 8-10% range. It's not something I drink but I wondered about making him a batch as a gift. Are there any half decent kits that don't just add a load of sugar to get the ABV up? All I could find where I get my kits normally is this: Muntons...

it's interesting you see some brewers saying you SHOULD drink the yeast on purpose. On my part I will test the first few bottles because it varies hugely... Sometimes there's loads of loose muck, sometimes it sticks to the bottle. Depends on how carefully I rack etc. Something more pilsner-like...

No I mean the beer still tastes odd if you just wait for the foam to die down. Maybe there's still too much gas dissolved in the beer.

Ha, I do have a 1L stein I could use. You do have to wait a while though and I find it affects the taste as well. If I can fix a batch of bottles reliably and easily, it'll be a big help because I often find older batches start to get a bit over-carbonated.