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You can enter sour beers into the freestyle months, there's also nothing that would stop you entering them in other months if it fits the overall style theme (e.g. mixed fermentation saisons can be entered in the Belgian month).

I'm not a wine maker so this is based on beer brewing practices, but can you dilute by adding some water that has been boiled and then cooled?

Lager yeasts such as CML Hell do need to be fermented at cooler temperatures, otherwise they will produce a lot of undesirable fermentation flavours. If you can't control to a cool temperature then a work-around would be to use a very clean ale yeast, such as those used for making Kolsch. CML...

Looks pretty normal. When fermentation is complete the yeast will start dropping out of suspension and you'll get a clearer beer. Most lagers benefit from a couple of weeks at as close to 0degC as you can practically get.

Jamil Zainasheff said something similar at BrewCon in his talk. I'd have to go and dig out my notes for the full details, but essentially he reckoned you needed to add more zinc in the boil than if you added it directly to the fermenter. In my head I seem to remember you needed to add roughly...

I think they are all mostly contain a very similar mix of vitamins and minerals to be honest, although without going through the ingredients list for each one I can't say for certain how similar they are.

Most worts contain all the nutrients that yeast need, with the significant exception of zinc. Hence most yeast nutrient blends contain a significant proportion of zinc, amongst other vitamins and minerals that are beneficial to yeast health. Zinc is beneficial as it supports yeast growth and...

Gut instinct says that your protein rest was too short. It was probably long enough to get them extracted and begin the process of chopping them up, but not long enough to break them down into small enough chunks.

As others have intimated, it is most likely the high protein content in the Rye malt that has caused the issues you've experienced today. As you've brewed the recipe before without issue the best place to start is looking at the ingredients themselves: Have you purchased the rye malt from the...

Pretty much. For a true stout you need some sort of roasted malt. That gives it the deep black colour as well as the chocolate/coffee/roasted aroma and flavour.

Hi @old dog new tricks - don't be put off by a couple of silly comments, there's a whole world of beer out there and it sounds like you've just found your 'gateway' to it. Quite possible that your taste buds have changed a bit. For example, a lot of people initially prefer white wine to red...

Looking at the malts you have, you are going to struggle to make a stout. You really need something like chocolate malt or roasted barley. However, you do seem to have everything you need to make a nice Bitter or ESB. Keep your base malts (Maris Otter / Golden Promise) to about 80-90% of the...

Yeah, either it was a dud bottle or just a quirk of subjectively judging a beer. Was quite relieved to see it score much better second time around though!

Entered it into both the Scottish and UK nationals. It didn't place at the Scottish nationals, scoring 32, which I felt was a bit harsh. The main complaint was a lack of body/mouthfeel for the style. I don't necessarily disagree with that particular bit of feedback as I was a little...

First time brewing this particular recipe. I've done a number of other stout styles before though so had some prior information to help develop it. The intention was to create something smooth, flavourful and easy drinking. Think it hit the brief, other than the high FG which for me makes it a...

As promised, here is the recipe for my Oatmeal Stout. 'Dark Matter' Oatmeal Stout 4.2% Batch Size: 20L OG: 1.048 FG: 1.016 IBU: 30 Mash Efficiency: 70% Malts (all from Crisp) Maris Otter - 3.25kg Flaked Oats - 0.75g Low Colour Chocolate - 0.5kg Roasted Barley - 0.25kg Crystal 240 - 0.25kg...

Well that was a nice surprise to wake up to this morning! Congrats @brewhaha, @pilgrimhudd and @matt76. Thanks for judging @samale - I'll post the recipe later on today.

Good catch... I'd had a few beers when I replied :laugh8:

Not sure of the full scientific details but different yeast strains are better at consuming some types of sugars than other. For example, a yeast strain that has the diastaticus gene will have a high level of attenuation as during fermentation it releases an enzyme that breaks long-chain sugars...

Assuming a relatively standard wort composition, then provided you don't exceed the alcohol tolerance for the yeast, you'll get the expected level of attenuation. Exceeding the alcohol tolerance can reduce attenuation, as the yeast can no longer ferment sugars due to the high levels of alcohol...