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Thank you all for your thoughtful posts. I am currently drinking St Peters Without which looks and tastes surprisingly like a real beer with no alcohol. I am experiment8ng with blending (adding) other low alcohol beers to see if I can make something I can stand to drink more then an two of. I...

Due to a recent medical drama, I am suddenly very interested in low and no alcohol beers. Does anyone know of any kits or tweaks that work in producing a decent low alcohol beer? This is not a subject I’ve been interested in until now, and I know it seems a little sacreligious, but... anybody?

These pics should help? The wire is for the heater and the white cable tie holds the thermometer. The FV is currently holding only water as I'm between brews.

You don't need a sleeping bag around the FV. It should go around the (much larger) water bath and another across the top, enclosing all of it. I will take a pic of my set up in a day or two when I'm back home.

I would suggest lagging the whole lot. I use a sleeping bag tied around the water bath and another over the top - so there shouldn't be a lot of heat lost. The water in the bath and the beer in the FV should equalise in temp if they are not fighting against lost heat.

I have been using the water bath and fish tank heater thing for 4 years. I have a large plastic container (Poundland type shops have them for a couple of quid) and pour the sanitiser from the FV into the tank as the water. It is already at 22c and is going to stay clean. The thermometer is in...

Thanks. It was one v large flexible plastic container with a big twist cap, so I put hot water in and sloshed it all about to get the very last bits out. Stirred really well. Tasting when bottling - seems v good but can't tell how strong at present. Hydrometer gave 1008 from 1034 = 3.6% or so...

Just bottled my Brewdog Evil Dog after 14 days in the FV. Final reading was lowest ever - 1008 which is just as well as the first reading was meant to be about 1061 - and was no more than 1034. I followed the instructions to the letter. The water I added was cheapo Lidl bottled spring water -...

I have carried on with the brew - fermentation got going quite vigorously and seems to be proceeding ok. The amount of sanitiser left in FV was just the last drips having poured it all away. I simply forgot to rinse with clean water before putting in the can of wort. It's a Brewferm Abdij brew...

No it's a standard 1 tsp per 5 L dissolving type - called SupaKlense from the local brewshop. They make it up themselves I think but it is not a no rinse Starsan type (which I use for my bottles) Thanks for the reply.

I sterilised my FV and then rather stupidly poured in the malt extract without rinsing it. It is my 24th brew so I really should have known better but I'd done it before realising. I couldn't think of a way to remove the extract so just carried on as if I had rinsed it. I had used a sanitiser -...

Out of interest, how did it turn out? (I see this was last November). I have had the same brew in the FV at about 23C for 11 days, and fermentation went off v well and now seems to have stopped - no activity and hydrometer now reads 1012, not the 1006 the leaflet says to expect. OG was 1042...

Ok thanks, Jonny. Will do that. Dave

Thanks, Ken. I will do as you suggest and see how it goes. Thank you.

My first brew in 20+ years has been in the VF for 10 days (Brewferm Abdij). I used the hydrometer before pitching yeast - 1064. The instructions tell me it should read 1010 for bottling. I checked it last night - it reads 1022. Is this too high for bottling? The instructions are a bit confusing...

Ah that temperature control idea is interesting. What sort of container do you use big enough to hold a FV? The warming band I had was just a plug in type - no thermostat as far as I recall so am currently wrapping FV in a sleeping bag with a folded fleece blanket on top, with a thermometer...

Well thank you, people, for your warm welcome. I am getting quite enthusiastic about my newly rediscovered hobby. To the extent I spent a couple of hours today designing labels for when the bottles are ready... And whilst my Abdij is doing its thing, I'm going to start my other kit (Muntons...

Just yesterday (Feb 4 2013) I made up one of these (Brewferm ABDIJ) for my first kit in 20+ years. Used bottled water (cheap from Lidl). When I peeked just before bedtime, the top of the liquor seemed to have a network of "ropes" tangled above the surface - I don't remember seeing anything quite...

Hello all. I was happily brewing kits more than 20 years ago, with some success and some failures. I ended up packing it in as the failure rate was higher than I liked. I now have more time and thought I'd look at the current state of homebrewing. Wow what a difference 20 odd years makes...