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My LHBS recommends fermenting at 16-18C: no more, no less. I can't fathom if this ruly necessary or just his way of promoting the sale of brew belts as we near summer?! Any thoughts?

Best brew I've made to date (a Coopers Pilsner kit with added Saaz) was left in the FV for 4 whole weeks. Clear when I bottled it and devoid of that usual Coopers 'yeasty' taste. I often wonder how people brewed beer many, many moons ago without Star San and forums esposuing 'best practice'....

Three possible outcomes: 1 - It's stuck. Wherry is infamous for sticking at 1020. 2 - It's done. My Admirals Reserve fermented out in less than 3 days. 3 - It's not started yet. Perhaps the supplied yeast hasn't been viable? A gravity reading will confirm at a glance which.

Agreed. I didn't think it was like Tennents either and being Scottish, I practically grew up on Tennents! :drunk: That said, it does taste like a macro-beer and not at all continental IMO. I'd do it again, but hop addition definately and maybe even swap out the Coopers Lager yeast for...

+1 for the John Palmer book, but don't bother buying it - there's an older version available as a .pdf online and it's also reproduced here: www.howtobrew.com I've used a combination of bottled water from Tesco and tap water and to be honest, I haven't been able to distinguish between the...

How do you let the gas out? If you're concerned about too much CO2 building up and perhaps splitting the keg, which should only really be a concern if you've overprimed the brew, pulling off a pint or two will ease it up by creating a little more headspace in the keg. Opening the keg up and...

I have a Youngs 2 handled capper as well. Done probably no more than 150 bottles with it and it started playing up on the last batch. Got there in the end but the process was slower than this site since the recent upgrade :-o. If the lifespan of these cappers is really so poor, a bench capper...

This little gem would have been useful to know a couple of weeks ago. I've just done a Coopers APA and having read many a review that it lacked bitterness and flavour, I added 500g of Hopped Light DME. I boiled half of that for ten minutes with some Cascade (20g) and then added a further 20g...

This is the next brew and will be going on in a fortnight once my Coopers APA has been bottled. Currently thinking of using 1.5kg of Amber LME, @300g of Sugar or perhaps another half kilo of DME to give me something around the 5.1% ABV mark. For yeast, I'll defo not use the Coopers yeast (I'll...

Good question, particularly regarding the size. I'm at that stage where I want to go down the Extract route and am wondering what size is optimal vs what size is the bare minimum I can use.

Thanks Rolfster, it was that thread that lead me to your useful How To. Still in search of a definitive answer as to how long is too long for dry hopping. I've read that some people even dry hop in the keg after racking from Primary or Secondary, which suggests they are leaving their hops in...

http://www.brewuk.co.uk/store/beerkits/american-beers.html

How long does this take normally? I've only dry hopped once, @30g of Saaz for a week and didn't really notice any particular hop aroma in the finished product. I'm wanting to dry hop a Coopers APA next week (which will be after fermentation is complete) with perhaps 20-30g of Cascade and...

My bad, it's Worthing, not Reading. Anchored in Worthing. They have a twitter feed - @MicroWorthing.

Finally got this on today. Used 500g of Hopped Light DME, 300g of Dextrose, Safale S-04, made to 20 litres. Boiled 20g of Cascade for 10 mins; 20g of Galaxy for 5 and made a hop tea out of 10g of each also. Going to leave in the FV for about three weeks and will take a view in a fortnight...

+1 for what RPT says.

There's a place in Reading called the Anchor something or other. Pretty much a pub in every sense except one: you can't buy any beer, because it isn't licenced. You can buy beer matts though and with each one you get a beer free of charge.

Commercially available craft product I had in Chicago. Utterly amazing. Served in a big brandy balloon glass. It was something to be truly savoured rather than guzzled.

Vanilla beans and Lactose will be my next attempt at this, with the ultimate aim of hitting something like the Creme Brulee Stout I had the other weekend. I have never drank a pint that made me want to inhale the aromas before every sip. Easily the most decadent pint of stout I'll EVER have.

I've done both the Coopers Irish Stout with a kilo of Extra Dark DME and the Original Stout more recently with 1.5kg of Light LME and steeped 200g of Chocolate malt and 100g of Flaked Barley. I'd say the Irish Stout was more flavoursome but the Original Stout possibly the most sessionable...