Recent content by brad05

... I should also note that I have been renting a 6kg BOC cylinder for the last two years. I'm trying to get out of the rental cycle.

Yeah I can get these bottles shipped from keg king however I need somewhere that will fill the bottle and possibly retest it if required. I am in Mackay QLD and in the same boat as xa_jg. I don't know of anyone in town that will fill them. Might have to approach a Chubb Fire or similar and...

Does anyone know where the best place to source a CO2 gas bottle and can I get them refilled at distributors such as BOC?

I think it depends where you go. I used to run a servo and my supplier was elgas. They didn't care if the bottles were out of date as they would just test them, restamp them for another few years and repaint them. Although there is a charge if the bottles were in poor condition (rust) and...

Hi milob. Glad to see another brewer from Mackay. Unfortunately the lhbs here are not very good when it comes to anything other than goo. Also make sure you check the expiry dates if you buy the morgans liquid extract. I have a few hops in my freezer if you want to mix up the variety a little...

The SG of the boil does have an effect on hop utilisation. If you have a higher gravity boil you will need to use more hops for the same bittering. Go read how to brew at the link above.

Personally I would do it this afternoon and pour the wort into the fermenter while still boiling hot. The steam will kill any nasties and you will be ok to pitch the yeast in the morning. Although this isn't the ideal method, I have done it numerous times without problems.

I'm just going to agree with what everyone else pointed out. Don't prick the clingwrap, it isn't required. The bottling wand is required to minimise aeration during bottling. Preventing aeration will help increase shelf life of your beer and prevent cardboard like flavours. I think the stick on...

You should be as careful as possible with hot wort not to splash it around. Use a tap or siphon to drain it carefully to your fermenter. Again carefully add cold water to your wort without splashing. Then once it has reached fermentation temps give it a good splash around and aerate it to create...

Another suggestion is that you should minimise the aeration of your wort while it is still hot. Cool it in your boil pot and once it has reached fermentation temps then aerate.

So have you tasted it yet?

I'm guessing that +/- 0.5 degrees? I have an stc1000 temp controller. Relatively easy to wire up yourself and just find an electrician to check it over before you use it.

The recommended DME would be dependent on both the flavour and the SG (starting gravity) that you are targeting. Different beer styles have different SG ranges. I would recommend using either beersmith or there is a spreadsheet on here that calculates the SG based on your ingredients.

The wheat beer best fermentation temperature is about 18 deg. If you have a specialist lager yeast just check what it's optimum fermentation temp is. Have you got a way to control the temp? It is a good idea to use specialist yeasts and stay within their recommended temps

Does anyone know where to get the foil vacuum seal bags from? Thought it might be better to prevent any sunlight as well getting to the hops.