Recent content by Half Pint

British Brown Ale has been queued up since before Xmas but kept bumping it in favour of other brews. At last it’s in the fermenter. 81.5% base malt (mix of Simpson’s MO and JWM Trad Ale) 7.5% Gladfield Biscuit 7% Gladfield medium crystal 2% Gladfield dark crystal 2% JWM chocolate OG was a bit...

I have just bottled another APA. This time I’ve gone back to an old favourite ‘little creatures’ style recipe. I’ve been drinking the previous ‘mean brews’ recipe APA. I think I see why it might do well in competitions but the one I’ve just bottled I think is likely more to my taste. The mean...

Knocked out an Imperial Stout yesterday. Had to lean on DME and a few sugars to get near the planned OG. Somewhat of a muddle but ended with 12.5 litres at OG 1.095. Fermenting with 2 packs Nottingham at 18°

Finally got around to brewing that APA on Monday 30th. Bit of a weird brew day. Nothing major, just a few little things went awry. Main thing was that I had intended to hang a bag of hops ready to lower into the ferment after 7 days. I don’t usually do that but have tried it once before, in a...

Yeah for sure. You can’t trust those markings until you’ve established the accuracy by means of checking against a reliable measure. I marked 1 litre weighed increments on my jug and that’s what I use to fill the Brewzilla. Mine is actually reasonably accurate but I’ve heard plenty of stories...

Milled my grain today in preparation for brewing probably Boxing Day. This one is another American Pale Ale. Probably a bit more like it than the last one. I’m aiming at 14 litres into FV. 3kg JWM Traditional Ale Malt as base. 390g of Gladfield Munich, 160g G’field Light Crystal, 270g wheat...

I have also noticed that BF temperature correction calculator doesn’t quite match up with my hydrometer at higher temps. I expect it’s calibrated for a quality instrument and my hydrometer is about the cheapest. Do you have a separate thermometer for your mash or just the built-in temperature...

For one thing there’sa problem with your measurements as you’ve boiled off 2 litres and then measured a lower SG than you had pre boil. I’ve heard of people having lower than expected mash efficiency from Gen4 Brewzilla. In those cases it seems like the problem was about the mash temperature ie...

Brewed Foreign Extra Stout yesterday. Pitched the WLP004 yeast harvested from Dry Irish Stout. Recipe predicted OG 1.073. I had 1.07, with an extra litre into FV. Screwed up somewhere on the volume, probably drew too much sparge water. I’m pretty happy with 75% mash efficiency from a 6.5kg...

Pretty good. When I started brewing all grain batches I decided I needed to understand a bit more about water chemistry. I used bru’n water for a while. I learned most of what I think I know there. Now I rely on the calculator in Brewfather. Andy’s recommendation for Murgy Straight i.e. “Your...

Have been watching Four Priests Brewery on YouTube over the last couple of years, and decided to have a crack at Andy’s British Golden Ale (Summer Ale?) ‘Murgy Straight’. Had to adjust the grain bill slightly to account for local availability of course. Also, I couldn’t make his water profile...

I dunno what the problem is but I don’t agree with some of your assumptions about food poisoning. FP can take anything from 2 hours to 10 weeks to show up, depending on what the bug is. FP can also be extremely severe. People die from FP.

I need to sort out the ‘time and motion’ aspect a little better. I set up the gun with a bit more line length than I really need but better too much than not enough. I used a 4 litre oxebar keg to help me sanitise the beer line and purge the gas lines. That was fairly straightforward. I used a...

I just bottled an (alleged) APA (13.5L). First use of the new bottling gun. Didn’t carbonate the beer; primed the bottles for bottle conditioning. Newfangled contraption went ok. Probably better than the old bottling wand and spigot. Either that or I’m just blowing a bit of CO2 into bottles for...

I recently lost a bout a litre of beer through a leaking disconnect on liquid post. Actually was not a problem with the disconnect. I thought it was probably a bad o-ring but when I went to replace it I found the problem was the machining of the post; I removed a sliver of steel (like a very...