Recent content by Mikey!!!

Ok cheers. I've shaken the bottles a bit and put them back away. I'll take another peek in a month or so. Thanks for the advice!

So I cracked one of these open this week... It's been in the bottle nearly 4 weeks. I know it's a little early but I wanted to see what it was like. IT WAS FLAT!!!! :o Do you think that means that I somehow killed the yeast? Or might it be that the alcohol content is too high for the crappy...

Yeah? Maybe I should give that a go then. This GB had a GB kit, some ginger cordial, 1Kg of grated ginger and a couple of chillis in it, among other things. It must have been too strong for the plastic because I've cleaned it heaps and nothing's worked. Nappy san does work pretty well on my...

Ok. So I just bought a new fermenter online. I'll keep this old one for the smellier brews. Thanks for all your advice - this ginger ale better be worth it!!! :-)

Right - that makes sense, I didn't think of the polarity issues. Do you know if there is anything easier to get my hands on that would work as well as ethanol? And wouldn't cost more than another fermenter?

Great! Thanks for the suggestions. I'll try the lemon juice now and let you know how it goes. If that doesn't work, I might do as you did keep this old fermenter exclusively for ginger beers or things that could do with a slight hint of ginger. If anyone else has any ideas though, please reply!

Hi all! I recently bottled a very powerful ginger beer and I want to get another pale ale going in the carboy now... The big problem is that the carboy has a really strong smell of ginger in it and I can't get rid of it! I've soaked it for a couple of days in the coopers cleaning stuff and...

Will do - thanks! I'll go with the glass then. Sorry for the dumb questions, but... When you bottle this, do you filter it to avoid getting chunks of ginger in the bottles?

I'm trying out that GB recipe - it sounds great. Say, a friend of mine said that doing GB, there's a greater chance of the bottles exploding. Is that right? He reckons I should bottle this in plastic but I really don't like pouring beer out of plastic bottles. I don't know what the reason...

Hi all. I don't have a hydrometer yet so I can't test the gravity but I did a taste test last night and it tastes great! It's still to sweet obviously but there's no foul tastes or anything at all! Also, the cheesy smell has lessened a bit now and it smells more sweet and fruity. I'm really...

Oh, and I haven't tested the gravity...

Cool, I'll try that! But it hasn't stayed wet, I don't think. Although, I do have a wet t-shirt over it all to keep the temp down. I'll try changing that too.

Thanks for the replies! I'm using the coopers ale yeast from under the lid. The goos are coopers dark ale and coopers stout. A friend of mine said that this combo works quite well. Since I used two tins, I didn't add any sugars. The air temperature has been around 23 and i've got a tea shirt...

Hi all. I'm fairly new to homebrewing. I'm making my second brew - I used half Coopers Dark Ale and half Coopers Stout. About 4 days in, there's a kind of fruity and cheesey smell coming from the fermenter. Does the cheesiness mean that it's become infected? I was worried about this brew...