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Disclamer: I'm not a scientist. I have however been trained in wine tasting, and spent a few years working as a cellar hand. I believe that it is Acetaldehyde caused by oxidation in the starter. Its the same thing that gives Fino Sherry the green apple smell. Not sure if it would harm the...

I can only brew small batches, and do high gravity boils, so i find that a water bath works pretty well to get the temp low enough to stop IBU's being absorbed. I have also added boiled, then cooled or frozen water to the boiling wort. this drops the temp from boiling to 40, very very quickly...

I think it may be related to a lack of knowledge/interest. My Mrs has been at me for ages to brew a ginger beer. i told her that she had to get involved if she was going to drink it, and magically, for the first time, she actually enjoyed the smell of the mash and boil, and even the smell of the...

Just make sure the second hand fridge you get isn't a piece of crap. I set one up a few weeks ago.... Set it to crash chill three days ago, however due to its apparent lack of insulation and refrigeration power the temp has actually gone up two degrees. That said, even my bad fridge is...

Sorry to hijack this thread, but i dont think its worth starting another. Does anyone have any experience with how much diastatic power is lost with exposure to oxygen? The problem is that i have been buying grain precrushed and I have no idea how long the grain has been sitting around. I...

Well theres a conicidence. I've just put down one that was 1kg munich, 2kg vienna with a bit of wheat and caramalt.I also had horendous efficiancy, only got 13L of 1044 wort. For reasons i dont understand efficiancy has been all over the shop. I suspect its all in the grind

That makes sense. I wonder how they prevented the barrels from splitting without a liquid to keep the timber hydrated.

I find it fascinating that wood flavour in beer has almost completely died out, while still being very common with wine. Wooden barrels must have been the only means of transporting large quantities of beer prior to the invention of metal barrels. Perhaps the beer wasn't in the barrel long...

I've seen one small winery ferment wine in the grape bin, in the drive way of the winery, in the sun, because they ran out of tank space during vintage.

I did a porter about 6 weeks ago, which consisted of JWM Trad ale malt, 3% Simpson heritage crystal, and 10% choc. I actually found that, despite it being so dark, it didnt have enough 'roastiness'. Still quite refreshing and pleasant though.

I've got a 12L stockpot which wil hold just over 3kg of grain (at 3L per Kg). Just get a 20L one from Big W. The only reason i use a 12L one is because i got it for $3.

I know plenty of guys that own firearms. A few are competition pistol shooters, they keep them under the bed in a safeand the rules to keep them are quite strict. I quite enjoy shooting, but the fact remains, if there are less guns, then there are fewer deaths from guns. One thing that is...

I also do a high gravity boil in a 19L pot (which actually hold 21L) chuck it in a water bath, then dilute the high gravity with cold water only takes about 40min. Oh and use the water from the water bath on the garden. IS

I'm brweing in a two bedroom joint, in the kitchen. I made up a 12L mashtun which will take about 3.5kg of grain, then i boil in a Big dub 20L SS pot. I can comfortably make 15L batches. The small mash tun allows for doing a proper sparge. The only thing about this setup is that you end up...

Its likely that the reason it is getting dryer is because the priming sugar is fermenting out. This slight sweetness probably helps to carry the maltyness through. I find that the ferment starts to taste really thin when the SG drops below 1020. Give it a month in the bottle and see what its...

Here, check this out http://www.picobrewery.com/askarchive/acetaldehyde.html

Definitely take a sample. I sample daily, sometimes twice a day (but only if it tastes really good). This allows you to follow SG drop, pinpoint the moment when it stops, and gives you an idea of how the yeast typically behaves.

By the sound of things you are just about due for a replacement computer anyway. If you can get yourself a really cheap intel based macbook or Imac second hand, then you can run parallels/bootcamp/cross over. I'm using brew mate on windows, on my mac, and its great. Frankly i'm amazed that your...

At the winery i worked at we just mixed it up in wine, then added it back to the tank. Also, we were always told that polyclar was really bad for your lungs, but then we were doing 20+Kg additions.