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I just realised as well that the "0.4" in your calculations could even potentially be 0.5 or 0.7/0.8 and should be higher again for lagers. I always love improving, so this is great to know for dry yeasts and I can make some easy changes that should result in some good improvements.

If we're talking minimum pitch, to be honest I'm not that far above it: (0.4*10^6)*23,000*10° = 92 x 10^9 and given two packs were added that's 100x10^9 So yes, I'll try again at higher/stable temperature, but looking at those numbers I'm thinking I need to be doing a bit of growth and some...

The first point is talking about speise. If you have 23L of 1050 wort and add 2L of 1050 wort does the final alcohol % of the beer change? What happens if you have 23L of 1050 wort and add 300mL of concentrated dextrose solution, does the alcohol % change? So for using speise I would argue...

It's basically using fermenting wort to carbonate. Faster and fresher as the wort has been hopped and doesn't affect the alcohol content of the beer. Another way to speed up carbonation is to add dextrose to a bottling bucket/fermenter and leave it for a few hours. Have to make a judgement call...

Going to try to speise a small amount in a 5L keg, and also speise some champagne bottles. Going to use Coopers lager LME with some Halletau MF but need to decide on the yeast - may actually use 34/70, we'll see. Keen to hear what Mark thinks?

See one person says dry yeasts are more robust, while others say they need to be rehydrated very carefully. I'm also curious about vitality and given they've typically been grown under conditions with adequate O2 this should be solid - but that's only been reported by Fermentis. Do other...

I've done the same with other saison yeasts and would have done so with this one, but suspect I cooked it too hard. Definitely keen to give it another go as it was tasting amazing up to the last few days of fermentation.

Well, I'm convinced. I went with essentially 50:50 barley/wheat, and had 6% dextrose on top of this and and 6% light ME in the mash with a 25min rest at 44-45°C. 3638 was the yeast, which in my experience has been reasonably balanced with a bit more going on in the phenolics. Pitched at...

I'm unfortunately lumped with a total immersion thermometer - but have found no visible change in reading when it's 2/3 immersed vs full and which tends to work better for me when measuring mash temperatures. My wife has temperature resistant hands but mine are very delicate. Anyway, while I...

That's an interesting point. Both dry and liquid packets I leave out for a few hours and then sit in a water bath either with starter wort or just water, then make up the starter or the rehydration mix. But only the liquid yeasts do I draw off wort from the batch and buzz it on the stirplate -...

You're absolutely right on all of those points Mark. MJ's do recommend rehydration, one pack for 23L of (presumably standard wort) and both packs were rehydrated together to form a nice bubbly cream - so I think the rehydration went well - and pitched into 23L of 1.040 wort. Dechlorinated tap...

I've used MJ's Empire Ale in a beer and it's come out great - this was a 9-10L batch and there was a bit of temperature variability but it was over summer so no heating in the freezer. Yes, this is exactly what happened. I had set my freezer to 16.5°C expecting that M44 would be like US-05...

Of the last perhaps 6-7 beers I've made, two have had reasonable chunks of acetaldehyde and looking back, both needed a lamp in the freezer and potentially had some temperature swings (bouncing between the lamp and freezer). One was the MJ's saison and this latest has been M44. The saison was...

Thanks for the feedback Nick - you may have nailed it. The Munich II, Victory and decoction (and yeast) evidently buffered the 90-100IBU enough... But perhaps too much. I think this was a one-off beer for me as there's too much effort in the hopping schedule and too many variables. I would...

The Weihenstephaner bottles are rated slightly higher I believe - or there's champagne bottles. Grab a carton from Dan Murphy's. Or PET. I buy cheap champagne in six-packs and use these bottles.

****...

Oh no, I meant yeast ferments pectin to methanol. I believe. Acetaldehyde is definitely a cause of hangovers but I wondered if methanol was a factor too.

Yeah that's fine - it will have less IBUs but - eg going from 14 to 13 - but this is not a bad thing. I doubt that you'll perceive it. Since you added the dextrose with 10min left it should have minimal impact on IBU anyway - maybe half an IBU. All in all, zero impact.

Why will it be less bitter?

I believe Mark's numbers of 5-10% come from the following: - recommendation to substitute 20% of expected extract with light malt extract rather than grain - the maltase rest seems to only result in about 25-35% of the light dry extract weight being converted to glucose - instead of...