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I reckon the way Beersmith presents these fields in the Carbonation Tool and also the associated info on their website is a bit misleading. It asks for the "Temperature of beer when bottling or storing", which is fine if that temperature is the same as the fermentation temperature. But if the...

This was my understanding - not, as BDD suggests, the secondary fermentation temperature. Technically I think it refers to the max. temp the batch has reached after the majority of fermentation has finished, as the amount of CO2 produced by fermentation that stays in solution at atmospheric...

Agreed. This is hardly a phenomenon unique to our fair "stinking hot" land (what's up with that, anyway? I reckon we're in denial about the fact that half this country has bitterly cold winters). Most of the beer drinking world got swept up in the lager craze within a few decades of the Czech...

This is true, thank you dent. When my Crown urn's sight gauge snapped off in the now somewhat infamous implosion incident, I put an M6 stainless bolt through the hole where the fitting used to go, and it's watertight without any gasket or sealant. I think when I was building my heat exchanger I...

This is the exact same issue I encountered when putting a jug element in a 7L stockpot (both from K-Mart IIRC). I put a bolt through the base, into the jiffy box I'd glued to the bottom which housed the electrical connections, and earthed the bolt. Judicious use of silicone sealant prevented any...

I had intermittent problems getting my March pump to prime. I put a bleed valve on the outlet but still had issues. I ended up putting a T on the inlet, so that the pump could be primed by the feeding vessel, OR by forcibly priming it from the mains, which is hooked up to the T via a ball...

I would say that both lael and MaltyHops' theories would be contributing factors, manson, although you don't state if this ale started out particularly hoppy. That said, I haven't used PET bottles for a long time so can't really comment from experience, but I would have thought 6 months would be...

Welcome. First of all, a friendly warning: you'll get no love from anyone here by talking about your airlock :P Throw it in the bin and while you're at it, forget about using the lid too. Cover the fermenter with glad-wrap and secure it using the big rubber o-ring that goes inside the...

I'd be very interested to hear if your jury-rigged solution has had a noticeable affect on flavour in the week since you used it, Dave. Cask conditioned ales served according to traditional notions of what qualifies as a "real ale" aren't served under CO2 pressure and so start to oxidise as soon...

I have an RTD probe through the side of my kettle that I connect to my PID controller. I control one of my kettle elements with the PID, set it to about 98°C, and leave the lid on the kettle while I get on with something else without worrying about a boil-over and having to watch the kettle like...

The current absence of which is costing us members, I think!

Bear in mind that viability of the yeast will immediately begin to decline, so you'll want to use those extra cultures fairly quickly. They'll be fine refrigerated for a few days, but the Mr Malty calculator will give you a good idea of how quickly the viability changes - and that's designed for...

The manufacturer's instructions. Any yeast for which you cannot easily obtain that information (e.g. bakers yeast :P) is probably not worth using. An ideal range is normally stated, within which the higher and lower ends will produce slightly different results. A general rule is higher...

How many bottles have you tried and did all of them have this flavour? Would you say there's a medicinal/band-aid sort of element to the clove taste? If so I'd say JoeyJoeJoe might have the right idea with the bleach being the cause. Pretty sure I've had that happen to me the one time I used...

Manticle's point about getting expected results is key. We have to accept that our thermometers are going to be flaky. For the mash, I just calibrated my PID based on boiling water and ice, and have tweaked it a little since to get my beers attenuating where I want them for the mash schedules I...

Is there any significant difference in the flavour if you back sweeten with juice as opposed to something unfermentable like stevia, or even lactose ( :icon_vomit: )?

According to that table from The ULTIMATE ALMANAC of WORLD BEER RECIPES that's been posted up here a few times, beta-amylase is denatured at 70°C. Alpha-amylase is at its peak at 72°C. In theory if you wanted mostly (or only) alpha to do the conversion, could you aim for 72, and if the temp...

Thanks for your responses guys. I might do some rough calculations to determine if it has any hope of working, although most of the info out there is geared toward calculating temperature reductions for CPUs with a known heat load. Not really sure how I'd work out the heat load of the coolant...

My chest freezer based keggerator set up made a big leap forward yesterday with the acquisition of 2 4-tap flooded fonts. I always thought of flooding as a nice-to-have feature to help prevent foaming issues when pouring that first beer of a session, and never thought about getting the whole ice...

No diastatic power is required as there are no starches left to be turned into sugars. The starches are already converted to mostly unfermentable, dextrinous long-chain sugars inside the grain, which have been crystallised by the kilning process. Steeping crystal malts adds colour, flavour, body...