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Ah, so you actually built the brew room especially? One thing i'm curios of, is have you brewed on it yet? I did a couple of boils indoors, but found the amount of steam produced impossible to vent, just wondering on how you manage to handle it.

Hey what's the deal with the funny looking 3gal keg in the freezer?

I've deleted most of your posts Prof Phil, and put all the pics in 2 posts. Please learn to post without all the repl stuff. Also, would be good if you could resize your pictures down a bit - unfortunately i'm not on my own PC atm, so i can't do it.

I ended up making two kit wines. The first was a chardonnay - i gave some to some friends who are real wine snobs, and they were blown away as to how good it was - they reckon they'd pay $20-$30 for a bottle of it. The red is a different story though - fermentation got away from me, and i came...

Did anyone else notice the original posters step of "poking holes in the foil".... What's the point of sanitising the foil then opening it up to the world? As teh yeast consumes the starter, the pressure will just escape down the side of the foil, no need to make any holes.

http://www.users.on.net/~jgriffin/Shaz_Baz.wmv Warning it's 7meg for the dialup users.

Yeah that's why i didn't want to open it. But if i wait till saturday to pitch it (when the fridge will be free) and it's off, then i've wasted two weeks preparing the lager starter from hell.

I've got my own theories, but i'm wondering what people think the shelf-life of the ESB fresh wort kits are. I've got one here that is now 12 months old, and am trying to decide whether to tie up the ferm fridge for a week brewing it, or just pouring it down the sink. Whadda you reckon? I've...

Glad i'm in a modernish house this year. I used to live in the old crapp house in Bardon - was always 5-10C hotter inside than out. And the year we hot 46C a couple of years back, i felt like dieing. Even the water out of the tap was hot.

Well it's been quite a while since i did chemistry at uni, but that's sodium hydroxide isn't it? Doesn't it pit glass?

Yeah it normally works great, but these last lot don't want to budge. Even after soaking for a week, you can see a slight ring on them.

I'd stay away from rubber washers, although i know some brewers use them. I used one once, and the burner melted the bloody thing. Created a mess of my nice stainless fittings and the keg, and also caused a rather major leak.

What do people here find the best way to clean their flasks etc after using them to make starters? I find i end up with a ring of gunk that doesn't just soak off. I've thought of using brushes, or dishwasher powder, but don't want to scratch or pit the glass at all or create anything that...

Any of the usual thermostats that people here have been buying in the bulk buy section should do you. The digital Dixell ones were around $90 from memory. You'd need to insert the probe into a stainless tube or something to keep it out from wort - altho0ugh they also have stainless probes that...

I can just imagine the hangovers the crew are going to have on Sunday.

The reason some kits say not to stir, is all related to the rehydration of the yeast. If you are rehydrating it in water first, then you might as well stir it in. For a better explanation, read this http://consumer.lallemand.com/danstar-lalvin/beerfaq.html

Damn, why didn't i think of that!? I was looking for a solution to exactly the same problem on the weekend. :-)

Just read the article again "The lager and pilsner beers commonly sold in domestic U.S. brews have fairly low levels of these compounds, but some porter, stout and ale brews have much higher levels" Go the porter!

Yeah i know Doc, if one of my customers had done it, i'd call them an idiot.

I wonder if these compounds are actually left after the commercial brewers do their thing and use isohops. It's also interesting that flavonoids seems to get an alround good mention - aren't there heaps of flavonoids in dark beers?