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  1. The Mad Hopper

    Kits Or Ag Cheaper? Pros/cons?

    Might as well splurge and spend another 4 bucks on some flavour hops. It'll bring your brew up to $14.30 though, gettin' kinda pricey! :icon_cheers:
  2. The Mad Hopper

    Kits Or Ag Cheaper? Pros/cons?

    It doesn't have to be expensive to get into AG. I used a couple of eskys I found lying around (one for a mash tun, one to hold sparge water - cost: $0), made a manifold from some copper at bunnings and held it into place with silicone (about $30). The only expensive part was the boiler (~$100...
  3. The Mad Hopper

    Dubbel Question

    Hijack away, it's all useful information for my batch at this stage anyway! :icon_cheers: I added some golden syrup 15 minutes before the end of the boil. Do you think this will be a problem as there will be sucrose in with the maltose to begin with? I would think that the yeast would...
  4. The Mad Hopper

    Dubbel Question

    Thanks for the advice on the sugar Manticle. Given the relatively small split batch size (about 6-6.5L each), I might have to skip the continuos SG readings (can't afford a refractometer right now and a hydrometer will probably take about 100-200mL per reading). However, the yeast should chew...
  5. The Mad Hopper

    Dubbel Question

    So would I be better off delaying the sugar additions until gravity hits about 3/4 final and the adding it in to dry it out? Would this also mean it was best to delay the temperature climb?
  6. The Mad Hopper

    Dubbel Question

    Thanks, I didn't know that. And a good point about being able to counteract the extra sugar with sterile water. I would have pre-dissolved it anyway so I guess it's no extra work. And given that I had a higher than predicted efficiency out of the mash it shouldn't affect the predicted...
  7. The Mad Hopper

    Dubbel Question

    I brewed a Belgian Dubbel yesterday and cubed about 24-25L. After doing a bit of reading around, it seems that the key to Dubbels is the yeast and how you treat it. I have 4 spare 10L cubes (that can double as fermenters) and was thinking of splitting the batch and doing a direct 4 way...
  8. The Mad Hopper

    Winter Brewing

    Why not leave the first out at ambient temperature instead. It's pretty cold out now and that's just going to help the beer, and most of the primary ferment is done. In a garage or something I'd think the beer would be sitting somewhere between 4-10deg most of the time. By the way, how much...
  9. The Mad Hopper

    Noob No-chill Question

    Also, remember to take into account that those cubes hold more than the stated volume. Same thing happened to me when I started using a cube and I had to adjust beersmith recipe sizes to take account of that.
  10. The Mad Hopper

    Secondary Fermentation And Airlock

    Jib, it sounds like you've misunderstood what people mean by a secondary fermenter. People rack beer to a secondary fermenter to clear up the yeast (mostly, although there are a few other reasons, such as you can't be bother bottling straight away), NOT so that they can do secondary...
  11. The Mad Hopper

    Am I Bottling Correctly?

    Wouldn't you be better off adding the fermentables to your bottling bucket, then transferring the beer? That way the swirling action of the beer transfer will mix the fermentables in, meaning one less time you need to stick something into the beer.
  12. The Mad Hopper

    Wort Chill Method

    HSA can be a problem for the homebrewer, but you really do need to be a doofus to make it happen. When doing my first AG, I tried to pour a post boil batch of wort into the chilling cube. Aside from the fact that I almost gave myself third degree burns and most of the wort ended up on the...
  13. The Mad Hopper

    Crown Seals...

    I bottle in carlton twist top longnecks and I've used crown seals from coopers, G&G and brewcraft and they all work fine, no flats. If I condition for too long they actually grip on so tight that you need to pop them off.
  14. The Mad Hopper

    Hit And Miss!

    Keeping the lid on until you hit the boil shouldn't affect evaporation all that much: look at how little steam you have coming off before the boil. It will help you hit boil faster though. Regardless, it won't change your efficiency. With the leaks, go to your nearest hardware store and...
  15. The Mad Hopper

    Are My Slants Ok?

    Thanks for that, I might give it a shot. I work in a biology lab and we store bacteria as glycerol stocks at -20C if we can't be bothered putting them in a -80C or liquid nitrogen freezer (or if we need frequent access). Never worked with yeast though and for our purposes we don't really care...
  16. The Mad Hopper

    Are My Slants Ok?

    Sorry to hijack, but I just wanted to know Piraterum if you have any advice on storing yeast longer. A glycerol stock in the freezer perhaps?
  17. The Mad Hopper

    What Is The Future Of Beer

    I tried this last weekend at The Local Taphouse in St Kilda. Personally I thought the bitterness stood out a bit too much. The beer had this great and quite subtle honey-like sweetness to it, but before I could enjoy that the bittering came through. Don't get me wrong, I still liked the beer...
  18. The Mad Hopper

    RecipeDB - DrSmurto's Golden Ale

    Yeah, that's how I did it with no-chill to get the aroma from the Amarillo. (for the record: dry hopped at about 3/4 to final gravity, transferred to secondary at final gravity for 2 weeks with a tbsp of sugar, bottled and conditioned for a month. Great aroma.)
  19. The Mad Hopper

    What Is The Future Of Beer

    That's exactly how I drink: walk into a pub and order the beer that I've never heard of.
  20. The Mad Hopper

    What Is The Future Of Beer

    In part I think the future of craft beer will be dictated by the success or failure of pubs such as Grumpy's Green, The Local Taphouse, The Royston Hotel, The Fox Hotel and The Lambs Go Bar (there are many more I could mention here). I have heaps of mates that I've convinced to go to a place...
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