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5 days a week alcohol free for me during normal working times. For good reasons, my workplace has zero tolerance level and random testing. Alas, introduction of this has darn near killed off my attendance of Thursday evening BABB meetings, as I would have to take a sickie on the Friday or else...

None. All of my yeast are married before I let them reproduce. No little bastards in my brew!

About 40%. I either brew with my bro-in-law or my mate Adrian, in either case I end up drinking a bit less than half.

Oh dear, how unfortunate! :blink:

Happy New Year! I have just replaced the pump and filter on my 20,000 litre above ground pool. The new system is a Zodiac cartridge filter with a 400kw (1/2 HP) Onga Leisuretime LTP400 pump. The problem I have is that the pump gets very noisy - loud buzzing noise - when the pressure in the...

Oh yeah, they make a sweet sound. The .35-III will be going in a Southwick Skylark. Not sure what to do with the .29-IV yet, its a bit 'hotter' than the .35 and in the day was commonly used for combat or B team race. The good folks at Enya are torturing me. They have just re-released the...

A very quaffable Squires Golden clone and "black death" 6.2% abv strong dark ale. The black death is not a great summer drinking beer but makes a superior black & tan, particularly when mixed with Boag's Draught.

Some good pressies ... A Schoefferhofer branded weizen glass A nice set of washable drink coasters Enya .29-IV (5cc) and .35-III (5.8cc) model plane engines (reproduction limited release of classic 1960s control line engines) Spitfire "short kit" - control line stunter wing kit for .15/2.5cc...

Having just tried Paul's lovely weizen, made as described above, I'll second that advice. It didn't have any of the other distracting flavours I have noticed in my own hefes, fermented at more like 21-22. Just a nice soft malt character, clove and banana, in near perfect balance. It could...

I have achieved quite authentic tasting cask ale flavour by storing the beer at a winter ambient temperature of about 14C-16C and priming lightly with about 50g of dextrose in a corny. Prime then leave to condition for a few days, venting the head space via the poppet about once a day. It will...

Thanks Jye, much appreciated. --Col

Jumping in at the end of this thread ... I'm clean out of phosphoric acid, and am considering trying the Five Star pH 5.2 stabiliser listed on Ross' site. It sounds like the ideal product for use with the pH 7.9 or so Brisbane town supply. I have always needed to use a bit of phosphoric acid...

A bit out of balance towards malt? :blink:

I'm starting to look forward to this batch ... I bet it will leave that mellow feeling that only a super hoppy beer can give. (I'm sure Ross knows what I'm talking about). What is it in hops that does that?

Why not use a pump to recirculate water from a swimming pool or water tank? A few thousand litres of cool water should easily drop a normal volume of wort down without increasing in temperature by more than a fraction of a degree. Anyone with either a pool or tank should be able to chill...

I'm thinking I will grow to like this beer. It didn't seem nearly as bitter when I tried it tonight, and the hops flavour is coming through an absolute treat. My regular consumers are all hopheads, so I doubt anyone will complain much. To make sure I'm going to brew an 80/- or some other malt...

I still use a lid and airlock, but I'm not entirely sure why because my fermenter hasn't sealed properly for years. A bottle cap to prevent ingress of fruit flies & other sundry crawlers would be sufficient. Just got back from the old country myself ... here's some photos of the recently...

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. On Friday I brewed an American amber with a recipe I just whipped up on the spot using the HBD recipator. Some of my best beers have come out of spur of the moment brewing sessions like this. Today I took a sample to see how its going. Down to...

No huge improvement for me this year, as my big leap to AG was a few years ago now. If I hadn't gone AG, I doubt I would still be brewing. This years improvements were more subtle, incremental changes which made brew days easier. Probably the most noticeable improvement was a distinct...

Small quantities of many cooking spices can work in a wit. Traditionally, many witbiers have a secret 'house' spice in addition to the normal coriander and curacao peel. This can be tiny amounts of things like ginger, black pepper, cardamom, and who knows what else. Then there are the odd...