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After nearly a year of collecting a building my (ghetto) Braumeister clone I finally brewed my first batch on it yesterday. Whilst I was pleased with the end result my effeciency (50.2%) was no where near what I had expected. I have a feeling that I mashed too thick - 6.85kg of grain in a 20L...

Putting this one out there for in hope that someone knows how thread sizes work (1/2", 3/4" etc.). More specifically someone who's bought a 1/2" Stainless full bore 2 piece (Grain and Grape) fitting and connected a Skin Fitting to it. I'd recently purchased a 1/2" Ball Valve and a 1/2" skin...

... no not prostate hops :ph34r: I have had my Tettnanger for 4 years now, the previous 3 years they have been in a large pot however I've never once had any cones and the vertical growth of the plant has deminished year on year until I now get what you see in the picture below (taken...

Have finally moved away from the bottles on to kegging (scored a fire extinguisher yesterday from work). I've got a question regarding force cabonation that's hopefully easily answered. If I force carb using the slow method at a higher temperature (ie. 18c) and then drop down to serving...

Have been tinkering with this recipe for a while now. It's pretty much a knock off bastardisation of the Golden Strong Ale from the Brewing Classic Styles and Papazian's Cherries in the Snow but with both some freshly frozen sweet cherries and a couple of jars of Turkish Morello cherries and a...

Anyone have any ideas on how to effectively and rapidly age hops? Was thinking spreading them over some baking paper and popping them in the oven at a dehydration temp 50-60^c for a few hours. Would this be enough? or is my only resort to be patient :( Popping some in to a paper bag in a warm...

Hey All, I siphoned off a tripel yesterday to a secondary fermentor so it could mellow out at lower temps (9-12c) for a month. I did notice that it was a tad on the sweet side - even for a tripel. I'm wondering if it would be worthwhile dropping in a lager yeast (S23) so that some of the...

Just a heads up Harris Farm in Penrith are doing a special on Pink Lady Apples - A bag of 40 for $2! I bought 3 bags (plus 2 3 Litre bottles of pear and apple juice for $6) and am now trying to work out the best way to juice them. I was thinking considering I don't have an actual juicer and my...

Time to take a deep breath and go in to the deep end, planned brew day is this coming Saturday, so I'll wait until after 1pm. Have decided to go with a half batch in the event I faff things up. I've been trying to get my mash schedule down pat but trying to heat from 66c to 77c for a mashout...

I'll start my question with what I think is the answer and I'll leave it to those who oblige with their comments to see how wrong I might be. Answer: I have a feeling I mashed my partial too high (70c) and ended up with too much body and fermented too low (7-8c for SafLager S-23) that I should...

Long question, hopefully a quick answer. I'm wanting to make the step towards AG by doing a partial but rather than confusing myself with hops additions I'd really rather just use a pre-hopped kit. Just means I can focus more on the mash and boil. Which then brings me to the important part -...

The understairs cupboard is the only place I have available for my beer storage. Whilst this keeps a nice 20-22C during the summer, I'm lucky to get over 18C at this time of year and that's in the middle of the day. I bottle a Belgian Wit nearly 2 weeks ago and the two sample bottles I've...

I'm currently using a 25L carboy to ferment my brews, however 20L of beer is a bit on the big side for me, not so much from a consumption point of view but more that I want to branch out and try different techniques and recipes, anyways starting to waffle. Basically my question is, would a 25L...

My wyeast 3068 has been fermenting at ~18C for 8 days now, is this normal? I was under the impression it would be done and ready in 3-5 days even at this lower temperature. I'm getting a lot of banana smell too which was also unexpected due to the lower temperatures. Unfortunately I was a...

Ok this may sound daft but what exactly am I searching for? Is the internal package a soft or hard one? I can't really feel anything aside from liquid. How do I tell if it's swollen, should I be thinking a bag of microwave popcorn or is the swelling a little more subtle?

Just thought I'd put it out there that these are going for $130 at Target. They fit a 30L Carboy and have enough room to leave the top shelf in. I'd recommend putting some polystyrene in the front window to improve insulation and power consumption.

A Mash Tun is something I'm looking at putting a few dollars each week away for, but I'm wondering what size I should be going for? I know most folks will say bigger is better, but does the volume of the Tun need to match the volume of the fermenter? I mean can I get away with a 15L Tun for a...

I know the link for it is floating around the forums somewhere, but I've not been able to find it on here or via google. Just wondering if someone would be kind enough to post the link.

Well I cracked open another of my first batch of beer and it has a sweet buttery taste. It was a James Squire Amber Ale clone so I bought some today to do a comparison test, and well lets put it this way, the homebrew ended up down the drain and the Amber Ale I'm drinking as I type this. I...

Ok now that my Dunkelweizen is into the secondary I thought I'd start planning out my next beer. I have a passion for wheat beers but at this stage my skillset and equipment is restricting me to extract and steeped grains, so nothing too fancy. I came up with this recipe by reworking my...