Jim's Beer Kit

This will be erm.. interesting! Let us know how it turns out. Never heard of anyone using 6.5Kg of amber before.

Nice 1 nobby! Thanks mate!

I usually use about 80g of dextrose to prime a five gallon brew of ale (2g/pint), but how much do you guys use for lagers?

Does this mean that you're going to keep your lager permanently cold then? Maybe I'm wrong but I could have sworn that the whole point of lagering was because it 'cures' chill haze or at least goes some way towards it. I think your right dedken, lagering goes some way towards curing chill haze. You...

That's a good tip yopper!

Where did you get your wheat bran from?

Did you just add it to the first few kilos in the mash tun i.e. around your tun strainer or did you mix it right through the mash?

Thanks for the replies guys! I would trust the yeast and just bottle it and hope that it carbonates. @gnorwebthgimi - I made a few batches of lager in March last year and got away without adding yeast but the temps were quite mild in comparison and I only lagered for a month, so I'm not going to lea...

I've got a lager thats been racked off in a barrel in the shed for the last two months. I am planning on bottling it at the weekend, but I think I'll have to add some fresh yeast as the wee fellas may not have withstood the arctic temperatures over Christmas. I will just rehydrate some ale yeast for...

Thanks Steve. Will do next time I use s23. Getting in to liquid yeasts at the moment. We'll see how it goes.

Thanks guys! Gonna pitch it.

simco999 wrote:AS long as its not off I'd pitch. 5 litres is a lot for a starter. Where did the wort come from??

Some wort from last brew in grolsh bottles in the fridge and some spraymalt. I'm gonna step it up more slowly next time.

I've been nurturing a starter of WLP830 for the last week in 5L of wort and now I've come to pitch it the beer tastes like cider. Never noticed this before. Is it because I've aerated it every time I've looked at it or is it infected? Just about to pitch but not sure what to do! :? Maybe I stepped u...

Thanks Graeme!

I will leave the yeast to tidy up.

Should I start to drop the temperature again slowly or keep it at 16C until the diacetyl reduces?

My last lager has got down to 1010 in 9 days but has a very strong butter / diacetyl taste. I pitched 2 packs of saflager s23 at 13C and brewed at 12C for the first 7 days from 1054 down to 1018 and then raised the temp to 15-16C for the last couple of days. Should I leave it on the yeast to clean u...

This was 3 weeks ago now and I did Rack off! And chill! but now I'm not sure if I should have chilled it first to get more yeast to drop out and then racked off to lager!

Still not sure!

It's the German version of medium crystal malt. The differences are going to be fairly subtle. Even British crystals from different maltsters taste slightly different. 'Redder' colour than regular British crystal ? Doubt it. You're right about cara pils, adds a noticeable amount of body and gives a...

What is the difference between carared and crystal. Am I right in thinking that carared will give you a deeper colour (i.e red) and less sweetness than crystal. I usually use 100g up to 400g of crystal for 23L brew but not sure how much carared to use or whether I can use cara and crystal. Then ther...