Wow, perhaps worth me testing it myself then rather than trusting UU! I'd love to pop down to the Chorlton group. I'll give them a shout on the Facebook page and say you pointed me their way if you don't mind? Nice one.

Yeah it's hard to diagnose whether it's what other people might call a "butterscotch" taste. It's certainly got an initial sweetness to it. I've generally used Safale yeasts for most brews, some exhibiting this taste and some not. I don't yet calculate the amount of yeast I'm pitching. I have a...

Thanks mate. Didn't really know there were home brew groups locally. Chorlton is only right down the road too. Is it a pretty open club? I'd be interested in any knowledge/beer swapping! United Utilities claim their tap water Ph level has to be "between 6.5 and 9.5"...

Thanks for the responses guys. Each of the "bad" batches- although still completely drinkable- used the same base malts as the "good" beers (Marris Otter) and I can't put it down to the particular hops used either. Perhaps as you suggest (jmcnamara), the problem is underlying in the IPAs I've...

Hi everyone, I've brewed 4 different "all grain" beers now, with the first and the most recent displaying a bit of an odd taste I'm hoping somebody can identify the source of. I should point out the middle two "successful" brews were to the same recipe as each-other and were heavily hopped IPAs...

Always do. Doesn't help for them being attracted to the smell of fermenting apples bubbling out of about 50 litres' worth in the boiler cupboard though :) (which will be racked and bottled shortly, to make space for the next batch). A few blasts of basic fly spray in the kitchen and cupboard...

Good to see everyone's errors are just like mine i.e. on the most obvious, simple parts of the process. I fall for the old "tap left in open position" every time. Sometimes the "didn't even attach a tap to the fermentation bucket after cleaning it". There's 50l of apple cider and apple + pear...

Quality info gents, cheers. I don't have a false bottom in the kettle (it's just a fermentation bin which I've jammed a kettle element in but I've just done a test run and can happily declare no leaks!) So good reason to go with boil in a bag leaf hops and not clog the tap. They seem widely...

Cool. Always learning as I've not actually done an all-grain brew (or used the full capability of this website) yet! The IBU calculator actually says "If you select pellets the utilization will increase by 10%". Worth knowing :)

Thanks for some more good advice guys. I assumed there'd be quite a big difference between the equivalent weight in leaf or pellets, especially given that most of the recipes on here seem to use a much larger weight when using full leaf compared to pellets. I've just checked out the separate...

Hello everyone, Would anyone know how's best to adjust the amount of hops in a recipe between leaf/pellet? I'm of the understanding less weight of hops would be needed for both bittering and aroma in the case of pellets, as the pellets would dissolve in the beer, whereas leaf hops would be...

Good advice all. I'm not crazy for stouts but might do one anyway- maybe my second run using the all-grain system. It's useful to see how people do the boil-in-a-bag system too in terms of understanding general brewing processes and then picking what technique's best for my equipment...

That's interesting, thanks. So no sparge whatsoever eh? Like everyone seems to be saying, it's a big experimenting game! I'm sure you can get a decent drinkable beer out of many techniques, perhaps just not the exact beer you were expecting until you gain experience in your own technique and...

Thanks for the responses guys, much appreciated. So it will indeed be a single temperature mash, using the cool box mash tun. I'll pre-heat it by swilling around some boiling water and use the calculator to figure out the strike water temperature. I'll wrap it in towels because the lid doesn't...

Having visited Australia many times and having a lot of Aussie mates, I always found it confusing! As a summary, I think you can say "draught" usually means lager in Australia (whether on tap or bottled) and this terminology seems to be confined to Australia (and maybe NZ) only. Here in the UK...

Hi everyone, I'm planning my first all-grain brew soon, having set up a fairly primitive 23l system. If anyone has any ideas for a good first beer to brew, I'd love to hear it! Due to available local supplies and fairly low experience, I'll be looking for something simple with basic ingredients...

Welcome Al. I'm new on here today too. Based in Manchester and also starting all-grain after getting seriously hooked on homebrewing using kits.

Hi everyone. I'm new to the Forum today but I've been reading a few recipes and tips recently. I've done about 12 beer kit brews so far (usually with a few custom additives and extracts) as well as ciders from scratch. Starting all-grain brewing soon with a pretty amateur system I've knocked...