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No doubt there are many feral apple trees that started in a pile of bear poop all over the valley @MUZZY. But Bear's Delight appears to be growing on what was once the rubbish heap of the old homestead, which is now a hill. If I dig around in the dirt I find things like an old shoe, a rusted out can, or tiny glass pill bottles. The farmhouse has long since rotted away. The only sign it was ever there is a depression in the ground where the foundation used to be....Yes @Thirsty Jim people come and go on the landscape, and leave apple trees behind. Bear's Delight is not the only apple tree growing on this hill, there are four others, but they all produce crappy apples.

I agree, in an attempt to say in the market against imports, some products produced by Australian manufactures are junk. Some previous and current purchases I have made from the Big Green Shed claiming to be made in Australia leave a lot lacking as far as quality goes.

If by "striking some cuttings" you mean grafting onto rootstock, yes I have tried that. Last year I planted two baby Bear's Delight trees at our cottage, and one in our backyard in the city, and gave my brother-in-law one for his cottage. But none of them are old enough to produce apples yet, which will take another six years or so.....A local tree nursery has made 20 baby Bear's Delight trees and is attempting to sell them in his nursery. He says that if people buy them, he will continue to propagate them, but if they don't, he will stop. Fingers crossed the public buys some..... Cheers, Christina.

@Classic Brewing Co yes Phil, I have one of those. I half fill the bottom bit with veg or chicken stock, seal the top with tin foil, and push the steamer bit on it, making sure no steam escapes from the side. Then I put the couscous in a bowl and damp it with a samll amount of water. Afterwards into the steamer part and steam it for 30 minutes. Afterwards you put it in a baking tray and rub it between your hands (with a bit of oilive oil) to get the clumps out. Then do another 30 minute steam. and declump it again. For the final round of 30 minutes I put the chopped veg in the bottom, and steam the semoule over that. Some people put chicken or lamb in with the veggies, it's more traditional but I prefer the meat cooked seperately. I had a (genuine) Algerian couscous once, the whole lot stank of wet wooly jumpers, because they had put chunks of mutton in with it. Absolutely inedible, even if it was authentic. I know it's all the rage now to talk about "culturally appropriating" ethnic grub and all that: obviously I have no truck with such complete and utter sh*te, but I'd rather have my version than the smelly old sheep version

Hey peeps and freaks, Well today I brewed a bit of an Aussie Lager for a mate who has been forking out north of $70 a slab for gluten-free beer. I offered to brew a gluten reduced beer for him and he chose to go with an Aussie Bitter. So with a bit of help from the Coopers recipe archive, and some helpful advice from @Journeyman, @iBooz2and @Shamus O'Sean I cobbled together a bit of a recipe, borrowing bits from here and there to suit what I had in stock. So here it is … the Mongrel Bitter coopers Canadian Blonde tin BE3 600g Gladfield Pilsner malt 250g Dextrin malt (both mashed at 65 degrees C for 60 minutes, 30 minute boil) 10g PoR and 10g Saaz (both at 10 mins) Clarity Ferm 10 ml repitched W34/70 at 10 degrees C 23 litres fermenting at 12.5 degrees C OG 1.046 IBU: 37 Thanks for your help guys. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out

I have 2 x 15l blue containers from Bunnings that I use for water from my distiller and also from my RO filter to use with brews. I was sanitising 1 of them a while ago and put some stellarsan in it and gave it a good shake, that resulted in me getting sanitised. The leak was from the lid so I checked that and the sealing washer was in place in the lid so I was wondering. The problem was that the sealing surface that the sealing washer contacts on the container was so rough the washer had zero chance of sealing. The other blue container I have though is fine. I can not even blame the Chinese as the blue containers are manufactured in Australia. I guess that it is an example of building a product down to a price rather than building up to a quality level!

Aah next time…sorry man I put it on today and have just read your post. I was thinking about using 1.5 kg LME , but opted for a BE3 and a small mash with a bit of PoR and Saaz. I’ll post up on “What’s in your fermenter” as I just took a pic. Was yours 20 litres Shamus? I took mine out to 23 litres…

Welcome to the forum. If you go back through this very thread that you are in there is a download or two plastered all through here. In fact it is sitting right there in the post above yours. @daniele2478 May I suggest downloading it from @Shamus O'Sean's latest post on September 14 as this would be the most up to date version.

@Spursman Yep had this happened to me too. Bloody blue fermenter drum from Bunnings had a stuffed thread, suspect someone had over wound the bung or a tap and stripped the drum thread, then took it back and got another one. Bunnings put this dud one back on the shelf and then I came along and bought it. Anyway stuck with it now so glued the bung in with plastic rated superglue. I bought another new one, checked the thread before paying and keep this one as a spare now. They are very handy in case of a mishap like ours and they are excellent for when you want to do a dirty batch and pitch fresh wort straight back onto the trub. Mix up you new batch of wort in the sanitised spare, bottle or keg the original brew from the original FV and then tip the new batch straight back in. Hope your turns out ok there mate. Maybe buy yourself some spare taps and "O" rings too. Ya just never know.

Hello, I'm new to the world of beers! Where can I find this spreadsheet?

A guy walks into a bar and yells out "a beer and a shot for everyone". So the bartender starts pouring drinks like mad and everyone in the bar is happy. When it comes to paying, the guy says "I don't have any money", so the bar tender throws him out. Next day, the guy comes in again and the same thing happens. He has no money and gets thrown out. On the third day, he again shouts a beer and a shot to everyone but says to the bartender "you don't get a shot today because you always pick a fight when you've had a drink".

Yeah I know when I realised I had said that the edit option was not available, so have to live with it.

Phil mate - Ya wanna run that by me again?

A simple wheat beer: T/C Preacher's Hefe, 1.5kg wheat malt extract, 500g rice malt syrup and a touch of dry wheat malt with Lally Munich Classic for the yeast. The krausen eruption has subsided somewhat on Day 4 but I am glad I had the collar on. Beautiful banana/clove aromas in the ferment fridge and I have been doing the ferment at the top end of the Munich Classic's range to get the most of the esters, fermented @21.5°.

Nice quick brew day today. Mashed in at 8:30am and had yeast pitched by 12:45pm not overly sure what I brewed today…in my head I was setting out to make an “Australian ale” type of beer, an ale version of my Australian Lager….. it quickly deviated and became apparent that it was going to land and some where in the vicinity of a beer moonlighting as an English best bitter……but not really. I’m calling it a pub ale. maris otter, Vienna and Shepard’s delight. POR for the bitters, willamette and EKG as a mid boil and late addition. English ale yeast fermenting at 19. One point short on SG. Colour and clarity of the wort looked great. Should come in at 4.5% as a nice little quaffer

In this case bog standard is being used as a term of endearment. helles looks good mate. Good clarity

Thanks @Shamus O'Sean I’m hoping I’ve dodged a bullet…after pitching the yeast today I took a gravity sample of the decanted liquid from the starter and it sat at 1.010. I’m speculating that if there had been a contamination from the previous saison starter….that gravity would have been closer to 1.000 im not overly worried about having Gushers as it will be kegged, I’m more concerned about my English ale turning Belgian on me during ferment I highly doubt that will happen but you never know

Sounds promising, you will know by the smell & of course taste as time goes on.

Checked the fv this arvo. Very light krausen ring and not much activity (day 3). Pitched some harvested yeast in and got a slight amount of activity. Decided to draw a hydrometer sample. Brew is sitting at 1007. Couldn't resist a taste test and (very surprisingly) it's actually pretty darn tasty. Think i may have dodged a bullet with this one. Time will tell.

Way to go.

Some great tips in here, Thanks. I bottled on Sunday and used the last of the drops, was going to be half and half but that never happened. Next week will be sugar first, fill and cap, store and Wait (the hard part)

Hey guys Seen my 1st review on this by Gash of the homebrewnetwork I am very impressed on how grainfather has set this up and really looks like a great brewing system The G40 is not cheap as you we seen with the gf 30 which is around $1080 the GF40 starts at $1495. the good thing with this system you get a choice you can use 10 amp or 15amp depending on ya situation so if your outside brewing and boil is not quite there you may want to look at 15amp ... however you have to purchase the 15amp cord seperately The good thing is there is no overflow pipe like the G30, basicly when i am brewing in the brewzilla i have already ditched the overflow pipe as it is really not needed... however there is little holes that run up the inside of the mash tun that basicly acts as the overflow pipe but i dont think it is a hindernce at all. the control panel is great it can be removed for cleaning the outside of the unit just incase of boil overs or those times we make boo boo mistake the recircarm is no loger there and comes through the lid any more in which is a great idea however you need to pull the hose off so that you can remove the mash tun for sparging overall looks like a great little package that offers alot

Whereabouts if you don't mind me asking TJ? @Thirsty Jim Sounds like a beaut Christina - have you tried striking some cuttings? @ChristinaS1

Finally got around to brewing a version of this last week. There will definitely be another version as the colour is completely off, needs more of a red hue and i didn't get the volume i was aiming for, i was chasing 27L but got 23L which is probably why the OG was 1.071 instead of 1.058