Home brew? Homebrew? Winemaking

My two Belgian beers have bottle conditioned and I am doing a little tasting on Saturday evening- any brewers willing to travel to NW10 very welcome!
Moules frites and other Belgian snacks provided as well 😜

A tasting / bottle swap would be a great idea if it could be organised......

Picked up some propane today, my local supplier Tam leisure in New Malden is running low.
No CO2 left or likely to be coming in soon.......

After my one kit brew I decided to go for it with the next step. Used some of my recent work bonus to venture into the BIAB. Hope I get on ok. Completely random recipe I just messed around making on an online recipe maker so it could all taste crap at the end but I’m sure fumbling around with stuff is exactly how our ancestors made their beer too right.

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So, huge thanks to jdmitch and his wife for hosting a truly excellent beer tasting and all-round lovely evening. He gave us each three glasses, and because, as usual, I wasn't paying attention, I thought that two of them were his, when in fact only one was. I tasted the first beer and thought that was great (as did the others who were there), but that the other two weren't as good. Well, the two others turned out to be the shop-bought beers. No word of a lie, it was that good. The other beer, which was fruitier, was also very tasty, although no comparison was set up. Great stuff, and I hope you brew more!

Picked up a two new corny kegs recently and part of the deal was a CO2 tank.

Should be all sorted apart from pasta and bog roll for Winter of Miscontent part II

Rosemary & Bay Ale looks & smells great. Hoping to bottle it today.

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I'd love to try that Rosemary and Bay ale! Sounds interesting.

very kind words from @Oliver Schick - I think that Belgian Tripel was indeed a success, but I would have liked to carbonate it more (it was only bottle conditioned, and I under-primed bc of a bad experience with a bottle bomb in the past).
Oddly enough, I do actually have a CO2 tank, which I previously tried (and failed) to hook up to my sodastream, so does anyone have a cheap suggestion of how to use that to carbonate without going down the route of kegs?

After what felt like a successful first brew in a bag day on Saturday I left my wort to cool in an HDPE Jerry can (doing the no chill method) for a couple of days and have transferred it to my fermentor bucket and pitched the yeast today. It’s a little darker than I’d been looking for but that’s fine, might lighten up over fermentation. Was aiming for an OG of 1.051 according to the recipe calculator but came out at 1.055 which I’m also ok with as it’s all just experimenting for me at the moment really. No idea if the wort is a good representation of the end taste but there’s a somewhat harsh bitterness that may make the whole batch a bit tricky to drink at the end.

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I'd love to try that Rosemary and Bay ale! Sounds interesting

It's a simple (crude) recipe, I should've linked here to it: https://www.theotherandyhamilton.com/bay-and-rosemary-ale/

I made a half batch.

A bit of applied brewing science could probably help make much more of it I guess

On bottling late last night the samples tasted quite sweet/syrupy but it'd had 14 days and the fg was 1.006 so I hope it'll simply benefit from a few weeks in bottle before I drink more.

It was quite fizzy so I dialed back on the priming sugar too and am hoping for no bottle bombs, although I read somewhere that swing-tops will self-vent under big pressure as the swing & seal will budge bit before the glass gives?... I hope that's the case.

any tips on basic water treatment - I am not a chemist, and I have gotten as far as getting the Thames water report for South Brent, and trying to plug in numbers into Brewer's Friend but the whole thing was a bit overwhelming, and I wasn't sure if there was something basic I could do every time I want to brew or if every different style beer I need to treat the water differently.
Any help?!
(for context, I do all-grain BIAB 20L batches mostly)

My fermentation has definitely taken off over the last couple of days, had some water blow out of the airlock yesterday and it's almost constant bubbling today. Quite high on the temperature again annoyingly, the optimal temperature range for the yeast is between 15c to 22c but it's up at ~24c it looks like but nothing that I can do about that at the moment.

Actually pretty chuffed with my first BIAB beer. Completely different to what I’d intended when I made the recipe but I’m fine with that as I’m happy to drink the outcome and think I’d be happy to share it with people which is all I was really looking for. Think I’ll follow a pre made recipe for the next one to see if I can hit a style properly.

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Rosemary & Bay Ale is ready. It is like old skool lucozade with a bitter finish. Medicinal. Drinkable at least which was main goal.

Edit: it has some carbonation too, but doesn't hold it's head.

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Does it have the slight narcotic effect the recipe mentions? 😀
I imagine the lack of head is down to using just malt extract,
Torrified wheat helps with head retention!

Does it have the slight narcotic effect the recipe mentions?

Unfortunately not yet. I'm onto a 10% Impy Stout to compensate.

Ta for the Malt/Wheat head info.

That'll do it

Happy brew day! Trying a New England IPA this time. Little 5L batch

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Just bottled a big hopped Citra Double IPA. Really going to struggle with the 6 weeks bottle conditioning though but at 9.1%,my body will probably thank me.
Got a smoked black lager in the fermenter at the moment and have a NZ hopped (Rakau /Nelson Sauvin) APA to go down the week after.

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6 weeks to condition ?
What are you using to prime ?

Just standard white tate and lyle sugar. Reckon that's too long?

I use dextrose from wilko ! As long as you use the right amount it should be ok.
I try a bottle after a week , usually ready in 2 but depends on the recipe I guess !

Got the NZ DIPA down last night.
Smelt amazing on the boil.
Anyone got any experience entering homebrew competitions or could reccomend one in London?

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Not entered any myself, London amateur brewers have got a competition coming up in May I believe.

I'm taking advantage of the cold weather to brew my SMASH Pilsner tomorrow. Ideal for cold conditioning.