rtaylor

What are you using it for? I went stalking tonight wearing a shirt and my Musto Whisper jacket. It's Goretex lined, very quite/silent, perfect for quiet stalking and never lets a drop in. However it was about 9 degrees up here in Cumbria and I was border line too warm, I don't feel the cold much and get hot easily. What I am getting at is almost all waterproof jacket might say they are breathable but in my experience they are pretty much not. Any drop liner is going to retain a lot of heat/moisture. Goretex is certainly the best of the drop liners, both in waterproofing and "breathability". A lot of military kit uses Goretex and is pretty cheap, single skin stuff is probably best for warmer weather, it should be pretty quiet as well. If you budget can stretch to it then you won't go wrong with Paramo gear. They do a green one called the Pajero. They use a different system of waterproofing which is much more breathable than the drop liners. They are similar price to the high end shooting jackets but well worth the money in my opinion.

Great advice, cheers guys. I don't do a huge amount of fishing and haven't been sea fishing for years. I'm assuming bait can be bought locally. I know of a couple of places up here although not sure if they cater for sea fishing. Can you recommend a good bait/tackle shop? Are they slipways or beach launches? Do you know if they are free or roughly how much/who to ask? Cheers Edit. Sorry being lazy, I've had a look on boat launch.co.uk plenty of info on the locations you guys have suggested. As above I'm a bit of a novice, could you name a rig to try out?

I am thinking of taking my boat down to stay with a friend in Cambridge over easter. As the corse fishing is in closed season so that rules out the broads, I was thinking of taking it out on the North Norfolk coast somewhere. It's a wayfarer sailing dingy, although I have an outboard for her but we would be limited to calm days. Can anyone suggest any good places to: a. launch (preferably for free) and b. fish and for what? I'm not expecting marlin or shark fishing but a few mackerel would be quite nice. Cheers

I am by no means an expert on reloading. But I believe all brass is fine for reloading. The different brands produce better or worse quality brass. As PPU is a cheap factory round it stands to reason the components are cheap, now if your rifle likes it all well and good. You can reload the brass but it won't last as long as say Lapua brass. More expensive factory rounds, better quality components, longer brass life. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

PPU ammo is about as cheap as it gets factory wise. But your rifle may not like them. I tried the 90gr in .243 and they were terrible. It might be worth asking the shop if they have any part used boxes you could buy of them.

Driveway of the other dog owners. That's where I think it will be the greyest. The bits I've read say "if the dog is out of control in a public place or out of control on private property where it shouldn't be". If it has a known problem then you would think the people would prevent it from getting out, or other dogs in.

To cut a long story short my brother lab puppy was attacked at the weekend by another dog. They live in a very rural area and it happened across the valley from where they live whilst walking past a 'neighbours' house/drive. They were walking the dog along the road and passing the gate to the house the pup went into the drive way (down the side of a van) and was then attacked by the other dog. I think it was a staffy or something similar as it latched on and they had to prize it off. They have taken the pup to the vets and it has been treated for some puncture wounds but otherwise ok. No I don't know the exact circumstances but the dog in question has attacked two other dogs in the area. Does anyone know the laws on this kind of thing? I think my brother is going to report it but I guess its a pretty grey area and I doubt the police will do anything more than log it down.

All advice is very much appreciated. I didn't actually follow Dave's recipe it was a lot closer to Muddy Funker's one. Just going on his "sample after 7-10 days". It's possibly a bit sweeter than it should have been which I guess is down to the higher temperature mash. Still very drinkable though, which is the most important point. I will certainly have a look at Graham Wheelers book and the beer engine, although I suspect it won't work on Mac computers.

I might be wrong in what I'm saying but I was under the impression the parallax was for adjusting the focus at a given range. It shouldn't matter what mag you are at but you just set the parallax to what ever range you are shooting at and then use the mag you can see the target best at. I have a parallax scope on my .22 I personally never change it, it stays at about 50 yards all the time. For HMR I would guess leave it at around 100 yards.

You should be able to see 5 or 6" down if you looked from the muzzle end.

Well the brew has been in the barrel for 7 days and according to Dave Line's recipe for Guinness after 7-10 days to sample it. I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out so far, it still needs to develop a bit more body but the flavour is pretty good, good chocolate notes coming through from the chocolate malt. Cheers again for the advice in getting the boiler set up.

Personally I commend what you are doing. I could see it being quite a useful app. It would be pretty simple to check it against your rifle by taking a few test shots and where it is in relation to the app. It's all well and good saying you need to cover every possible variation but when in the field how do you know there isn't a breath of wind 75 yards away even though it's still where you are? There are too many unknown variations in the field to make any major difference in an app that it misses it a few. I doubt people who shoot 1000yard shots will download an app which doesn't cover everything they (think) they need to know. There is a problem with this forum or maybe people in general which they instantly feel they need to put people down for trying to do something or ask for help/advice. I'm sorry I don't have a crono so can't really help with your figures.

I sent spud an email 2 weeks ago. Still no reply so I bought them elsewhere.

I bought one similar to this a couple of years ago. It depends on how much you are making. It works good enough for occasional sausage making better as a mincer. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BRAND-NEW-Electric-Mincer-Sausage-Filler-Meat-Grinder-1200w-over-1000-Sold-/151011643525?pt=UK_HGKitchen_SmallApp_RL&hash=item2328fed085

As above I have just stored them in the fridge packed in salt. I had some in the fridge for over a year which were fine when I came to use them. When I was butchering the guy I learned from told me not to freeze bacon for more than a few months as the salt can thaw it and then refreeze whilst still in the freezer, turning it rank or changing the flavour. Ignore the negative comment about, bloke sounds like a bit of a *****. I've made some excellent sausages. If you are making venison sausages then I would say don't scrimp on the fat. A good pound or so of belly pork works well. The best I made were with some wild boar belly mixed in with the venison.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Schmidt 8x56. Bought one second hand of my cousin last year for £250, you won't get better for the money. I think they are around £600 new. You will find a lot of people will recommend them. Buy cheep, buy twice. As clakk said about the binoculars I couldn't agree more. I bought a pair of 10x50 for £40 about 4 years ago. Very good glass for the money. You would be looking at least £500 for as good glass if you bought new. Far better than £150 Hawke or Bushnell etc. I only have 2 issues with mine, they are a bit heavier than the modern ones, but a harness sorts that out. And the eye piece are hard plastic or metal. Mine don't half make my eyes ache when its cold. I'm going to find a bit of rubber or duct tape to make a rim for mine.

Well done for not pulling the trigger. It's moments like that which make being out in the countryside the pleasure it is. There will probably be another time when you might shoot him, hopefully a more sporting shot. But you'll remember that moment with far greater clarity than any that you just see in the crosshairs and bang their dead.

Grainy image so hard to say but it looks like the bolt is closed, definitely no. Even if it is open it's a bit of a dubious way of holding it. I would say no.

Yeah that was my though and 10 or 12 litres is much more manageable, but most of the topics on BIAB say you do a full liquid mash. I can't see how that is possible with the standard size fermenting bin which is what most people use. Do you find the temperature of the mash goes up? I hope it will still be ok but my mash seemed to rise to over 70 a couple of times. I had to top it up with cold water to try and bring it down. I think it was because I didn't have the sensor in the right place and it was in a cold spot so the thermostat kicked the element in. Apart from that the STC1000 worked perfectly and I'm sure it was just down to me not setting the sensor in the right place. I've now insulated the bin to try and keep a more stable temperature. I'm going to order some more grain and do bitter and bottle it for my own consumption. So I'll do some more fine tuning and try another one.

Well the first brew is underway!!! I've done a very similar recipe to yours Muddy. The STC-1000 arrived today. The wiring diagram is a bit vague so if anyone is going to buy one and needs a hand with the wiring just ask (plenty on google and youtube). It seems to keep a pretty accurate temperature and you can change when it clicks in and out. I have a feeling my boiler bin is a bit small. I only managed to get about 20l in, and with the grain its not far of the top. I think I will just top it up when it is in the fermenting bin. Possibly not the way to do it but 4 or 5 litres of fresh water can't make too much difference. Many thanks for your help and advice and fingers crossed my first all grain brew works out ok. I shall keep you posted after the stag do (if I can still type).

I had seen the abbreviation but there are so many I couldn't work it out. I'm glad I'm no the only one trying to do it that way. I know there was a question at the bottom of that thread about squeezing the grain, was the answer no don't bother, I would have thought you would want to get as much wort as possible out? That recipe looks very similar to what I was going to try and make so I'll try and go with that one. Was it your recipe/thread? How did it work with the coconut, never heard of it added to beer. Cheers Roger

Lovely, cheers for your reply. I've got the thermostat on the way so I'll give it a go as it is and adjust or upgrade if I need to. It says on the specs that it will run +/- 1 degree. I know that will be more in a bigger volume but hopefully it will be more accurate than having it on the hob in a pan. I had read somewhere (and can see the logic) that running two elements of of the same circuit might cause issues with the switch board or melting the plug? 3.4kw is quite a draw over an hour and a half. I wouldn't be able to run each element of a separate circuit in my house, hence my idea of having one for boiling and one for mashing. I thought there must have been a reason everyone wasn't doing it in one vessel but hey ho got to try these things. I've got just under 5 weeks to get a brew together to take to my cousins stag do, so I'll have to press on with this method and then see about changing stuff. I know I will be cutting it a bit fine, but we only got the dates on Sunday! As long as it has the desired affects everyone should be happy.

I've done quite a few kits and extract brews, all been perfectly acceptable. I've got the the stage where I want to try the next step so I've got the ingredients to make my first AG brew and am currently making the equipment. I'm trying to keep it basic and expand when required or desired. So far I have two kettle elements mounted in a spare heavy duty fermenting bin. I was planning on running one element for the boiler and the other as a temperature controlled element for the mash. I have ordered an STC-1000 thermostat of ebay and am hoping to wire this in to control an element. My thoughts were if I suspended the grain in a grain bag I would do away with the need for a separate mash tun. And after heating it at 65 I would then take the liquid of and recycle it over the grain effectively sparging it. Then just boil the wort/hops (hops in a fine hops bag) in the same container using the other element. If nothing else I would get fewer complaints for having less "junk" in the house. I've looked a few set ups people have made but they all seem to have 2 or 3 different vessels for different stages, am I missing something or can it be done in 1 vessel? Cheers

Near Carlisle, Cumbria.

Zebco & Leeda reels sold pending payment.